Excited to be here, I walked around the Wolfs Liar about 7am, and was surprised to find that I was camping right next to Otto Dietrich’s flattened bunker. He was the press officer to Hitler. Returning for breakfast, I walked around again after the visitor centres had opened. With over 50 buildings in the complex and several giant bunkers for the upper hierarchy, I was amazed by the scale and the size of the main bunkers – and the work, manpower, time and resources that must have gone into making them.
This was the northern Headquarters for the Nazi’s, and it was from here that Operation Barbarossa was overseen – the invasion of Russia. The wee man spent a lot of his time here, but after the failed assassination plot the novelty wore off, so he spent the rest of his time in Berlin in his underground bunker.
When the Russians were advancing and the Nazi’s decided to retreat, the Army blew up most of what was here. They must have used alot of explosives because some of those walls on the bunkers are at least 2m thick. It was a really interesting morning.
If you do visit, it can be quite busy in the daytime, but if you’re staying overnight, people start going home about 5pm, so you can wander around to your heart’s content in the evening. The display buildings stay open until 8pm so you have lots of time, so after 5pm the display buildings are mostly empty.
