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The inside story of Adolf Hitler's grand plan to construct a heavily protected command complex of bunkers and buildings.
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00:10It was the military heart of the Nazi war machine.
00:14This bunker was Hitler's nerve center.
00:16A city of concrete and steel,
00:19designed to command millions of soldiers...
00:25...to control a vast empire.
00:30...and direct a world war.
00:32Germany, as a military machine,
00:33is now completely and utterly unstoppable.
00:36A base engineered to hide the leaders of the Third Reich.
00:40Within this massive megastructure is just one big nest of Nazis.
00:47And built on a scale to match Hitler's lust for power.
00:51Staggered. Absolutely staggered.
00:53This is the story of the Third Reich's center of power
00:56and Hitler's most secret headquarters, the Wolf's Lair.
01:07The biggest construction projects of World War II.
01:11Ordered by Hitler to secure world domination.
01:15Now they survive as dark reminders
01:18of the Fuhrer's fanatical military ambition.
01:20These are the secrets of the Nazi mega weapons.
01:33July 20th, 1944.
01:37Hitler isolates himself in his two and a half square mile bunker complex.
01:43While his German armies are in retreat.
01:47As his grip on Europe weakens,
01:49he withdraws further into his concrete base.
01:52His paranoia grows.
01:58And a group of German rebels
02:00plot to turn the bunkers of the Wolf's Lair against him.
02:04Hitler.
02:13Battlefield archaeologist Dr. Tony Pollard
02:16is exploring the incredible ruins of Hitler's top secret headquarters.
02:20This is a massive bunker.
02:23It's looming out of the forest like some sort of Mayan temple.
02:27The complex grew continuously between 1940 and 1944.
02:33This place is expanded.
02:35It's modified.
02:37It's further fortified.
02:39And Hitler was absolutely paranoid about being attacked here,
02:44especially from the air.
02:46And we get several phases of extension where more concrete is poured.
02:51The walls are made thicker.
02:53The roofs are made thicker.
02:54And we're seeing evidence for that here.
02:58This maze of concrete was the Fuhrer's home.
03:02It's weird to think that Hitler slept here.
03:06And engineered to an astonishing scale.
03:09It has to be totally self-sufficient.
03:12They're essentially building a city in a swamp.
03:22The roots of this headquarters lie in the very first days of the war.
03:30On September 1st, 1939, Hitler's armies race across the Polish border.
03:36World War II has begun.
03:38The Germans are coming up against a nation which is not militarily strong.
03:44What is projected out are images of Stukas diving on Warsaw,
03:49of columns of half-tracks and armoured cars and tanks.
03:55This early success convinces Hitler of his own military genius.
04:01He begins to ignore the advice of his army generals.
04:06Professor Stephen Remy is an expert on Nazi Germany.
04:10Hitler doesn't trust his military generals.
04:12He's afraid that their loyalty lies with the old German state that he and the Nazis have overthrown.
04:18That's why the construction and workers must be as quickly as possible.
04:22Senior German soldiers are traditionally upper-class aristocrats.
04:26And many despise the Fuhrer.
04:29One of the reasons why a lot of the senior officers don't like Hitler is because they know that in
04:33the First World War,
04:34he never rose beyond corporal, that he's essentially working class.
04:38And it's nothing short of pure snobbery.
04:42Hitler is becoming paranoid.
04:45He believes the only way to keep control of his generals is to lead from the front.
04:50He leaves the safety of Berlin for the war zone in Poland on his specially designed train.
04:57His train is to a certain extent the nerve center of the war effort because he's the Fuhrer, he's the
05:02commander,
05:02and everyone has to come to him.
05:05Two streamlined locomotives pull a convoy of 15 carriages.
05:10Anti-aircraft flak wagons top and tail the train.
05:14At its heart is Hitler's private carriage, followed by the command unit for war conferences.
05:24Hitler is determined to direct the war personally.
05:29Hitler doesn't care how inconvenient it is for everybody else that he wants to be on this train.
05:33People have to leave the battlefront, traipse across country, either by plane or by car, just so that they can
05:40be harangued by him.
05:48Poland is conquered by October 6th, 1939.
05:53It's a stunning victory.
05:56Hitler's next target is France, and then Britain.
06:02But the Allies' sophisticated planes and bombs make his train vulnerable.
06:10Hitler still wants to be close to the front lines, so he demands a new kind of HQ.
06:18He orders a base near the Belgian border codenamed Rocky Nest or Felsenest in Germany.
06:26All that remains today are photographs and rubble.
06:31Patrick Berry, a former British Army officer and expert on fortifications,
06:35uncovers the hidden ruins of Hitler's first bunkers.
06:39Hitler's rapid success in Poland convinces him that his forward style of leadership is the decisive factor in his victory.
06:49He's determined that his campaign in France will follow exactly the same pattern with himself at the heart of the
06:55advance.
06:58Hitler is looking for the perfect location for his forward headquarters, and this forest pretty much fits the bill.
07:07It's covered from view by all the trees, it's in the mountains to protect it from an air attack, and
07:12also it's close to the Belgian border, and that is exactly where Hitler wants to be.
07:24This is the Felsenest. It is completely overgrown, unmarked, and been ignored for the last 70 years.
07:32Yet beneath the trees are the ruins of Hitler's very first fixed wartime headquarters.
07:41The Führer is protected by two rings of high security swarming with checkpoints and soldiers.
07:49The inner ring is the heart of the site.
07:53Two bunkers with adjacent wooden huts are built for Hitler and his entourage.
08:01Securing the site from attack is a critical part of its design.
08:05To provide defense, there's loads of anti-aircraft guns.
08:13There's fences, there's guard towers, there's Hitler's personal bodyguard, and also there's camouflage netting to protect the whole area from
08:23view.
08:28Hitler arrives at Felsenest on May 10, 1940.
08:32He orders the attack on Western Europe during the journey.
08:37Early in the morning, the German invasion begins.
08:47This bunker was Hitler's nerve center.
08:49It was from here that he commanded the invasion of Western Europe.
08:53The bunker was known as Building K, and it consisted of five small rooms named A to E.
08:59Room A is Hitler's office.
09:02His bedroom is just eight feet squared.
09:06Hitler's staff occupy the remaining rooms.
09:12At one and a half meters thick of reinforced concrete and sunk into the ground to give it added protection.
09:19This is the rooftop of Hitler's bunker.
09:24And it's interesting because you can see here where one of the dividing lines between the rooms were.
09:30And this gives an indication of just how small each of the rooms in the bunker were.
09:36Hitler is fearful of attack.
09:38He demands the bunkers be engineered to seal him against the outside world.
09:44You've got three pipes which would have provided the ventilation for the bunker.
09:49And obviously below ground you're going to need fresh air.
09:51But crucially, you also need in these bunkers, they have protection from gas, sealed doors and special filters to clear
09:57the air in the event of a gas attack.
09:59This relates directly to Hitler's own experiences in the First World War.
10:04When gas was a major killer and then the concrete to protect you was probably the best thing you could
10:09have if you were fighting from the trenches.
10:11So all in all, Hitler's stamp is all over this bunker.
10:15Remains of the state-of-the-art ventilation system are still visible at the site.
10:23And you can see here what looks like part of a filtration system to clean the air inside the bunker.
10:29Now if you're going to be entombed in concrete, you're going to need some way to breathe.
10:33And Hitler basically demanded some of the best engineered bunkers available at the time.
10:39We have forced the enemy to withdraw from our borders.
10:47The bunker protects the Führer from the war, but at the same time, isolates him from his generals.
10:54His total belief in his own genius grows.
10:59Hitler's command style means that he's reluctant to delegate authority to any of his generals.
11:05By entombing himself in this concrete bunker, Hitler is basically saying other opinions are not welcome.
11:15Hitler delivers many of his orders from a briefing hut nearby.
11:19This doesn't look like much.
11:21But in 1940, I would have just walked through the door into the bustling epicenter of the Third Reich's war
11:28machine.
11:32These old foundations are very historically significant, because inside these walls, Hitler briefed his generals about what was going on
11:40in the invasion of France.
11:46This building was built just away from the two small bunkers, but it's interesting to see how small it is
11:54too.
11:54This was the main situation briefing room, and it would have been full of other officers, a map table and
12:00runners going back and forth.
12:02But they were all very cramped, you know? It's a really small room to be conducting such a large operation
12:08from.
12:16Hitler regularly takes long walks through the forest, admiring the beautiful scenery, in stark contrast to the vicious battles taking
12:25place to the west.
12:30Those in Hitler's inner circle say that his time in the Felser nest is some of the happiest they've ever
12:36seen him.
12:37Apparently, by all accounts, he's inspired by the wonderful surroundings.
12:41He goes bird watching, he loves the clean air in the forest, and he goes for walks.
12:48In fact, every Tuesday, he takes a wander down a path not unlike this one, to the local village, where
12:54he watches the news from the front on the newsreels.
13:01Success follows success, as Hitler's military sweeps past his headquarters and across Western Europe.
13:08By June 6, 1940, the advance has been so rapid that Felsenest is now far behind the front lines.
13:19Less than three weeks later, France surrenders. Hitler is triumphant.
13:27The French campaign is another astonishing military victory.
13:38In Hitler's opinion, his command style of leading from the front from concrete headquarters has been completely vindicated.
13:45The Felsenest has proved its worth.
13:51Hitler always sees himself as something of a military leader, but if he did in 1939, he doubly does so
13:57by June 1940, when France surrenders.
14:01It's hard to overemphasise the enormity of this success.
14:09Hitler has now doubled the size of his Nazi empire. His frontline officers are impressed by his military ability.
14:19One such officer is 32-year-old Catholic aristocrat and father of five, Klaus von Stauffenberg.
14:26Stauffenberg's background is decidedly aristocratic, and on one level you would have thought he would be suspicious of Hitler, but
14:31actually he buys into it.
14:32And really the reason why so many of the aristocratic military elite do kowtow to Hitler is because he's brought
14:41back pride in being German.
14:46Like many Germans, von Stauffenberg fully supports the war, and he is impressed by Hitler's apparent military skill. Soldiers like
14:54to win.
14:55The bombers will smoke them out of the forest. If we strike fast, we can cut this rattle off.
15:01You are talented.
15:03It's good to be on the move, Herr General. They are fighting with courage born of desperation.
15:16Von Stauffenberg has taken part in stunning victories from east to west and is proud of Germany's success.
15:26Gentlemen, to the most effective mobile operations ever conceived. Your health.
15:33It seems to be quite incredible, and everyone thinks that Germany as a military machine is now completely and utterly
15:41unstoppable.
15:43What they also think is that Hitler is clearly a great war leader, and no one thinks that more than
15:48Hitler himself.
15:51Hitler even declares that the Felsenness should be preserved as a historical monument so the future generations of Germans can
15:59come and admire his brilliance.
16:03July 1940.
16:05Hitler has conquered Western Europe from specialized command centers.
16:09He is convinced massive frontline bases are vital to his success.
16:17His next headquarters will expand the concept on a huge scale as he looks east to Russia.
16:27In 1940, Germany has a peace treaty with Russia, but Hitler has been targeting it from the start.
16:33He believes that the conquest of Russia will bring Germany vast new territories.
16:38Hitler plans for an epic invasion using four million soldiers along an 1,800-mile front.
16:45The attack will be codenamed Barbarossa.
16:51Operation Barbarossa is a military operation unlike any that's been seen before.
16:56The scale of it is absolutely enormous.
16:59That requires one heck of a lot of coordination.
17:02So he wants a command headquarters as close as possible to the front,
17:07whilst at the same time still being safe.
17:11For the impending attack, Hitler needs a base as far east as possible.
17:16He chooses a site near the city of Rastenburg, then in eastern Germany.
17:22Felsenest is the template.
17:23The concept is to bring all the branches of the armed forces around Hitler's headquarters.
17:30This will emphasize Hitler's preeminence as the center of power, planning and control.
17:37The terrain around the base makes it difficult to attack.
17:43This site close to the Russian border was the location chosen for Hitler's eastern headquarters.
17:50It's a land dominated by forest and lakes, but it's also peppered with swamps.
17:57It would have been a nightmare for any army to attack.
18:03The swamps make building underground bunkers extremely difficult.
18:08In the fall of 1940, Fritz Tott, the head of Nazi engineering group Organization Tott,
18:14personally takes charge of the project.
18:18He decides that heavily reinforced structures above ground are the solution.
18:24The budget is 36 million Reichmarks, an incredible $250 million today.
18:30But it's vital that this work is carried out in secret, because if the Russians spot what's going on, it
18:37would be a disaster.
18:40Amazingly, the chosen site sits directly beneath the daily route of Russia's Moscow to Berlin airliner.
18:46The forest means it's never discovered.
18:52Work on the wolf's lair began in the winter of 1940.
18:56The project would require upwards of 50,000 laborers working in incredibly difficult conditions.
19:01Local people were told it was going to be a new chemical plant.
19:04What they didn't know was that the end result would be one of the Nazis' most audacious megastructures.
19:12Soldiers protect German laborers to maintain security for the top secret project.
19:18While construction is underway, Hitler continues to use his train, but he's paranoid about being attacked from the air.
19:26At the same time that this new Fuhrer HQ bunker complex is being built,
19:30he also insists on building a series of tunnels in which his train can hide,
19:35and where he can be safe, so that he can be even closer to the front.
19:38One shelter in the occupied Polish town of Stjopina still remains.
19:44It is capable of withstanding any assault, as tunnel expert Maciej Pjelkosz explains.
19:52The train here in Stjopina could hide from any danger, from air raid, shelling or a chemical attack,
19:58as the interior of this shelter is closed off.
20:05In the summer of 1940, nearly 6,000 Polish slave laborers begin construction on the 1,300-foot-long tunnel.
20:16Above us, we have three-meter-thick walls made up of reinforced concrete.
20:20The inside of this wall is filled with tons of armoured steel, which makes them able to withstand strikes and
20:27explosions of even a half-ton bomb.
20:33The tunnel can be completely sealed and support hundreds of troops in the event of an attack,
20:39with a parallel side tunnel providing living space.
20:47Here we have the staircase, and through these small armoured doors you enter a series of rooms.
20:55Behind the first door, you have the gas lock, where various filtration equipment was present to filter the air.
21:02Behind this door, there is a room where the German soldiers had the possibility of hiding and living inside.
21:11Despite taking a year to complete, the massive tunnel is only used by Hitler once during the entire war,
21:19for a meeting with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
21:25By summer 1941, preparations are complete for Hitler's masterstroke, the invasion of Russia.
21:35And the ultimate Fuhrer HQ is ready for occupation.
21:49June 22nd, Germany invades Russia.
21:59Two days later, Hitler arrives at his newest headquarters.
22:07His military code name is Wolf, so he names it the Wolf's Lair.
22:16The Wolf's Lair represents a massive upscale from the Felsen Nest.
22:21Probably eight times the size.
22:23You can see natural defences, trees, swamps, marshes, lakes, and the man-made structures.
22:32What you have are three layers of defence.
22:38An airstrip and rail lines are built for the Fuhrer's personal plane and train.
22:44And the entire two and a half square mile site is surrounded by 54,000 mines.
22:52Expanding on the Felsen Nest prototype, the base has three concentric rings of security surrounding Hitler's command centre.
23:07Hundreds of troops from Hitler's personal bodyguard patrol the forest day and night.
23:12Look at this.
23:16It's just a scoop in the ground today, but this is a foxhole.
23:19Dug by soldiers probably to accommodate a two-man machine gun unit.
23:24And I can see stretching out in front of me.
23:27Here's another one about three metres away.
23:30Exactly the same thing.
23:31And again, over here, these would obviously have been deeper during the war, but you can still see them.
23:40Offices are built for hundreds of administrative staff.
23:44Speed is of the essence, as Hitler wants the base to be ready for the Russian invasion.
23:49These first structures are basic single-storey brick buildings with no protective concrete.
23:57He's running the rife from here.
23:59And this building is testament to that.
24:02It's massive, but this is basically the typing pool.
24:07This is where the stenographers and typists have their desks and their machines,
24:11because Hitler was obsessed with recording everything he did and said.
24:17What I find interesting about this building also is its structure.
24:21It's made of brick. It's not thick concrete.
24:24And that tells us that this is an early building.
24:30Russia collapses in the first weeks of the invasion.
24:33The front line moves far away from the wolf's lair.
24:39Hitler feels secure in his new base and so confident of victory that he chooses not to advance with the
24:46troops.
24:47It is a critical error.
24:49His distance from the front and his generals leaves him disconnected and begins to affect his decisions.
24:57In September 1941, he orders his generals to stop their advance on Moscow and attack other Russian cities.
25:05The invasion grinds to a halt with massive casualties.
25:10Hitler is becoming more and more mistrustful, and he increasingly dominates decision-making personally.
25:16Determined to wipe out the Russians, Hitler orders the killing of millions of civilians.
25:23Many German soldiers see the order as immoral and dishonorable.
25:28Thirty-four-year-old Klaus von Stauffenburg, a devout Catholic, is one of them.
25:33In May 1942, torn between his loyalty to Germany and his sense of honor,
25:39he decides that Hitler's megalomania is the greater evil.
25:45Resignation would mean death, so he chooses to plot in secret against the Fuhrer.
25:56By the summer, Hitler's armies begin to retreat, chased by huge numbers of Russian forces.
26:03The truth is, Hitler has just bitten off more than he can chew in the Soviet Union.
26:08Hitler's paranoia increases, and he isolates himself further by fortifying the wolf's lair.
26:151,500 troops now patrol the area, and dozens of additional buildings are added across the site.
26:24In July 1942, against the protests of his generals, he orders an army towards Stalingrad from the safety of his
26:32bunker.
26:32He begins to interfere ever further down the chain of command and circumvent the army leadership.
26:39Hitler is the head of the Nazi Empire. None of his generals dare to question him.
26:45All operations revolve around him, but his behavior is increasingly eccentric.
26:52Hitler wakes late at 10 a.m.
26:54Conferences take place when he chooses, regardless of the military situation.
26:59He'd have a session just after lunch, maybe for a couple of hours,
27:03where he'd meet with his senior commanders and discuss the situation,
27:07and then perhaps an hour and a half or another two hours in the evening.
27:09But the rest of the time, he seemed to spend his time relaxing,
27:13or, shall we say, entertaining his company with these long oratories.
27:22In Stalingrad, German forces fight bloody battles in the city.
27:30At the wolf's lair, Hitler demands staff attend daily afternoon parties at a specially built tea room.
27:45Oh, look, there doesn't appear to be much left of this,
27:51but that's the first time on this site that I've seen ceramic tiles.
27:57And this is the known location of one of these tea rooms,
28:01and that would certainly be indicative of either a washroom or a kitchen area,
28:06the sort of thing you would associate with a tea room.
28:09300,000 troops are going hungry in Stalingrad.
28:20But Hitler dismisses reports that interrupt his schedule, no matter the consequences.
28:29And it's really quite a thought to imagine them just sat around shooting the breeze,
28:34when outside of this bubble, all mayhem is breaking out.
28:44By the start of 1943, around 200 buildings support 2,000 staff living and working in the wolf's lair,
28:52all at Hitler's beck and call.
28:54Hitler is developing a bunker mentality.
28:56He certainly has no connection with the suffering of his soldiers on the front.
29:06Desperate to stay close to the center of power, the Nazi leadership rushed to build their own bunkers around Hitler.
29:15Hitler's chiefs of staff were very keen to remain close to him.
29:20So, Jodl, Keitel, Göring and co. all had their own bunkers here at the wolf's lair.
29:26And I like to imagine them having some kind of bunker envy.
29:32My bunker's bigger than your bunker.
29:34But what you have at the end of the day within this massive megastructure is just one big nest of
29:43Nazis.
29:45Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief Hermann Gehring constructs a 177,000 cubic foot bunker.
29:51Inside, a 36 foot high concrete shell is insulated by a layer of sand designed to absorb an explosive blast.
30:01It has survived in remarkable condition.
30:04This is interesting.
30:07See, there's a double-skinned wall here on the side of the bunker.
30:11And that's to provide added protection for a bomb blast outside.
30:17So this gap will kind of dissipate the pressure wave.
30:22Almost 95% of this enormous structure is solid concrete, leaving a tiny living space inside.
30:34Wow.
30:40I'm on the roof of, uh, Göring's personal bunker.
30:44And it's...
30:46It's cracked.
30:48It looks like a crashed spaceship or something.
30:54On top of the bunker are two anti-aircraft gun emplacements.
31:06There's a circular concrete platform on which the gun would have sat.
31:12You can see the holes for the bolts, the mounting bolts.
31:15And it's in a very heavy concrete turret with little cubby holes in the side, which would have stored ready
31:26-to-use ammunition.
31:30A defensive position to protect against ground assault faces the forest.
31:35What we have here is a very simple form of fortification, very typically German.
31:42This is a Tobruk turret.
31:45And I'm very pleased to see it's still got its mount because this would have had a machine gun mounted
31:51on this rail.
31:52And there would have been two men in here, one operating the gun, one feeding the belt of ammunition.
31:57And the gun would have turned 360 degrees on this iron ring.
32:02The giant bunkers are obvious even within the forest.
32:06So ingenious camouflage is used.
32:08What they would have done is take camouflage nets with artificial leaves on them,
32:16strung them out from these hoops, both across the roof and into the trees,
32:21making this structure blend into the natural vegetation.
32:27February 1943.
32:29Germany is defeated at Stalingrad.
32:33In July, Hitler hastily orders a counterattack from his bunker in the wolf's lair.
32:41It's crushed.
32:44Hitler is entirely responsible for the failure of Barbarossa.
32:47They weren't ready for it. They didn't have enough manpower.
32:49It was a step too far.
32:51It was entirely his idea.
32:53And it was a failure.
32:55For the first time, the wolf is vulnerable in his lair.
33:01Hitler's isolation in his bunker complex has led to a series of terrible military decisions.
33:07Germany is under assault.
33:11The Führer's paranoia is stoked by fear of air attacks.
33:15He orders a new mammoth bunker built for himself.
33:19By late 1943, Hitler's spending more and more time at the wolf's lair,
33:23to the point where it's the only part of Germany he's still familiar with.
33:27And it's at this time that he introduces a new phase of modifications to the site.
33:33And they include his own designs for his own personal shelter.
33:39Hitler's engineers begin building a massive structure 200 feet long and 120 feet wide.
33:4623 feet of concrete divided by a layer of sand will surround the Führer on all sides.
33:52Inside, Hitler's living space will be a tiny 9 by 11 feet.
34:08His staff are astonished by the scale of the building work.
34:17It's incredible what they achieved in such a short time.
34:30Hitler's personal bunker is the biggest building on the site.
34:33And looking at it, you can understand why contemporaries compared it to an Egyptian tomb.
34:41And especially if you take a peek inside, you can see how thick the walls are here.
34:47And I think it's probably a reflection of his state of mind.
34:51The war's starting to go badly for Germany, and he's becoming more and more isolated.
34:58And I think this is a kind of manifestation of that decline.
35:07Although its exact layout has never been fully verified, the bunker contains a warren of corridors and small rooms.
35:20Hitler left no space whatsoever for windows in his own designs for this bunker.
35:26And that would have made for a really claustrophobic space, but on the upside made it virtually impregnable to any
35:33type of bomb.
35:34And it suggests that even within the complex of the wolf's lair, Hitler was seeking to isolate himself.
35:41It almost shouts out, don't bother me.
36:07This is absolutely staggering.
36:11I found a way into the back of Hitler's air raid bunker.
36:16And look at it, it's just concrete, but it looks almost geological.
36:24But the amazing thing is that that level down there is the accommodation level.
36:31You can see the fragments of a room there.
36:35But all of this above me, and it must go up eight metres or so.
36:43It's difficult to tell, but incredibly high above me is the top of the structure, and all of that is
36:50roof.
36:52With this tiny living space beneath it.
36:58And I think what we might be looking at here, see you've got these girders dropping down from the roof.
37:06I think we might have a two-level roof with an open space, a gap between the two, supported by
37:14these girders.
37:15And that would provide some extra protection if a bomb comes through the top.
37:20It would dissipate the shock wave.
37:23This gives a very good idea of the way this thing was meant to operate.
37:29But staggered, absolutely staggered.
37:32This final stage of the wolf's lair uses material desperately needed elsewhere for the war effort, including enough concrete to
37:41build the Empire State Building three and a half times over.
37:44The massive fortifications only help Hitler's complete withdrawal from reality.
37:50I'm still picking my way through the remains of Hitler's bunker complex.
37:56And the scale of the thing is phenomenal.
38:00And he distrusts people so much that he draws up a list of those people who were permitted to come
38:08and have lunch with him.
38:09And the picture is one of increasing paranoia and isolation.
38:17That isolation from the war has led Hitler to make appalling military decisions.
38:23Bon Stauffenberg has experienced the results personally, losing a hand and an eye in battle.
38:29He and a network of sympathizers are plotting Hitler's downfall.
38:33It's a choice between two evils, action or inaction.
38:40He's a soldier, first and foremost.
38:42And, you know, he has a sense of honor.
38:44And what he sees in the Eastern Front, the atrocities really, really shock him.
38:50You know, you don't go around mass murdering people.
38:52That's not part of the deal at all.
38:54And so he's even more determined than ever that Hitler has to be brought down.
39:01The war is being lost and von Stauffenberg is convinced that Germany can only be saved if Hitler is killed.
39:09I sincerely believe God has assigned me this mission.
39:14I will devote myself to it entirely.
39:18We must gather information about military forces in the Berlin area.
39:22He wants a peace treaty with the Allies that leaves Germans in control of Germany, the country unoccupied and the
39:29Nazi Party eradicated.
39:31He needs a plan to overthrow the Fuhrer.
39:34But access to him is virtually impossible.
39:38Hitler is massively protected and it's extremely difficult to get a means of killing him anywhere close to him.
39:47As the wolf's lair grows, Germany shrinks in the face of the Russian advance.
39:56June 6th, 1944. D-Day. The Americans and British land in France. It's a decisive blow to Germany.
40:07Once again, Hitler's interference really works against the chances of Germany ever knocking the Allies back out into the sea.
40:14How is it possible that 35,000 tanks...
40:18Hitler forbids his generals from making decisions without his authorization, slowing the German response.
40:24Germany is now being assaulted from all sides.
40:27But Hitler's micromanagement of his forces limits his generals' ability to deal with the worsening situation.
40:36Defeat is imminent.
40:38Von Stauffenberg must find a way to kill Hitler before Germany is crushed.
40:57The problem is that Hitler keeps changing his travel plans at the last minute and has avoided numerous assassination attempts
41:04by doing so.
41:05So Stauffenberg needs to target him in a fixed location.
41:10Despite its immense security, Von Stauffenberg decides that the wolf's lair is the only viable target.
41:17He plans to turn the isolated headquarters against the Fuhrer.
41:27The wolf's lair was a state-of-the-art communications centre.
41:30And this is it. It's almost the Pentagon of its day.
41:33From here, Hitler could talk to anybody anywhere in Europe instantly.
41:38All he had to do was pick up a telephone.
41:39But this is much more than the glorified telephone exchange.
42:01It's almost impossible to imagine now, but this telecommunications centre would have been a hive of activity.
42:06There have been teams of telephonists and telex operators working in here around the clock, 24-7, sending and receiving
42:15signals.
42:16The Nazis added 9,300 miles of telephone lines to the existing European system.
42:23There were no less than 74 trunk lines passing out from the base into the wider world.
42:29And using those telephones, you could reach anywhere. Cities, other bases, battlefronts, even trains.
42:36And if one line went down, using the trunking system, you could work your way around and eventually get to
42:42where you wanted to be.
42:43So you could talk to anyone, anywhere.
42:45The wolf's lair is the master switch for the whole network.
42:50Von Stauffenberg needs to turn it off and silence the base.
42:54If communications from the wolf's lair were severed, then Hitler and his chiefs of staff would be totally isolated from
43:03Berlin and the rest of the Reich.
43:06He plans for a co-conspirator to destroy this critical communications link when Hitler is dead.
43:12But there's another problem.
43:14Stauffenberg is excluded from Hitler's inner circle.
43:17Until the middle of July, when he gets an extraordinary break.
43:24Von Stauffenberg is promoted to a post that gives him permission to attend Hitler's conferences at the wolf's lair.
43:36Stauffenberg now has the access he needs.
43:39He decides to personally carry out the attack and detonate explosives at a meeting with Hitler.
43:45This is a massive decision.
43:48No soldier expects to have to assassinate their commander in chief, let alone a German officer who's sworn the oath
43:55of allegiance to Hitler.
43:57The plan uses the massive engineering of the wolf's lair against the Fuhrer.
44:03If Von Stauffenberg can detonate the bomb inside a concrete bunker, the explosion will kill everyone inside.
44:11But Von Stauffenberg needs a silent, easily concealed timing fuse, and most timers are ticking clocks.
44:20Stauffenberg plans to use a pencil detonator.
44:24This is a state-of-the-art detonator, made of brass and about this long.
44:29Inside one end of the fuse is a glass vial of acid.
44:33When the vial is broken, the acid eats through a wire holding back a coiled spring.
44:39The type of acid determines how long it will take to corrode the wire.
44:43The fuse Stauffenberg uses is a 30-minute fuse, and once it's started, you can't stop it.
44:50When the wire finally breaks, the spring launches forward and creates a spark that sets off the explosive.
44:58Stauffenberg's key target is Hitler, but he's determined to kill as many prominent Nazis as he can in the bunker.
45:06On July 20th, 1944, Von Stauffenberg is ordered to a briefing at the wolf's lair.
45:15This is his chance.
45:28The bomb's 30-minute fuse has been armed.
45:40The bomb's 30-minute fuse has been armed.
46:01Colonel!
46:03Please?
46:06Not the Führerbanks?
46:07It's too hot!
46:10Please?
46:12He's told that the meeting has been moved from a concrete bunker to a lightweight brick hut
46:18The well-ventilated and thin wall building could limit the bomb's destructive power, but it's too late to turn back
46:25now
46:41He must improvise and find a way to get the bomb as close to Hitler as possible
46:47Can see me better would you please place me close to the fueler? I have trouble hearing you to my
46:52injuries. Yeah. Yes. Come in
47:06Another officer unknowingly carries the bomb inside
47:09The second army that's no use the objective now is to keep the soviet troops occupied so long
47:17The bomb is placed just six feet from Hitler
47:22General Mannerheim that the interests of the german people and the finnish people are identical
47:31Yes, Colonel von Stauffenberg mein Führer
47:39So the Russian positions are here and here. We need to prevent the Romanian oil fields from falling into Russian
47:46hands
47:49Von Stauffenberg claims he has to make a telephone call and leaves the room
47:58It has been almost 30 minutes since he armed the bomb
48:03That's the truth now
48:06As it currently stands we cannot prevent it
48:17There is a planter angrif from the enemy
48:21Where is Stauffenberg? It's his turn
48:29Von Stauffenberg has brought the war to the wolf's lair and the wolf himself
48:56In the aftermath of the explosion panicked nazis race to locate Hitler
49:03Von Stauffenberg bluffs his way past security
49:07He is convinced he has succeeded in killing Hitler and heads to berlin to seize control
49:14Four officers are dead
49:17But hitler is alive
49:23The briefing rooms are pretty lightweight structure
49:27It's got brick walls windows it's well ventilated very much in contrast with the heavy concrete bunkers elsewhere on the
49:33site
49:34And it's that architectural difference which foils the assassination attempt
49:41Footage filmed just after the explosion reveals the damage
49:45When the bomb goes off there's somewhere for the explosion to go
49:49It blows out the windows it knocks down walls
49:52It dissipates the blast
49:54If this meeting had happened in the heart of one of those solid bunkers as had been the original intention
50:01There would have been nowhere for the blast to go
50:03It would have been amplified as it bounced off the walls and back in again
50:06If that had happened there can be no doubt that hitler would have been killed
50:10It's one of the great ironies that the wolf's lair saved his life
50:14But not in the way he intended
50:19By the time this one stauffenberg arrives in berlin he knows that the that the bomb has gone off
50:24But but it becomes increasingly apparent that hitler hasn't actually died
50:29Upon seeing hitler alive von stauffenberg's colleagues at the wolf's lair are too scared to cut communications
50:40Hitler's injuries are minor but his narrow escape has left him enraged
50:46For all its concrete and layers of security the wolf's lair proved to be defenseless against one man with a
50:52bomb in a briefcase
50:55Nazi investigators quickly realized that von stauffenberg left the meeting early
51:00Those who are loyal to hitler start to realize what is going on the coup is undone very quickly
51:08Hitler's troops tracked the ringleaders to berlin's army headquarters
51:14from stauffenberg and his fellow plotters are dragged out into the courtyard from where they are operating the plot
51:21and summarily executed on the spot
51:29In the following weeks 600 suspected conspirators are arrested and publicly tried by nazi judges
51:41Around 200 are eventually executed
51:49At the wolf's lair hitler watches the films of their deaths for his own pleasure
51:55But he ignores the catastrophic situation in the war
51:59By the end of august the russians are less than 60 miles from the base
52:04It's all very well having impregnable bomb-proof forward headquarters
52:08But if the area in which it sits is overrun then it's no good to anybody
52:13The greatest flaw of the wolf's lair is that it's only safe if germany's armies are victorious
52:19Ultimately, no fortress, however strong could protect germany from the catastrophe that hitler had led it to
52:26It's a lot of managers to even find
52:29This is a damn disgrace
52:37By the autumn of 1944 if there had ever been any doubt at all in the previous year to 18
52:43months that germany would lose
52:45All hope is gone by that point it's only going one way and yet hitler still insists on clinging on
52:53On november 8th construction finishes on hitler's enormous personal bunker
52:59But he spends only 12 days inside it
53:03With the russians entering germany the war is closing in around him
53:13In november 1944 hitler left the wolf's lair for the last time along this railway
53:20in total he'd spent over 800 days in residence
53:24longer than at any other place during the war
53:28the russians were hot in his heels but they simply circumvented the place on their way to berlin
53:33and it wasn't until january of 1945 that the germans got around to trying to demolish it
53:40local people describe huge chunks of concrete flying through the air as the charges were blown
53:46the wolf's lair was history
53:51the wolf's lair was meant to be hitler's impregnable fortress and the command center from which he'd conquer the world
53:59but ultimately no base however big could protect hitler from his own flaws paranoia and military incompetence
54:08So
54:36more
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