by Mark Felton
The finished building was very impressive. A huge double gate led through reception halls into a 164-yard-long (150m) gallery. The main entrance was flanked by two huge bronze sculptures by Arno Breker, ‘Wehrmacht’ (Armed Forces) and ‘Partei’ (Party). At the end of the gallery, twice as long as the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, was Hitler’s gigantic 400 square metre office that was dominated by a huge oversize desk and a large marble top table. Hitler loved this room and used it often for military conferences in the latter part of the war. Hitler’s apartments in the Old Reich Chancellery remained his official residence.
From a security point of view, the new building presented considerable challenges. Between forty and fifty people were free to enter the New Reich Chancellery to have lunch with Hitler if they first telephoned ahead. This group included Gauleiters (provincial governors), Reich leaders, ministers and Albert Speer. No military men were granted such access. The guards personally knew these party men by sight and by reputation.
Two LSSAH sentries armed with rifles guarded the main gate. A policeman checked all IDs. SS-Begleitkommando sentries guarded Hitler’s office and private quarters. The New Reich Chancellery guard was beefed up by the addition of sentries from the Wehrmacht’s Wachregiment Grossdeutschland (Guard Regiment ‘Greater Germany’), with one NCO and six men armed with carbines on the Vossstrasse entrance. Guests who were seeing Hitler mingled freely in an outer lounge and sitting rooms. The only check that these high-ranking Nazis were subjected to was a cursory search of their briefcases for handguns, bombs or other weapons. Military officers were forbidden from wearing their side arms in the Führer’s presence.
For outsiders, gaining access to Hitler was much more difficult, highlighting that any credible threat to Hitler’s life would have to come from within the inner circle of Nazi officials and military officers who had regular access to him.
When Hitler left the Reich Chancellery on official business he was accompanied by the LSSAH who posted guards outside his hotels and residences. Regular soldiers replaced these SS guards on Wehrmacht Day and during a national mobilization.
Hitler’s private quarters at the Old Reich Chancellery were well guarded. SS sentries patrolled the Winter Garden that was shared with the New Chancellery and Hitler’s private entrance. Two were posted at the entrance to the Court of Honour, a vast hall just inside the New Chancellery’s entrance, two in the Great Hall in front of Hitler’s office, one at the entrance to the cupola hall and one at the side entrance on Vossstrasse that led to the Great Hall. Two sentries, either SS or Wehrmacht, stood to attention respectively in front of No. 4 and No. 6 entrances on Vossstrasse. If any special events or receptions were being held the number of guards was considerably increased. In addition to all of these sentries, RSD officers constantly patrolled the grounds and buildings.
One of the most famous attempts on Hitler’s life occurred in 1939, shortly after the outbreak of the war. It was a plot that came very close to success and managed to completely circumvent all layers of the Führer’s personal protection. A 36-year-old German carpenter named Georg Elser came within minutes of killing Hitler. A quiet but sociable man, Elser was a bit of a paradox. He was a devout Protestant yet had flirted with communism. After the 1938 Munich Crisis Elser believed that Hitler was most likely leading Germany into another major war. Elser decided to stop him. Working entirely alone, Elser travelled to Munich to attend the annual ceremony to commemorate the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. The focus of events was the Burgerbraukeller, a huge beer hall, where Hitler delivered his annual address to the party faithful. Elser noted that security in the building was lax. Returning home, Elser decided to kill Hitler at the following year’s ceremony. He designed and built a time bomb and returned to Munich a month before Hitler’s 1939 speech.
Each evening Elser would hide inside the Burgerbraukeller until the patrons had left and the hall was closed and then he set to work. He excavated a hole in a large pillar behind the speaker’s podium, carefully removing all evidence of his nocturnal activities each morning before the hall opened for business. When the time came for Hitler’s address, the bomb was ready and its timer began ticking down to detonation, an event that Elser had timed to occur midway through Hitler’s speech. On the night of the attack Elser was nowhere near Munich. He was heading for the Swiss frontier.
Hitler was saved by fog. War had broken out on 1 September, and an extremely busy Hitler had decided to cancel his annual address in Munich. But characteristically, he had suddenly changed his mind. He would deliver the speech and then fly back to Berlin straight after-wards. But fog meant that he had to change his plans. Instead of flying, Hitler would have to take the train, so he delivered his speech early, leaving the hall thirteen minutes before Elser’s bomb detonated. The explosion killed eight and wounded sixty-three. But for the weather, Hitler would have been blown to pieces in 1939.
German customs police arrested Elser for a separate reason thirty-five minutes before the bomb exploded as he tried to cross into Switzerland. After they searched his belongings they discovered articles that tied him to the bombing, news of which had been swiftly transmitted to all relevant security agencies of the state. Handed over to the Gestapo, Elser was horribly tortured until he confessed. Imprisoned in Sachsenhausen and Dachau Concentration Camps, Elser was shot on Hitler’s express order on 9 April 1945, less than a month before the end of the war.10
The RSD protected not only Hitler but also the members of his government and inner circle, many of whom, such as Hermann Göring, had their own personal protection units drawn from other branches of the armed services or police. Johann Rattenhuber was responsible for security at all of Hitler’s field headquarters once war had broken out in 1939. For example, an RSD battalion as well as other elite protection troops guarded Hitler’s field headquarters in East Prussia, the gloomy Wolf’s Lair. SS-Obersturmführer Peter Högl, Rattenhuber’s 35-year-old deputy commander, was chief of RSD Bureau 1, making him the officer who was responsible for Hitler’s personal protection on a day-to-day basis throughout the war. He later rose to the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer but he remained Rattenhuber’s subordinate.
Table 1. RSD Bureaus, 1939.
Bureau No. Assignment
1 Führer Protection – Obersalzberg, Munich, Berchtesgaden
2 Hermann Göring
3 Joachim von Ribbentrop
4 Heinrich Himmler
5 Josef Goebbels
6 Reich Minister of the Interior, Dr Wilhelm Frick
7 Reich Minister of Food, Dr Richard Darre
8 Führer Protection
9 Führer Protection
Table 2. RSD Bureaus, 1944.
Bureau No. Assignment
1 Führer Protection – Obersalzberg, Munich, Berchtesgaden
2 Hermann Göring
3 Joachim von Ribbentrop
4 Heinrich Himmler
5 Josef Goebbels
6 Reich Minister of the Interior, Dr Wilhelm Frick
7 Governor of Bohemia & Moravia, Dr Karl Hermann Frank
8 Führer Protection
9 Führer Protection
10 Reichskommissar in the Netherlands, Dr Arthur Seyss-Inquart
11 Reichskommissar in Norway, Josef Terboven
12 Grand Admiral, Karl Dönitz
13 Reichskommissar in Denmark, Dr Werner Best
14 Chief of the RSHA, Dr Ernst Kaltenbrunner
No number Head of the German Labour Front, Dr Robert Ley
No number Gauleiter Erich Koch of East Prussia
No number Reich Chancellery, Berlin
Following the assassination of Himmler’s deputy Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in May 1942 by a pair of British-trained Czech SOE operatives, RSD detachments were assigned to his successor as head of the Reich Main Security Office, Dr Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and to his successor as Governor of Bohemia and Moravia, Dr Karl Hermann Frank. Some other Nazi governors who were always top priority targets for assassination were also given RSD protection, as w
ell as Hitler’s naval chief, Grossadmiral Karl Dönitz. By 1944 there were seventeen separate RSD guard detachments protecting, and also keeping tabs on, the top Nazi leadership.
Chapter 3
Trains and Automobiles
‘Hitler was a demonic personality obsessed by racial delusions. Physical disease is not the explanation for the weird tensions in his mind and the sudden freaks of his will. . .But he was in no sense mentally ill; rather he was mentally abnormal, a person who stood on the threshold between genius and madness.’1
Dr Otto Dietrich
Hitler’s Press Chief
A Mosquito fighter-bomber roared down towards the long train that snaked through the dark forest of Eastern Germany. Behind the aircraft several more followed in tight formation, each driving home devastating attacks. The British aircraft, armed with bombs, rockets and cannon, screamed along the length of the train. Two steam engines hauled smart Pullman carriages at almost full speed. Cannon shells ripped through the surrounding treetops, or thudded like crazed hornets into the roofs of the carriages, gouging out great holes. Rockets and bombs smashed down, the train rocking as blasts impacted close by, uprooting trees and throwing huge showers of dirt high into the air. German anti-aircraft crews fed box after box of 20mm shells into the four-barrel guns mounted on special carriages at each end of the train, a constant barrage peppering the sky with black puffs of smoke. One-by-one the Mosquitos dived on the train, expending their munitions, many taking shrapnel hits from the intense flak screen, one peeling away with its port engine on fire before ploughing into the surrounding forest in a massive fireball. But suddenly the leading locomotive’s boiler exploded as RAF cannon shells punched through it, and the train started to slow down. More Mosquitos piled in, one scoring a direct hit with a bomb on a carriage midway down the length of the train, its metal body absorbing the hit, the interior instantly reduced to a burning charnel house of wrecked furniture and smashed bodies. The train was strafed from end to end before a British air-to-ground rocket slammed into the second carriage, severely wounding Hitler and his closest staff who were crouched beneath the conference room’s wooden table. RSD personnel fought their way into the burning carriage with fire extinguishers before rescuing their boss who had severe shrapnel wounds to the head and chest. As the last of the British aircraft made a pass, the train came to a shuddering halt while onboard the doctors desperately tried to stem the Führer’s bleeding and the heavily armed RSD organised a hasty evacuation to the nearest town.
The attack related above never happened. But the scenario was one of three plans hatched by the British to kill Hitler whilst he was aboard his personal train. The others were to derail it with explosives or to poison its drinking water supply. Hitler continued to use his train until the last few weeks of the war even though the Allies had air superiority over the Reich, a move that was seen by many as an unnecessary security risk. Special Operations Executive, ingenious as ever, saw Hitler’s train as the perfect target but in the end the British failed to launch an assault on the Führer Special.
Throughout the war Hitler travelled constantly. He used three methods to get around his empire: planes, trains and cars. As his security became more professional it was deemed important that Hitler no longer use public transport, where he would be vulnerable to assassination. Instead, the security agencies that protected the Führer began to acquire private means of transport that eventually resulted in Hitler being able to travel widely without having any contact with his people or those outside of his inner circle of advisors and generals. One of his favourite modes of transport was the train, and Hitler’s train was a truly awesome sight.
Emperor Wilhelm II had had the use of several plush railway carriages that formed an Imperial Train before the end of the First World War. The German government during the Weimar period then re-used some of these carriages. Hitler ordered the construction of several special coaches between 1937 and 1939 for his own train. Each coach was constructed entirely from steel and weighed over sixty tons. The Führersonderzug, as Hitler’s train was known, came in two configurations – peacetime and wartime. The peacetime train consisted of (in order) locomotive, baggage and power engine car, Führer’s Pullman, conference car, escort car, dining car, two sleeping cars, Pullman coach, personnel car, press chief’s car, baggage car and power-engine car.2 Codenamed ‘Amerika’ until 31 January 1943, it was then renamed ‘Brandenburg’. During wartime Hitler’s train was officially a Führerhauptquartier (Führer Headquarters – FHQ).
An FHQ, whether a mobile train or static headquarters complex, was a command facility for Hitler’s use. The Wehrmacht always had its own headquarters nearby and liaison officers seconded to the FHQ. The FHQ was not a military headquarters in the strictest sense, but rather was so de facto because of Hitler’s interference in the military command structure.
The Army, Navy and Air Force had received nominal oversight since 1938 by one unified organisation, the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Supreme Command of the Armed Forces – OKW). For most of the war Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel acted as its commander, with Generaloberst Alfred Jodl as Chief of Operations Staff. In reality Hitler personally controlled OKW.
The German Army was under the command of Oberkommando des Heeres (Supreme Command of the Army – OKH), headed until December 1941 by Generaloberst Walther von Brauchitsch. Hitler sacked him after he failed to capture Moscow and appointed himself Supreme Commander of OKH. During wartime, OKH was responsible for strategic planning of Armies and Army Groups and the OKH General Staff managed operational matters. Both OKH and OKW were co-located in a huge bunker complex at Zossen outside Berlin, and both had large numbers of staff officers and adjutants attached to FHQ.
Little is known today about Hitler’s wartime train, but an idea of its likely regular composition comes from information leaked in June 1941, when the Führersonderzug departed the Anhalter Station in Berlin for Hitler’s gloomy pine forest HQ at Rastenburg in East Prussia. For the overnight journey the train consisted of fifteen carriages pulled by two large Deutsches Bahn K5E-series war locomotives. The Führersonderzug was a self-contained rolling headquarters that enabled Hitler, much like the present British Royal Family and their Royal Train, to travel in safety and comfort to any part of his empire whilst remaining wired into the communications grid. If the train stopped, the Führer’s Pullman, dining car and sleeping cars could be quickly connected with the postal telephone network. When on the move, communications were conducted by encrypted radio.
Behind the two locomotives was a flatbed Flakwagen mounting two Flakvierling 38 four-gun anti-aircraft cannon manufactured by Mauser. Sitting on a traversing platform, the Flakvierling 38 consisted of four individual 20mm cannons mounted together that were each fed by twenty-round magazines. In combat, the Flakvierling 38 could fire 800 rounds per minute (involving ten magazine swaps per minute on each of the four guns). The weapons’ effective range was 2,200m. The flatbed was disguised to look like an ordinary wooden freight wagon, the guns being raised up when brought into action against low-flying aircraft. Each Flakwagen had five crew compartments for the seventeen gunners. The officers and men were drawn from 9 Regiment General Göring, supplied to Hitler by the Luftwaffe chief.
Behind the Flakwagen was a baggage carriage, then the Führerwagen, Hitler’s personal Pullman carriage that contained a bedroom, bathroom, sitting room, valet’s quarters, and a conference room. Behind Hitler’s carriage was the Befehlswagen or Command Car, where Hitler’s staff officers worked. This carriage contained another conference room and a communications centre incorporating a 700-watt short wave radio transmitter. Next was the Begleitkommandowagen, a barracks on wheels for Hitler’s twenty-two-man SS-Begleitkommando and RSD detachment. Behind this was the dining carriage, two guest carriages, the Badewagen or Bathing Car, another dining carriage, two sleeping cars for staff, then the Pressewagen or Press Car for Hitler’s press chief, Dr Otto Dietrich, and his staff. Finally, another baggage carriage and another
Flakwagen completed the train.
Using the Führersonderzug required several hours’ notice. The train was usually kept at Tempelhof maintenance depot and was shunted to the chosen departure station, usually taking two hours. Security concerns meant that the number of railway employees who knew the departure and arrival times, the route and any stops planned along the way was kept to an absolute minimum. One time, Hitler’s train pulled into a station and stopped beside a trainload of Jews who were being shipped off to a concentration camp. Whether he actually looked out of the window and saw this horrific sight is unknown. The blinds in his personal Pullman were usually kept lowered during the war.
The entire route that Hitler’s train would travel was patrolled – railway policemen would each be allotted a short ‘beat’ beside the track, this precaution making it almost impossible for anyone to plant a bomb on or beside the tracks to attempt to derail the train. Only collusion by the police would have made such an attempt feasible, which was an unlikely scenario.
Table 3. Nazi ‘Special Trains’.
At every station enroute where Hitler’s train was scheduled to stop the platform had to be kept completely clear of all luggage, packages or crates, anything that could conceal a bomb. Railway police guarded all entrances, exits, underpasses, bridges and stairways. Hitler’s RSD commander, Johann Rattenhuber, assumed command of all railway police for the duration of the train’s journey. Railway police also travelled aboard Hitler’s train, and one of their jobs was to carefully search every carriage for bombs and concealed weapons before a journey commenced. Technicians also travelled on board to rectify any faults that occurred during the journey. At the end of the journey all the written orders, timetables and documents that had been distributed to interested parties were gathered up, counted and then destroyed, to make sure that no one could plan a future attack on the same route.
As well as Hitler, several other senior Nazis and military officers had special trains for their own exclusive use (see Table 3).3