Alpine fortress

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Various plans for the leadership of the German Empire in the final phase of the Second World War are associated with the term Alpine fortress . It should arise in the supposedly difficult to conquer mountain region of the Alps in Bavaria and Austria.

At the end of 1944, Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist propaganda announced that there was an Alpine fortress. When troops of the US Army (more precisely: the 3rd US Army and the 7th US Army ) advanced in the spring of 1945 , it became clear that this was just propaganda . In the last days of the war, a large number of the remaining Nazi leaders did not flee to the alleged Alpine fortress, but rather via the so-called Rattenlinie Nord in the direction of Flensburg ; there in the district Mürwik the special area Mürwik was created with the last imperial government under Karl Dönitz .

Origins of the alleged German Alpine fortress

In March 1944, Adolf Hitler made his idea of declaring places (e.g. traffic junctions ) " fortresses " a concept. They should be defended particularly tenaciously, even if that meant their containment - and often their destruction in a cauldron battle . Experienced generals warned against this idea.

The concept did not work and led to great losses for the Wehrmacht . Numerous militarily senseless perseverance slogans and orders resulted in casualties that a timely and orderly withdrawal could have avoided. The Nazi propaganda used the terms "fortress" and "Alpine fortress" among many others to maintain or strengthen the belief of many soldiers and civilians in a final victory .

At the beginning of September 1944 the security service , the secret service of the SS , succeeded in intercepting a report from a US agent in Switzerland to the US State Department , in which the construction of a huge German defense position in the Alps, as the last refuge for the German armed forces and the leadership of the Third Reich , was described in detail.

At the time there was no plan on the German side for such a position in the Alps. In September 1944, the Wehrmacht High Command had only made a general investigation into the defenses on the northern edge of the Alps (in the event of a further advance of the Allies from France) and on the southern edge of the Alps (in the event of a further advance of the Allies through Italy). Major General August Marcinkiewicz was responsible for this and had taken quarters with his staff in Innsbruck . The investigation showed that there were no prepared defenses on the northern edge of the Alps; on the southern edge of the Alps, positions from the First World War could be used. Since the advance of the Western Allied armies in Italy and on the Western Front in France could be stopped in September 1944, considerations about a defense in the Alps had no further significance, especially since a German offensive against the Allies on the Western Front was being prepared (see Ardennes Offensive (from mid-December 1944) and Operation Nordwind , an offensive by the German armed forces in January 1945 in Alsace and Lorraine).

That was the situation at the beginning of November 1944, when the Gauleiter of Tirol-Vorarlberg , Franz Hofer , who had received a copy of the American report, applied for authorization on November 3, 1944 for the construction of an Alpine fortress and the delivery of the necessary materials and machines. Hofer's suggestion was not heard by the military leadership, perhaps in view of the preparations for the Battle of the Bulge .

Alpine fortress propaganda

Meanwhile, in the USA in mid-November 1944, a wave of publications about the Alpine fortress had begun, as if these German fortifications in the Alps were a fact. As a result, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels decided in December 1944 to use this American press campaign for his own purposes and appointed a special unit that began work in January 1945. News about the alleged Alpine fortress was scattered, which was intended to give the Allies the impression of a mighty, fully equipped Alpine fortress, with "elite troops", "immense storage facilities in bomb-proof underground stores", "factories in the rocks" and "impregnable positions of V. -Weapons ”and similar fantastic claims. The SS did theirs in this propaganda game and passed on supposed technical data and invented blueprints of fortifications to opposing agents.

When Adolf Hitler received reports in January 1945 about the growing concern of the Allies about the Alpine fortress, he instructed Gauleiter Hofer to begin construction work, which should also provide the Allied agents and enemy aerial reconnaissance with further "evidence" for the alleged Alpine fortress.

Various work began on February 17, 1945 with a few thousand men, including on the border with Switzerland . Its fortification was interesting to look at for enemy agents on the Swiss side, but militarily so nonsensical that the Chief of the Wehrmacht Command Staff , Colonel General Alfred Jodl, complained to the Chief of the SS, Heinrich Himmler , about this construction work, for which SS forced laborers were also used.

Even members of the resistance , including Fritz Molden , reported to the Americans informed of construction progress.

Actual construction projects

The only serious work (it was carried out for a defense in the Alps, but had nothing to do with an Alpine fortress) was the erection of defensive positions in the south of the Alps, as a further line of defense on the southern front, as it had been in Italy since autumn 1943 against the advance of the Allies were carried out, such as the Gustav Line . These construction measures remained ineffective, since with the collapse of the German defense by the Allied offensive in northern Italy that began on April 6, 1945 and the German surrender in Italy on April 29, 1945, this defensive position could no longer be occupied.

There was no arms industry in the Alps. In search of bomb-proof locations for the armaments industry, the Alps were also scoured in 1943/44 and some projects for bomb-proof productions in tunnels and caves started, but without any connection with an Alpine fortress. When Ernst Kaltenbrunner , the head of the Reich Main Security Office , also took over the post of security chief in southern Germany at the end of March 1945 , he began negotiations with industry about the construction of further underground factories in the mountains at a time when the military, transport and armaments industry collapsed of the German Empire took place and completion of these plans had become impossible.

There was no centrally controlled leadership for the construction of an Alpine fortress, and even if it had existed, it would not have been possible to start seriously this work because of the lack of manpower, material and machines and the simultaneous general collapse in the spring of 1945. In addition, the expansion would have taken years, even under favorable conditions.

Germany's military situation

There were almost no Wehrmacht troops in the Alpine region . The crushed German units, who fled to the Alps as the last possibility of escape from the advancing Western Allies towards the end of the war, mostly had hardly any weapons or combat strength.

The Alpine fortress was purely a fantasy of the Nazi leadership to deceive the Allies. Various circumstances or coincidences led to them being fooled for months. This began with a report by an American agent in Switzerland to his government in early September 1944, which was only a deliberation. But that was what made the German leadership consciously spread false reports.

When the German Alpine fortress propaganda started in January 1945, the German military situation with the Soviet winter offensive in mid-January 1945 ( Vistula-Oder operation ) began to be catastrophic, a change in the situation or even a final victory were militarily impossible. A comprehensible military effect was not to be expected, except that the Americans actually advanced against this fantasy fortress and then occupied this area at the beginning of May 1945 without encountering any resistance worth mentioning. On April 22, the intelligence service of the Allied High Command SHAEF reported that the aerial reconnaissance could not detect any troop concentrations or developed positions in the area of ​​the fortress.

Western Allied military operations

The only understandable advantage that Germany could expect from a Western Allied attack on the Alps was a somewhat longer endurance in Central Germany after the Western Allies had crossed the Rhine in March 1945 ( Bridge of Remagen / Operation Plunder ) and further east advanced ( Ruhrkessel ), through the loss of time they would experience by turning their troops south and later turning back north. But it was precisely this Central German area with the Harz Mountains and Thuringia , with armaments plants such as the Polte works or the manufacture of jet fighters , such as in Kahla, which was conquered by the Americans at the end of March / beginning of April 1945, although the area was part of the Soviet occupation zone according to the treaty Belonged to Germany. Only after conquering this core German area did the Americans advance into the Alps.

It is true that the Western Allies planned to conquer the Reich capital Berlin in March 1945, for which airborne troops were prepared, which were to land on open spaces in and around the city; But when everything was ready for this action at the end of March, the US Commander in Chief of the Western Allies in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower , ordered the conquest of the Alpine region instead. Eisenhower to Bernard Montgomery , the British commander in chief on March 31, 1945: “This place [Berlin] is only a geographical term for me, and I have never been interested in anything like that. My goal is to destroy the enemy's armed forces and to break their resilience. "

Situation at the end of the war

Evacuation measures had been prepared for the Reich government, Reich ministries and the security apparatus since February 1945, but they did not come into effect until April 1945, as they were not intended to admit defeat early. Adolf Hitler gave on April 20, 1945 during the Battle of Berlin the case Clausewitz made. After he had decided to stay in Berlin on April 22nd, the planned withdrawal was finally implemented. All Reich ministries were divided into "South" and "North" teams. Only Hermann Göring went to southern Germany with his staff. The said "South" staff moved away as planned. The Luftwaffe High Command (OKW) soon moved into accommodation in the Thumersbach district of Zell am See, Austria , where it was apparently no longer able to do any work for the Reich government. The majority of the staffs to be evacuated withdrew to the north, but the rapid advance of the Allies prevented a closed withdrawal movement to the north. On April 25, 1945 , US and Soviet troops met in Torgau on the Elbe, dividing the remaining Reich territory into two halves. Hitler rejected a planned move of his headquarters to Ohrdruf in Thuringia at the beginning of March 1945. He had never considered retreating to the Alps. He knew that the Alpine fortress was purely a propaganda invention and that it could offer him neither protection nor the possibility of buying time for negotiations or for the use of miracle weapons . Hitler's successor, Karl Dönitz, with the last Reich government , moved to Mürwik , which was hardly destroyed by the air raids on Flensburg .

At the end of the war, the Alpine region was overcrowded with refugee civilians and military units and civil and military agencies, but not a single combat-ready German division was available in the entire area declared as an Alpine fortress. Reinhard Gehlen , head of the intelligence service of the Wehrmacht Fremde Heere Ost , and his staff and the rocket specialist Wernher von Braun with experts selected by him had also come there to join the Western Allies - valuable booty for the Americans for the coming Cold War . In addition, there was an SS counterfeiting squad ( Aktion Bernhard ) in the Alpine region , a large collection of valuable works of art in the Altaussee salt mine and a camp for "special prisoners" such as French politicians held prisoner in Itter Castle .

The special prisoners were supposed to serve as bargaining grounds for negotiations with the Allies. Among them were Kurt Schuschnigg , members of the Stauffenberg family , Thyssen and others, including Jewish , ex- politicians from occupied countries. They were brought from the Dachau concentration camp first to Innsbruck and then to the Pension Pragser Wildsee in South Tyrol , where they saw the end of the war after being liberated by the Wehrmacht officer from Alvensleben .

Wehrmacht and SS troops in the Alpine region after the end of the war

When the total surrender of the German armed forces began on May 9, 1945, there were still units of the Wehrmacht and SS in the area of ​​the Alpine fortress that did not give up their arms. The Allies had occupied the Alpine valleys by the end of the war, but many forests and mountains remained unoccupied.

For various reasons, some Wehrmacht units in the Alpine region did not surrender at the end of the war. Some soldiers still hoped for a miracle, such as a military turnaround through miracle weapons, or a breakdown of the alliance between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union , in order to then fight again on the side of the Western Allies against the Soviet Union. Many soldiers stayed in the mountains because they preferred freedom to an uncertain future in captivity. Others simply waited for the general chaos at the end of the war, in order to be able to surrender in the calm of peace without becoming involved in combat, or to surrender to the Allied power to which they wanted to surrender for political reasons. Usually several of these reasons played a role for the soldiers.

Reinhard Gehlen and his staff surrendered to the Americans on May 19, 1945. Otto Skorzeny and his soldiers surrendered to the Americans on May 16, 1945. Thousands of armed German soldiers remained in the mountains and posed a problem for the Allies. Combing the mountains and forests in a major military operation was not possible for the victorious powers due to the lack of mountain troops and would probably have led to undesirable fighting. The commander in chief of the French troops in the Alps, General Antoine Béthouart , therefore asked former German officers of the mountain troops to help with the surrender of the German units in the Alps. Colonel Franz Pfeiffer, former commandant of the mountain hunter school in Mittenwald , agreed with other former officers and NCOs of the Wehrmacht to contact the units of the Wehrmacht in the Alpine region in order to persuade them to surrender.

Pfeiffer demanded from the Allies that his unit, newly created by himself and his officers, of small troops of two or three men who were supposed to establish contact with the Wehrmacht troops in the mountains, could promise the German soldiers immediate release from captivity as soon as possible they surrender to give them an incentive to surrender. General Béthouart agreed to the condition, with the exception of war criminals , who were to remain in custody.

In order to avoid that the soldiers of the Wehrmacht in the Alps would refuse to surrender because of the uncertainty as to who would be regarded by the Allies as war criminals and who would not, every single soldier who wanted to surrender should join von Pfeiffer's troops be asked about their life story. If he were likely to be arrested as a war criminal by the Allies, this would be communicated to the soldier and his further behavior would be left to his own decision.

Equipped with vehicles, Pfeiffer's troops set out and worked mainly through word of mouth and in cooperation with the local mayors, who helped to spread the proposal for demobilization without captivity to the units and soldiers of the Wehrmacht in the mountains via the community members .

General Béthouart: “After a few weeks 6,000 to 7,000 men were demobilized in this way , tons of weapons and ammunition were collected and the whole situation was resolved. An atmosphere of friendship and cooperation was created between my officers and the officers of Pfeiffer's team, which not only enabled us to bring the operation to a successful conclusion, but also was very promising for the future. "

buildings

Hochfinstermünz in the Tyrolean Oberinntal is part of the fortifications built in the Alps at the end of the Second World War . A well-preserved part can also be seen on the old Brenner Pass road near Brixen .

In the area of ​​the “Alpine Fortress” in Ebensee in Upper Austria, there was an underground tunnel, into which a V2 rocket production was to be relocated from Peenemünde under the code name cement . In Oetztal much should the wind tunnel to be built. A large underground engine and hand weapons factory was built in Steyr . At Zipf , a rocket fuel refinery was built in the basement of the brewery . These works were built by prisoners mainly from the Mauthausen - Gusen concentration camp . The Ebensee concentration camp was a satellite camp of the Mauthausen concentration camp. On May 6, 1945, over 16,000 prisoners in Ebensee camp were freed by soldiers from the 80th Infantry Division , a division of the 3rd US Army .

Individual works, such as the production facilities for the He 162 in the Seegrotte in Hinterbrühl , had already been completed; most of them were not completed by the end of the war. Probably the most complete underground factory buildings were the underground factories B8 Bergkristall built in the immediate vicinity of the Gusen concentration camp for the assembly line production of Messerschmitt Me-262 jet fighter planes and "cellar construction" for the bomb-proof production of carbines, submachine guns and bazookas for the Steyr-Daimler- Puch AG . The then General Director of Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG, SS Brigade Leader Georg Meindl , played a not insignificant role , whose efforts as an armaments expert of Military District XVII (Vienna) were led by the head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), Ernst Kaltenbrunner , on 1 May 1945 in a (last) telegram to Adolf Hitler. For example, Meindl also built another large bunker near Melk to expand its existing underground production capacities in Gusen ; but this was no longer completed.

See also

Movie

literature

  • Roland Kaltenegger : Operation “Alpine Fortress”. The last secret of the “Third Reich”. Herbig, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7766-2431-0 .
  • Hans-Günter Richardi (Ed.): SS hostages in the Alpine fortress. The deportation of prominent concentration camp prisoners from Germany to South Tyrol. Edition Raetia, Bozen 2005, ISBN 88-7283-229-2 .
  • Franz W. Seidler : Phantom Alpine Fortress? The secret blueprints of the Todt Organization. Plenk, Berchtesgaden 2004, ISBN 3-927957-24-0 .
  • Christian Hallig: Alpen fortress, Hitler's last madness. How it really was - an experience report. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1989, ISBN 3-451-08686-7 .
  • Rodney G. Minott: Top secret. Hitler's alpine fortress. Factual account of a myth. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1967.
  • Mario Muigg: The Alpine Fortress. Myth or Reality? Paper / Article, 2007 ( full text ).
  • Janusz Piekalkiewicz: spies agents soldiers. Secret commands in World War II. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1969, pp. 508-523.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gerhard Paul : Zeitleile: Flensburger Kameraden , from September 8, 2013, accessed on January 23, 2016.
  2. ↑ See Stephan Link: "Rattenlinie Nord". War criminals in Flensburg and the surrounding area in May 1945. In: Gerhard Paul, Broder Schwensen (Hrsg.): Mai '45. End of the war in Flensburg. Flensburg 2015.
  3. ^ Andreas Oeding, Broder Schwensen, Michael Sturm: Flexikon. 725 aha experiences from Flensburg! Flensburg 2009, article: Reich capital.
  4. ↑ Janusz Piekałkiewicz : Spies Agents Soldiers. Secret commands in World War II. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1969, p. 509.
  5. ^ Rodney G. Minott: Top secret. Hitler's alpine fortress. Factual account of a myth. Rowohlt publishing house, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1967, p. 21.
  6. ↑ Janusz Piekalkiewicz: Spies, Agents, Soldiers. Secret commands in World War II. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1969, p. 510.
  7. ↑ Janusz Piekalkiewicz: Spies, Agents, Soldiers. Secret commands in World War II. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1969, pp. 510-512.
  8. ^ Rodney G. Minott: Top secret. Hitler's alpine fortress. Factual account of a myth. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1967, p. 29.
  9. ^ Rodney G. Minott: Top secret. Hitler's alpine fortress. Factual account of a myth. Publisher Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1967, p. 79.
  10. ↑ Janusz Piekalkiewicz: Spies, Agents, Soldiers. Secret commands in World War II. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1969, p. 513.
  11. ↑ Janusz Piekalkiewicz: Spies, Agents, Soldiers. Secret commands in World War II. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1969, p. 519.
  12. ↑ Janusz Piekalkiewicz: Spies, Agents, Soldiers. Secret commands in World War II. Südwest Verlag, Munich 1969, p. 514.
  13. ^ Rodney G. Minott: Top secret. Hitler's alpine fortress. Factual account of a myth. Publisher Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1967, p. 35.
  14. ↑ Joseph E. Persico: Piercing the Reich. The penetration of Nazi Germany by American secret agents during World War II. Verlag Ballantine Books, New York 1979, ISBN 0-345-28280-9 , pp. 271-272.
  15. ^ A b Hans-Günter Richardi: SS hostages in the Alpine fortress - The deportation of prominent concentration camp prisoners from Germany to South Tyrol. Edition Raetia, Bozen 2005, ISBN 88-7283-229-2 .
  16. ^ Sayer, Ian / Botting, Douglas: Nazigold - The Story of the World's Greatest Robbery - and its Aftermath. Panther Books, London 1985, ISBN 0-586-05594-0 , pp. 187-193.
  17. ↑ Film and interview see spiegel.tv from minute 28:10
  18. ^ Rudolf A. Haunschmied : 1938/1945 - To commemorate. In: Marktgemeinde St. Georgen ad Gusen (Hrsg.): 300 years of extended market law St. Georgen ad Gusen. St. Georgen ad Gusen 1989, pp. 73-112.
  19. ^ Rudolf A. Haunschmied, Jan-Ruth Mills, Siegi Witzany-Durda: St. Georgen-Gusen-Mauthausen - Concentration Camp Mauthausen Reconsidered. BoD, Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8334-7440-8 , p. 127 ff.
  20. ^ Peter Black: Ernst Kaltenbrunner: Vasall Himmler: An SS career. Schöningh Collection on Past and Present, Paderborn 1991, ISBN 3-506-77483-2 , p. 272.
  21. ^ Bertrand Perz : Project Quarz: Steyr-Daimler-Puch and the Melk Concentration Camp. Publishing house for social criticism, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-85115-115-1 .