Guarding Hitler

by Mark Felton

  In November 1937 Johann Rattenhuber, the RSD officer charged with Hitler’s personal protection, was particularly worried after Hitler ordered the number of Leibstandarte-SS sentries around his property to be reduced as he particularly disliked being visibly guarded. A further problem was that the entrances through the outer security ring were not guarded by the SS but by civilian volunteers instead, called Arbeitsposten (Worker’s sentries), who lacked the authority to stop and search people approaching Hitler’s domain. At Post 1 at the privately owned Platterhof Hotel close to the Berghof visitors often witnessed unseemly verbal arguments between civilian guards, labourers and SS soldiers. Rattenhuber requested that all three checkpoints be taken over by the RSD.

  The security arrangements at the Berghof still had some way to go before they could be described as completely satisfactory. This was evidenced by the case of Maurice Bavaud, a 22-year-old Swiss student who took it upon himself in October 1938 to kill Hitler.

  Crossing the border into Germany, Bavaud, who was armed with a 6.35mm pistol and ammunition and a copy of Mein Kampf, initially attempted to stalk Hitler in Berlin but swiftly discovered that the Führer was hundreds of kilometres south on the Obersalzberg. When he arrived at Berchtesgaden in late October Bavaud quietly and unobtrusively questioned locals about Hitler’s security and itinerary, but he discovered that Hitler had moved once again, this time north to Munich in preparation for the Beer Hall Putsch Memorial Parade, an annual Nazi pilgrimage. During this event Hitler would be at his most exposed, walking with other senior Nazis along roads crammed with spectators to lay a wreath at the Feldherrnhalle, where the Reichswehr had bloodily stopped Hitler’s revolution in its tracks in 1923. At this location, a handful of aimed shots from the large crowd might just have been possible.

  Incredibly, considering whose house it was, Bavaud was able to slip into the woods near the Berghof and spend two days practicing his shooting without being arrested. In 1938, only a small security zone surrounded the Berghof, with many of the valley’s properties still in private hands. But it was nonetheless remarkable that repeated gunshots did not alert either the SS or civilian guards to Bavaud’s presence. Even more incredibly, Bavaud struck up a conversation with Hauptmann Karl Deckert, one of the police officers in charge of security at the Old Reich Chancellery in Berlin and security officer to Dr Hans Lammers, State Secretary and Chief of the Chancellery.4 The policeman had overheard Bavaud discussing his admiration for Hitler and his desire to meet him with two French language instructors. Deckert, who spoke French, was at the Berghof with his boss and told Bavaud, thinking that he was a ‘fan’, that if he wanted to see Hitler the best place would be during the upcoming parade in Munich. The only way he could meet the Führer was by a personal letter of introduction from a senior Nazi official.

  On 31 October Bavaud arrived in Munich, rented a room, and plotted the route of the forthcoming march on a tourist map hoping to discover a suitable ambush point. He decided that one of the invitation-only grandstands near the Marienplatz afforded the closest vantage point of Hitler as he walked along the road. Bavaud obtained a ticket by pretending to be a Swiss reporter. Still concerned about his shooting ability he took himself off to a quiet forested area 40km from Munich to practice, again without raising suspicion.

  The 9 November was a cold and clear day – perfect parade weather. Dressed in a heavy overcoat and with the pistol tucked into his pocket, Bavaud made his way through the huge crowd to his seat in the grandstand. The entire road was festooned with Nazi flags and bunting, the crowd was restless and excited and the route was lined with large brown-uniformed SA men. Suddenly a shout went up: ‘The Führer is coming!’ The crowd rose almost as one. Bavaud, in the front row, stood with one hand thrust deep into his coat pocket, gripping the pistol tightly. His heart was racing. Then the marchers came into view. Bavaud stared in scant disbelief – Hitler was not in the middle of the first rank of marchers as he had assumed, instead he was on the opposite side of the road from the Swiss assassin. The distance was around 15 metres, twice the range that Bavaud had trained himself to be comfortable with. Should he take the shot anyway? His mind raced, a dreadful uncertainty rooting him to the spot. No, he decided, he would probably miss and that would be the end of him. Wait for another opportunity. His hand released the concealed pistol and he watched as Hitler disappeared out of sight around a corner.

  Bavaud decided to follow Hauptmann Deckert’s advice about a letter of introduction and rather foolishly forged one from French Foreign Minister Pierre Flandin. Travelling back to Berchtesgaden by train, Bavaud rented a taxi to take him up to the Berghof. He was prevented from entering the security zone by SS guards who told him that Hitler was still in Munich. Bavaud rushed back to the station, boarded a train and arrived in Munich around the same time that Hitler was leaving on a train to Berchtesgaden.

  Nearly out of money, Bavaud decided to give up on his plan to kill the Führer. Lacking the funds for a train journey to Switzerland, Bavaud hid on a train to Paris, where he hoped to obtain travel money from the Swiss Embassy. Caught by the conductor, he was handed over to the police in Augsburg. When searched, the police turned up the pistol and the forged letter that Bavaud had foolishly kept. Arrested by the Gestapo, after extensive interrogation Bavaud admitted the details of his plot to kill Hitler. On 14 May 1941 Bavaud was beheaded.

  In 1938 Bavaud could have legally got quite close to the Berghof to have had a chance of shooting Hitler during one of his afternoon strolls. By the time Bavaud was executed no ‘fan’ would be permitted anywhere near Hitler’s house.

  Martin Bormann solved the Führer’s security problems by steadily buying up all of the private properties in the valley, often intimidating farmers into selling. Through such methods the security zone around the Berghof was extended until eventually the entire area was under Bormann’s personal authority.

  The region’s hotels provided the first layer of security. Any hotel close to the Obersalzberg was required to provide details of their guests to RSD Bureau 9, one of the three bureaus that protected the Führer. Bureau 9 would run a check on them. In this way, the RSD had a good idea of the strangers within the region at any given moment, and any who peeked their interest would be questioned by the Gestapo or politely told to leave. However, as demonstrated by the Bavaud case, this method of light screening was not foolproof.

  Eventually, Bormann created a ‘reserve’ for the Führer at the Obersalzberg that measured 7km square. The entire area was wired off from the public with net mesh type fences, ‘200 to 220cm high, supported by steel tubes placed at intervals of three to five metres. The tubes are bent inwards at the top, the bent part supporting three or four strands of barbed wire.’5 The fences, which were not electrified, were studded with numerous wire mesh gates, many watched by armed sentries.

  The Obersalzberg complex was guarded by a system of SS and civilian patrols and piquets. The civilian guards ‘are mostly Bavarian or Austrian,’ recalled 19-year-old Austrian SS-Schütze Obernigg, a former LSSAH guard captured by the British near Caen during the Battle of Normandy on 19 July 1944. ‘They look like ordinary workers and are very mixed types. They are reliable old Nazis who stand on duty in the sentry huts . . . They wear civilian clothes without any distinguishing marks.’6 (Obernigg’s information was already out of date by the time he was taken prisoner.)These civilians, used until 1943, provided a screen through which anyone approaching the Obersalzberg would have to pass. Within the security zone were further civilians and also uniformed SS.

  Obernigg’s detailed report on the Obersalzberg complex was only recently declassified and adds a lot of detail to the existing literature. It is also interesting to see the complex and its inhabitants through the eyes of a young German soldier who, because of his job, was able to access most areas. Obernigg joined the SS in October 1942, serving initially with 3rd Company LSSAH at its depot at Lichterfelde Barracks, Berlin. The entire company was transferred to Wachbataillon Berlin on 15 December 1
942 and tasked with providing ceremonial guards at the Reich Chancellery. Between early August 1943 and May 1944 Obernigg served in SS-Wachkompanie-Obersalzberg.7

  RSD and sentries from SS-Wachkompanie-Obersalzberg guarded the three gates that gave access to this inner sanctum. This unit was the size of an infantry battalion and was permanently stationed in the area. When Hitler was in residence security was further augmented by the presence of the army’s Führer Begleit Bataillon (Führer Escort Battalion – FBB).

  The Obersalzberg area was divided into three districts or Bezirke. Bezirk I encompassed the area and buildings immediately adjacent to the Berghof and required a special red pass to enter. Bezirk II was all territory including the Berghof, but excluding the Kehlstein area, and a green-coloured pass was required to enter. RSD officers also manned the outer gates at the villages of Tengelbrunn, Klingeck and Au when Hitler was in residence, though the civilian guards were still used when the Führer was elsewhere until March 1943. Bezirk III covered the Kehlstein area. Only supply, maintenance and guard shift traffic was seen within this outer zone. Within all of these zones there were sub-zones, often fencing off construction sites or other utility or work areas.

  There was near constant building work going on in the valley as Bormann ordered new buildings to be constructed. Military headquarters were built, as well as more space for garrison troops. Subordinate headquarters were established in the nearby alpine troops barracks at Strub near Berchtesgaden, and a new camp was built at Winkl on the Bad Reichenhall-Berchtesgaden road for the Army General Staff. This building mania meant that between summer 1943 and end of the war Bormann ordered the construction of seventy-nine bunkers, with a total area of 4,120 square metres, beneath the Obersalzberg valley. They were well-appointed shelters, with proper drainage, heating, gas and air-pressure chambers, marble, wood panelling, air-conditioning and carpets. Concrete machine gun posts protected their entrances. All this activity meant that large numbers of foreign workers from the Organisation Todt were always present, presenting security problems for Hitler’s guards. Only thirty percent of workers at the Obersalzberg were Germans, the rest were French, Italians and Czechs. No Soviet prisoners-of-war or civilian forced labourers were permitted within the Führerschutzgebiet (Führer Protection Zone).

  As cars drove into Bezirk I along the road from Berchtesgaden the first thing visitors would have seen was the Gutshof, an experimental farm created by Bormann. The specially selected farmers raised cattle, horses and pigs. There were bee hives, a milk cooling building, a blacksmith’s shop and bucolic pastures. After the war the complex was taken over by the US Army and converted into a sports lodge, golf course and winter ski resort. Today one wing survives as a golf club house.8

  Passing the Gutshof, visitors would find that the road to Hitler’s residence was blocked by the main SS guardhouse that spanned the road with a solid wooden gate. Its stone foundations remain today. Once past the RSD and SS guards, the road ran past the Berghof, a handsome stone and wooden chalet set atop a small rise above the road with magnificent views across the valley to the Untesberg Mountains, a possible burial place of the Emperor Charlemagne, and of Austria beyond.

  The Berghof was originally a much smaller chalet called Haus Wachenfeld constructed as a holiday home by wealthy German businessman Otto Winter in 1916. Winter rented the property to Hitler in 1928 and the Führer moved his half-sister Angela Hitler in as his housekeeper until the tragic suicide of her daughter Geli Raubal in Munich in 1931. This event proved to be something of a scandal for the Führer.

  It is said that Hitler had become fixated on his half-niece, with rumours circulating of a less than healthy relationship between the two. Although enrolled at Ludwig Maximilian University to study medicine, Raubal was kept under very tight control by her uncle. When Hitler discovered that she was having a relationship with his driver, Emil Maurice, Hitler dismissed Maurice on the spot and became even more domineering and possessive towards Geli. Raubal wanted to go to Vienna to marry Maurice, but Hitler forbade her. Following a furious argument in Hitler’s apartment Raubal shot herself in the chest with Hitler’s own pistol and died. The event deeply disturbed Hitler and until his own death he kept Raubal’s room at the Berghof exactly as she had left it, as well as having portraits of her in his bedrooms at the Berghof and Reich Chancellery. The true nature of their relationship remains a mystery to this day.

  In 1933 Hitler was sufficiently rich to purchase Haus Wachenfeld from its owner and embarked on a complete rebuild and extension of the property, renaming it the Berghof. British Homes & Gardens Magazine ran a feature on the house in 1938, the same year Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain visited for a meeting with Hitler, and commented that it was ‘bright and airy . . . with a light jade green colour scheme.’

  The entrance hall was lined with cacti in large majolica pots, the dining room was panelled in expensive cembra pine but the most famous room was the Great Hall. With white walls, low wooden panelling, a wooden latticework ceiling and red carpeting, the Great Hall was where Hitler held his meetings, guests often being seated on sofas arranged before a massive red marble fireplace at one end of the capacious room. A huge picture window dominated one wall, giving an expansive view across the valley towards the mountains beyond, and the entire window could be lowered into the floor on fine days. The furniture was largely eighteenth century German Teutonic, and on the walls were hung several masterpieces, including a great Gobelin tapestry and the sixteenth century Venetian old master Venus and Amor by Paris Bordone (this painting is now in the National Museum in Warsaw).

  Outside there was a large sun terrace with colourful umbrellas where Hitler’s intimates lounged, sun bathed or strolled. Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun, though she was officially lodged further down the mountain in Berchtesgaden, had interconnecting bedrooms at the Berghof with en-suite bathrooms. Hitler’s secretaries and adjutants also lived inside the house along with several servants and other household staff necessary to keep the place running efficiently.

  Hitler dominated the entire existence of his guests at the Berghof. ‘Real informality was as good as impossible in his presence. And Hitler, for all the large numbers of people in attendance on him and paying court to him, remained impoverished when it came to real contact, cut off from any meaningful relationships through the shallowness of his emotions and his profoundly egocentric, exploitative attitude towards all other human beings.’9

  The Berghof was one of only two buildings, the other being Hitler’s luxury apartment in Munich, where Eva Braun was permitted to reside and be seen with the Führer. Hitler had first met Braun in 1929 in Munich when she was a 17-year-old assistant to the Nazi court photographer Heinrich Hoffmann. Hitler dominated his girlfriend, keeping her well away from the public eye. ‘On the rare occasions she was in Berlin, she was closeted in her little room in the “Führer Apartment” while Hitler attended official functions or was otherwise engaged. Even in his close circle she was not permitted to be present for meals if any important guests were there. She did not accompany Hitler on his numerous journeys . . .’10 The Berghof was her home for most of the war, and if Bormann was ‘Lord of the Obersalzberg’ then Eva Braun soon became its ‘Lady’.

  Hitler was well protected from the possibility of air attack, something that became more likely with each passing month of the war. Directly beneath the Berghof, 15–20 metres underground, was a large air raid shelter. ‘It zigzags at the entrance; turning left, left again, then right, one reaches the main passage,’ recalled SS guard Obernigg. ‘The shelter itself is 80 to 100m long, with rooms leading off on both sides. There are parquet floors, carpets, and the place is sumptuously furnished and centrally heated by a boiler which is underneath the shelter. The shelter is ventilated but there are no airshafts. It has three exits.’11 To further protect against aerial attack, during the war all of the houses on the Obersalzberg were spray-painted, ‘the disruptive pattern of which is changed every three months.’ Finally, dummy trees were p
lanted in most of the open spaces as further camouflage.

  A short way along the road from the Berghof stands the Ga¨sthaus zum Türken. Opened as a guesthouse in 1911, the hotel was a favourite haunt of celebrities including the composer Johannes Brahms, and Bavarian and Prussian royalty. The owner was forced to sell it to the Nazis in 1933 as Bormann began the process of removing civilians from the Obersalzberg area. Later the Ga¨sthaus zum Türken was the headquarters and accommodation block for Hitler’s RSD bodyguard detachment and the SS-Wachkompanie-Obersalzberg. It also served as the main Army High Command telephone exchange. When Hitler was at the Berghof nineteen RSD officers were stationed at the hotel. Armed with holstered automatic pistols, one officer always patrolled in front of the Berghof on a 3-hour shift. Another patrolled the buildings in the immediate vicinity, while two more patrolled the surrounding area between 8.00am and 8.00pm. One was always in his office close to the telephone in case of an emergency. The Ga¨sthaus zum Türken was repaired after the war, and today is one of the most popular guesthouses in the area.

  Beyond the hotel the road continued further down the valley. On the left stood Hitler’s greenhouse. This was built by Bormann to supply fresh vegetables to Hitler’s table and meet his boss’s strict vegetarian dietary requirements. Its concrete foundations are still visible today near the new Intercontinental Hotel. A road branched off beside the greenhouse and led to Bormann’s private residence. A large wooden chalet, the house was knocked down in 1951–52, though the underground bunker system has survived but is closed to the public.

  Opposite the green house on the right of the main road stood the Kindergarten/Modellhaus. The twenty to thirty children of the Obersalzberg staff used the Kindergarten and they included those of Bormann. The daughter of a man who had died during the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch kept the Kindergarten. The Modellhaus was used as a store for Hitler’s many architectural models, and there was also a building housing the Führer’s private film collection, including many Hollywood productions banned in the Third Reich. These buildings were all razed in 1951–52 and their foundations removed in 2001– 2002.12