Fuehrer's headquarters in Adlerhorst
The Führer Headquarters Adlerhorst was a bunker complex that was built between September 1939 and August 1940 in Langenhain-Ziegenberg , the later Wiesental and Kransberg settlement for Adolf Hitler and his military staff. The construction took place according to the plans of the architect Albert Speer . The construction of the Führer headquarters was carried out by the Speer construction staff and the Todt Organization . In addition to Ziegenberg Castle and various bunkers and buildings in the immediate vicinity, Kransberg Castle and seven camouflaged and bunkered buildings in Wiesental also belonged to the FHQ Adlerhorst. According to Speer's ideas, a facility in an inconspicuous location should be built here in the hilly forests of the Taunus , which would not even be noticeable from the air.
Several thousand employees from Hochtief and Philipp Holzmann AG as well as the new construction company Wayss & Freytag AG were involved in the construction. They were accommodated in established camps, one of which was on the northern edge of the church forest, west of the bridge over the Usa across from Ziegenberg Castle . Traces of this camp can still be found in the area today.
At the end of 1939, Hitler saw the first photos of the complex and expressed his disapproval of his planned quarters in Ziegenberg Castle. He found the accommodation in a castle inadequate in a war situation. After Hitler rejected the castle as too feudal, seven buildings were erected in the later Wiesental as extensions of the Führer headquarters. However, when the construction work on the communications equipment of the facility was delayed in the spring of 1940, a flak position in the west air defense zone in Rodert in the Eifel was expanded into the Fiihrer's headquarters in Felsennest and used for Hitler's beginning campaign in the west .
After the buildings of the FHQ Adlerhorst had stood empty for some time, an army convalescent home was set up in them from July 1941 in the area of responsibility of the Gießen medical department. In the summer of 1944, the convalescent home was closed. From October 1944, Ziegenberg Castle served as the headquarters of Commander-in-Chief West , Field Marshal von Rundstedt .
It was not until the Battle of the Bulge , the penultimate German offensive on the Western Front in World War II , that Hitler and his followers moved into the FHQ Adlerhorst to direct the attacks against the Allied units in the west. Hitler arrived in his quarters in Wiesental on December 11, 1944. After a ten-hour journey in his special train , he changed to a car near Arnsburg Monastery and after a 25-kilometer journey via Hof Güll, Eberstadt , Münzenberg , Griedel , Butzbach , Hoch-Weisel and Fauerbach vdH, finally reached the Adlerhorst headquarters. The driver's special train was stored in the Weilmünster tunnel .
On December 30, 1944, Hitler's radio address at the end of the year was recorded in the FHQ Adlerhorst. A few days after the German offensive collapsed in the West, and it was also necessary to admit that the Red Army had made a strategic breakthrough, Hitler drove back to Berlin on January 15, 1945 at around 6:00 p.m.
The building built for Hitler in Wiesental offered a relaxation room, a 24 m² work space, a bathroom and a cloakroom. Further rooms were provided for servants and adjutants . There was also a 38.5 m² map room and a lounge, which was probably used by Hitler's permanent personal watch. There was an air raid shelter at a depth of six meters .
The other six buildings in Wiesental served as a casino, press house, generals house, Reichsleiterhaus, OKW house and guard house. Camouflage nets ran over the paths between the buildings .
Ziegenberg Castle was set on fire on March 19, 1945 in an air raid . It remained in ruins long after the war ended. Nowadays there are condominiums in the castle.
The camouflage concept on a former air raid shelter in Langenhain-Ziegenberg can still be seen today . The slate cladding used as camouflage was damaged by a bomb explosion during the air raid. The concrete wall of the bunker underneath, which had remained completely intact, was exposed.
Parts of the bunkers in the immediate vicinity of Ziegenberg Castle, camouflaged as country houses, were spared from the air raids and explosions. Since the withdrawal of the Bundeswehr , which used the buildings and built an ammunition depot there, the bunker facilities have been empty. The vehicle hall on Usinger Strasse in Langenhain-Ziegenberg, which belongs to the Adlerhorst headquarters, has been refurbished and serves as a branch for Bechtle AG .
There are various associated bunker systems in the surrounding area, such as a transmission bunker at the small Roman fort at Am Eichkopf .
The under-bunkered buildings in Wiesental were largely burned down by German soldiers when they were cleared and blown up in the first half of 1946. Then rubble recovery stones and steel parts from the bunkers were used to build houses or garden walls. At least one of the buildings still existing in Wiesental has the remains of a former bunker of the FHQ Adlerhorst as a foundation. At the former site of Hitler's building there is now a residential building.
literature
- Hans-Josef Hansen: rock nest. The forgotten Führer headquarters in the Eifel. Construction, use, destruction. 2nd, extended edition, Helios, Aachen 2008, ISBN 978-3-938208-21-2 (Adlerhorst, pp. 18-23).
- Kurt Rupp: The former Führer headquarters "Adlerhorst." With the bunkers in Langenhain-Ziegenberg. K. Rupp, Ober-Mörlen 2004.
- Franz W. Seidler , Dieter Zeigert: The Führer Headquarters. Facilities and planning in World War II. Herbig, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-7766-2154-0 .
- Werner Sünkel, Rudolf Rack, Pierre Rhode: Adlerhorst. Autopsy of a Führer headquarters. Verlag W. Sünkel, Leinburg 1998, ISBN 3-930060-07-8 (3rd edition, ibid. 2002, ISBN 3-930060-97-3 ).
Coordinates: 50 ° 22 ′ 1.6 ″ N , 8 ° 37 ′ 31.4 ″ E