OKH Mauerwald
The OKH Mauerwald was the headquarters of the army high command in Mauerwald, close to the wall lake in the Mazury Lake District . It existed from 1941 to 1944.
Bunker system in East Prussia
The OKH Mauerwald was part of a bunker system and quarters that housed command posts for the staffs of most of the German military branches. In OKH Mauerwald (Mamerki) the headquarters of the Army High Command (OKH) and the quarters of the army main supply service had from 1941 to 1944 based. It was much larger than the 20 km Führerhauptquartier Wolf's Lair at Rastenburg .
Surname
The OKH was given the code name Mauerwald because it was not far from the Mauersee. It was divided into the districts: "Fritz" (operational departments of the General Staff of the Army), "Quelle" ( Quartermaster General with his administrative and logistics departments) and "Anna" (telecommunications and communication centers).
history
After Hitler had set the Görlitzer Forest near Rastenburg as the Führer headquarters in early October 1940 , work began immediately afterwards on the future headquarters of OKH Mauerwald not far from the Mauersee in East Prussia . A front company with the code name Askania was founded in Berlin to build the headquarters . On June 23, 1941, the Army General Staff moved into its headquarters in the Mauerwald. In the area, which with around 250 objects and approx. 30 intact bunkers was significantly larger than the Wolfsschanze, 40 generals and approx. 1,500 officers, as well as numerous soldiers, worked. Here, the instructions from the Führer situation in the nearby Führer headquarters were converted into concrete orders. Among others, Friedrich Paulus , Heinz Guderian , Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and Adolf Heusinger worked there . In 1944 the film was made there, too , a propaganda film that documents the daily routine of the General Staff. On January 20, 1945, the German soldiers withdrew without destroying the facility. Therefore, the entire system is one of the best preserved German bunker systems from the time of the Second World War. A museum, housed on site since 2003, exists and can be visited.
July 20, 1944
Originally the OKH Mauerwald was assigned a not insignificant role in the coup. At that time, significant parts of the OKH had already been returned to Wünsdorf , where Eduard Wagner was the conspirators' liaison. Major General Hellmuth Stieff was scheduled for the OKH Mauerwald . He flew on July 20 with Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and his orderly officer, First Lieutenant d. Res. Werner von Haeften , around 7 o'clock from Rangsdorf near Berlin to the Rastenburg airfield . Stauffenberg went to Wolfsschanze; Haeften followed Stieff to his office in OKH Mauerwald. After Haeften zu Stauffenberg had broken into Wolfsschanze , Stieff went to Major i. G. Ernst Ferber , his general staff officer, to discuss the operational situation and current affairs with him. At the end of March 1943, Ferber was transferred to the organization department. After the meeting, he also went to Wolfschanze. At around 1.30 p.m. Ferber called Stieff at the headquarters of the OKH from Wolfschanze, where he had heard the explosion, and informed him that he could only come back later. Since it was initially assumed that workers from the Todt organization had carried out the unsuccessful attack by installing an explosive device in the barracks, Ferber initially suspected that the attack should be kept secret from the public. That is why he did not tell Stieff, who asked impatiently about it, on the telephone the reason for his delay. Stieff could have already interpreted this as an initial suspicion against him: the alarm had already been triggered at 12.45 p.m. for both restricted areas at the Fuehrer's headquarters. At around 2 p.m. it was announced that Stauffenberg was the attacker. Later, before 4 p.m., on the way to the casino, Ferber saw Hitler, who had his right arm in a sling and was there to pick Mussolini, who was arriving at the time, at the “Görlitz” train station in the Fuehrer's headquarters. Stieff must have given up on the coup in the early afternoon. He burned sensitive files and tried to warn those in the know, as well as to prevent further actions that now seemed pointless to him. Ferber was only able to leave the restricted area of the Fuehrer's headquarters around 6 p.m. Stieff gave Ferber the order to write down every word he said, and then kept talking on the phone. At around 8 p.m., Stieff ordered that OKW telexes with the signatures of Witzleben and Fromm could no longer be forwarded and that the transmission to Berlin had to be shut down. When, at 9 p.m., Günther von Kluge , who was being pressured into a putsch, finally wanted to be certain of the Fuehrer's condition at La Roche-Guyon Castle in France, he only reached Stieff at OKH. Ferber was present on the phone:
“'Here Kluge. Stieff, I finally have to know: is the Führer alive or not? ' Stieff: 'Herr Feldmarschall, the Führer is alive.' Kluge: 'How do you want to know?' Stieff: 'Herr Feldmarschall, my general staff officer, Major Ferber, is sitting across from me. He saw the Fiihrer picking up Mussolini twice after the attack. ' Kluge: 'Is that really true, Stieff?' Stieff: 'That is true, Herr Feldmarschall!' Kluge: 'So, so, so ...' "
The conversation ended without further closing or greeting words. Kluge called Berlin again. Stauffenberg was on the line. Then Stauffenberg phoned Major i. G. Egbert Hayessen , to whom he said: "Stieff has broken out!" Stieff had truthfully reported that Hitler was alive. His communication tipped the scales that Kluge did not join the action.
literature
- Christian Zentner : The Second World War. Data, facts, comments. Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-8118-1761-2 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Horst Mühleisen: Hellmuth Stieff and the German resistance. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , 39 (1991), pp. 339–377, here p. 368 ( pdf; 7.7 MB ).
- ↑ Horst Mühleisen: Hellmuth Stieff and the German resistance. Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 39 (1991), pp. 339–377, here pp. 364–368 ( pdf; 7.7 MB ).
Web links
Coordinates: 54 ° 11 '12.7 " N , 21 ° 39' 3.4" E