Leader headquarters spring storm

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The former stopping and loading point Mönichkirchen was the seat of Hitler's "Spring Storm" in 1941

From April 12th to 25th, 1941 , Adolf Hitler used the movable Führer Headquarters with the code name Spring Storm as the place to lead the Balkan campaign .

history

For this purpose , a safe parking space for the America's special driver train was found on the alternate track from Aspang to Friedberg at the Mönichkirchen stop and loading point , 35 kilometers south of Wiener Neustadt . It was the approximately 2½ km long Great Hartberg Tunnel, built in 1910 .

In addition to Hitler, the most important leadership cadres of the Wehrmacht also met on this route with their special trains. Because of the tumultuous events in the Balkans, there was no time to set up a permanent Führer headquarters. In addition, Hitler refused to use existing military facilities in Austria. The command car of the Führer special train with its modest possibilities served as a permanent workplace for Hitler, Wilhelm Keitel and Alfred Jodl . Hitler only got off the train to walk to the nearby small hotel "Mönichkirchner Hof", where he saw the broadcasts of the German newsreel . The guide-escort battalion secured the surrounding area with 1,157 men (quarters in Mönichkirchen and Aspang).

Hitler's train arrived on April 12th and was stationed on the northern part of a railway tunnel two kilometers north at the stop and loading point in Mönichkirchen, while the southern part was intended for the special train "Atlas" of the Wehrmacht command staff. Hermann Göring's special train "Asia" stopped in a tunnel north of Friedberg, only a few kilometers south of Hitler's location.

Each train set consisted of 14 four-axle wagons. The sets were each positioned in such a way that they could be pushed into the local railway tunnels (Great Hartberg Tunnel, Wiesenhöftunnel) within a very short time to protect them from enemy aircraft, which is why the locomotive of the special driver's train was constantly under steam. Over 500 men from the railway brigade and the Todt Organization had created the necessary infrastructure (platforms, additional tracks, sewerage, radio links) within just two weeks.

Heinrich Himmler's special train Heinrich drove behind Hitler's from Berlin via Munich to Vienna, but was diverted to Bruck an der Mur, about 60 kilometers from Mönichkirchen, and stationed there. Joachim von Ribbentrop's special train Westphalia was parked in Vienna's Südbahnhof . The Army High Command used the buildings of the Wiener Neustadt Military Academy as field quarters .

Hitler celebrated his 52nd birthday here on April 20th. Congratulators included Franz von Papen , then Germany's ambassador to Turkey , Walther von Brauchitsch , Erich Raeder , the Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano and Bulgaria's King Boris III. a. On April 24, the Hungarian ruler Count Horthy visited Hitler in order to secure a territorial share for Hungary in a partition of Yugoslavia .

After Yugoslavia capitulated to the German and Italian troops, Greece also capitulated . On April 27, 1941, one day before the Wehrmacht marched into Athens , Hitler left the spring storm for Berlin. The route block, which had been in force since March 26, has been lifted.

literature

  • ARGE Zeitsprge (Ed.): "Spring Storm". A Führer headquarters in Lower Austria. Mönichkirchen April 12-25, 1941. Kral-Verlag, Berndorf 2013, ISBN 978-3-99024-172-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Uwe Neumärker , Robert Conrad , Cord Woywodt: Wolfsschanze. Hitler's power center in World War II. Links, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-86153-199-2 .
  2. ↑ Markus Schmitzberger: Code name "Spring Storm" - Führer headquarters in Mönichkirchen. In: Geheimprojekte.at (accessed October 24, 2017).
  3. ↑ Peter Gruber: When a piece of (war) history was written in southern Lower Austria in 1941. In: mein district.at, April 22, 2013 (accessed October 24, 2017).

Coordinates: 47 ° 31 ′ 13 ″  N , 16 ° 4 ′ 9 ″  E