Vinnitsa was occupied by Nazi troops on July 19, 1941. And just a couple of months later, in the vicinity of the village of Strizhavka in a pine forest, the German organization "Todt" launched the construction of a secret facility, to which more than 14 thousand prisoners of war were driven. Engineers, metro builders, bridge builders, carpenters and other specialists were brought from Europe: Germans, Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Italians. Electricians, heating engineers, assemblers and geologists were selected from the concentration camps. Then all the builders were destroyed …
Lair for Adolf
They built a headquarters near Vinnitsa for Hitler. At the beginning of construction, it was called "Eichengheim" - Oak Grove. There is a restaurant and hotel "Duboviy Gai" there now. But the Fuhrer named his headquarters "Werewolf", which means "werewolf."
It was built from October 1941 to September 1942. Completed from December 1942 to July 1943. Bunkers were built nearby for the associates of the Fuhrer Himmler (on the outskirts of Zhitomir) and Goering (30 km north of Vinnitsa). The Werewolf became almost a copy of Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia, the Wolfschanze. The reinforced concrete walls of the underground bunker made the shelter inaccessible to bombing. All rooms had central heating, radio communications and electricity, running water and sewerage. Drinking and industrial water was supplied separately from two 12-meter artesian wells! For other needs, water was taken from the Southern Bug. And sewage wastes underwent double cleaning and only after that they were discharged into the river.
The rate consisted of three tiers. The first is ground-based structures, the second is structures in the upper layer of the earth up to 8 meters deep, the third is up to 50 meters deep in a granite mass. The bunker could even withstand a nuclear bombardment. A ventilation system was created in it, and special filters purified the air. In April 1942, the facility was commissioned. The Fuhrer had a personal bunker at the headquarters, which was connected with the dungeon. Documents from the KGB archives indicate that the ground unit was built of wood and brick.
On the plan of Hitler's headquarters there are 18 objects: a swimming pool, a cinema, Bormann's apartment, a room for stenographers, Hitler's private apartment with an underground bunker, a casino, a tea house, a room for adjutants, for generals, two guest houses, a house for the press, a communications center, a bathhouse and a hairdresser's, a common bunker, an "adjutant" room, the premises of the chief of staff of the main command and the premises of the security service.
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The archive bunker diagram shows an underground structure of three floors, divided into three main parts with many different rooms.
But the railway line, along which the Fuehrer's train called right into the headquarters dungeon, was never found! Until now, a unique telephone cable: Vinnytsia-Berlin has not been discovered.
March 13, 1944 Vinnitsa was liberated from the Nazi invaders. The Werewolf was also captured. The Germans set it on fire, and only three bunkers remained intact. Above-ground structures burned down. Allegedly, they did not find important documents and material values.
The Soviet troops needed reinforcements, which did not come in time, and the Germans drove the liberators out of Vinnitsa and from the headquarters on March 16. Then the German command gave the order to bring a wagon of explosives and aerial bombs to the headquarters. The Werewolf was mined and flew into the air. The explosion was so strong that concrete blocks weighing about 20 tons were scattered over a distance of 60 meters! All systems were out of order, and the underground parts of the bunkers were flooded with water.
Rate research was conducted after the war. Then the sappers examined the underground premises, but did not seem to find anything. In 1945, Stalin ordered the headquarters to be mothballed. Lubricated with an anti-corrosion compound, evacuated the air from the floors, sealed the exhaust pipes. The exits were filled with earth with a directional explosion. Now the upper floors of the dungeon are destroyed, and the lower ones may have survived.
Stay of the Fuhrer in the "Werewolf"
"Everything passes, nothing remains but Death and Glory of exploits" (A. Hitler)
Hitler in his youth bore the party pseudonym "Her Wolf". This explains his addiction to "wolf" names. For Hitler, nine headquarters were built in different places in Europe, including five headquarters in Germany: Felsenest - Nest in the rock, Wolfschlucht - Wolf Gorge in Belgium, Wolfschanz - Wolf's Lair, Tannenberg - Spruce Mountain, Berengelle - Bear's Den, Wolfschlucht -2 - Wolf Gorge in France, Adlerhorst - Eagle's Nest. Plus a bunker under the Reichstag in Berlin. Two more were under construction - Wolfstrum - Wolf Tower and Wolfsberg - Wolf Mountain. Vinnytsia headquarters was called "Werewolf" - Werewolf.
Hitler was at headquarters near Vinnitsa three times: from July to October 1942 inclusive, from February to March 1943 and from August to September 1943. The Fuehrer did not spend so much time in any of his headquarters.
An increased security regime was in effect throughout the territory of the headquarters and nearby lands. Hitler had at his disposal a Condor-260 aircraft, which developed a speed of up to 340 km per hour and was equipped with two automatic cannons and a catapult seat, a special train of 12 cars, an armored Mercedes-Benz vehicle and a Steer all-terrain vehicle.
Hitler's day began with reports on the situation at the fronts and in Germany. Then the Fuehrer gave orders. In the Vinnytsia residence, the entire top of the military and civilian administrative apparatus was with him. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon he had lunch, worked again and after 1 am he had supper.
In "Werewolf" Hitler developed the "Stalingrad-Caucasian" operation, which failed. Here he worked on variants of the Battle of Stalingrad, issued directives to seize the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus and attack Stalingrad, set the task to seize the Murmansk railway, issued a decree on the capture of Leningrad.
It was here that the Fuhrer had the idea of creating army-sabotage units "Reichkamikaze" under the command of the saboteur Skorzeny!
On the ancient land of Podillya, the Fuhrer discussed issues of racial policy in Europe and the nuances of the "East" plan. And Borman traveled around the Vinnitsa villages, studying the customs, customs and life of Ukrainian peasants.
In the fall of 1942, the Werewolf discussed the question of how to use the female population of Ukraine and how to reduce the number of the local population. (Within three months, the Fuehrer sent to Germany about 500 thousand Vinnitsa women, "beautiful housewives" up to 35 years old). Bormann proposed the idea of "Germanizing" Ukrainian women. These abnormalities were going to populate Europe with 250 million German-speaking population by the end of the 20th century! For men, slavery and death awaited.
But bad news for the Fuhrer came to the Vinnitsa headquarters. His misanthropic plans collapsed like houses of cards, which made Hitler rage and get sick more and more. None of the dozen assassination attempts that the Wehrmacht military prepared against him in 1943-44 failed. He was good at "covering up tracks" and "confusing cards."
The Fuehrer once said: “I know why 90 percent of the historical assassination attempts were successful. The only method that should be applied is not to stick to regularity in your life. Everything is better to do at different times and suddenly."
The Soviet troops continued to advance. On December 28, 1943, Hitler ordered the destruction of the headquarters. But the bunker worked until mid-March 1944 and was blown up in front of the entrance of the Soviet troops. Servicemen who visited the headquarters immediately after the Germans left, recalled that they had found the Werewolf hot, and the ruins were still smoking …
Vinnytsia - small Berlin
"Kleine Berlin" - small Berlin, so "lovingly" the Nazis called Vinnitsa. Many of the Fuhrer's henchmen considered this city the geographical center of Europe.
In July 1942, Hitler rode a motor boat along the Southern Bug, and his deputy and personal secretary Bormann visited the surrounding villages. Goering and Himmler went to meet the Fuehrer from their headquarters almost daily. Goering loved to stroll the streets of Vinnytsia, visit the theater, meet with the troupe, which he allocated material assistance for the interior decoration of the theater and gave out food rations. What allowed the invaders to feel so at ease in the Ukrainian city?
Immediately after the occupation, the Nazis carried out a demonstrative "action" that made life easier for them as much as possible, partially breaking the internal resistance of local residents - the Germans dug up the graves of mass graves of victims of Stalinist repression and exhumed corpses. All this was done demonstratively - with photographers, media coverage and, most importantly, in front of all Vinnytsia residents.
People who recognized their relatives, friends and neighbors in the mutilated corpses removed from the ground (most of the unfortunates were beaten, tortured and raped before execution), voluntarily came to German punitive institutions and handed over Soviet activists to these newly-minted "humanists". Especially, of course, the police and the NKVD, who were left in the occupied territory for clandestine work.
Based on these facts, confirmed by archival materials, it is clear that the subversive activities of the partisans in Vinnitsa were weak - two small detachments were operating in the forests, and the Werewolf itself was inaccessible for the partisans. In parallel with the construction of the headquarters, the Nazis began their "cleansing" operation, carried out Jewish raids.
Since September 1941, about 10 thousand people were captured and shot in Vinnitsa! The April 1942 raid turned into a bloody massacre, in which about 15 thousand residents of Vinnytsia died! The executions were carried out in the regional centers and villages of Vinnytsia …
Before the headquarters was completed, the entire German command, led by their possessed Fuhrer, was located in the building of the oldest in Ukraine Vinnytsia neuropsychiatric hospital, which is located almost in the center of the city on the picturesque bank of the Southern Bug in the territory of an old park. Before "entering" this "residence", the Nazis killed more than two thousand mentally ill people who did not have time to evacuate …
Several concentration camps were created around Vinnitsa, which were actively engaged in "cleaning" the population. Some villages were simply evicted by the Nazis, and those who did not want to leave were shot on the spot.
Underground
Members of the anti-fascist organization "Red Chapel", whose names were classified, worked for Soviet intelligence. These are Colonel of the Engineering Service of the German Air Force Becker, Lieutenant Colonel of the General Staff Schulze-Boysen, senior adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs von Shelia, leading specialist of the Gestapo Lehmann, commander of the assault troops of the thirties, Captain Stenes and others. Most of these people were declassified and killed by German counterintelligence, others were awarded the Soviet Order of the Great Patriotic War for their services to the Soviet Union.
They worked for Soviet intelligence and other officials of the Third Reich. In his memoirs, the chief of political intelligence of the Reich Schellenberg noted that "in fact, in every ministry of the Reich, there were agents of the Russian secret service among high officials."
Information came to Stalin from more than 300 sources! Stalin knew that Hitler was planning to build a headquarters near Vinnitsa back in 1940, as well as about the famous Hitlerite plan "Barbarossa", but for some reason he did not react. And in August 1941, Hitler realized that he had lost his "blitzkrieg" (lightning war) and the war was dragging on. The need for a field headquarters, which would be closer to the places of hostilities and at a safe distance (in Ukraine), is especially urgent.
Not far from Vinnitsa, in the village of Voronovitsy, in the house-museum of aircraft designer A. Mozhaisky, the Abwehr - German army intelligence led by Gehlen - settled. He created an extensive network of agents, including those from Vinnytsia. For example, the Nazis recruited one of the secretaries of the Vinnytsia district party committee, Tkachenko, who later turned over many of the Vinnytsia underground workers to them. The surrounding territories were "cleaned out" to a shine, powerful guards and thousands of sentries took care of Hitler's lair, so it is not surprising that the Winners' corral and the legendary scout Nikolai Kuznetsov, abandoned in Ukraine to observe the Werewolf, were stationed in the distance and never were able to approach this area.
According to researchers, the first information about the construction of the headquarters came to Moscow in June 1942 from the Kiev underground, led by Ivan Kudrya ("Maxim"). The underground center created in Vinnitsa under the leadership of Levchenko (real name - Panchenko) also obtained information about the construction of the headquarters for Hitler and transmitted this information to Moscow in August 1942. Detailed information was obtained from captured German officers by the legendary Nikolai Kuznetsov near Rivne in December 1942.
But Moscow was silent … Partisan General Naumov, in his book "The Steppe Raid" (Kiev, 1990), wrote that all messages about the headquarters came to Moscow after Hitler left it, so there was no point in bombing the object.
In addition, the actions of individual Vinnytsia underground workers were very fragmented, and the transfer of information to Moscow for the underground activists was problematic. But this does not detract from the heroic efforts of both the official underground workers and the "amateur" activists who fought against the fascist invaders. According to German documents, about 1,860 acts of resistance were recorded, and the names of the heroes were preserved in German reports.
These are the head of the Vinnitsa railway Ivan Byala, the head of the German construction company Lani-Krez, the Pole Roman Zelensky, the head of the Vinnytsia underground Ivan Bevz, as well as his comrades - Ratushnaya, Boyko, Levinets, the owner of the safe apartment Franya Iosifovna Dudkovskaya and Vyacheslav Dudkovsky, and others Vinnytsia residents, who obtained information valuable for the course of the war and the Soviet leadership …
Werewolf legends and myths
Initially, the Germans planned to build a headquarters for the Fuhrer near Lubny in the Poltava region, but then the front line shifted, Hitler needed a more secluded place, and they decided to place the headquarters further west, near Vinnitsa.
There are other versions of the choice of a place near Vinnitsa: some believe that the place was recommended to Hitler by his "court" astrologers, with whom he used to coordinate his decisions. Specialists of the Berlin Institute of Occult Sciences came to the conclusion that the place near Vinnitsa is in the zone of negative energies of the earth, so the rate will become their accumulator, and this will help the Fuhrer to suppress the will of people at large distances.
Others believe that the idea of building a headquarters near Vinnitsa belongs to Goering, who back in 1918, being a military pilot, personally studied Podolia during the first occupation of Ukraine. Goering's biographers say that Hitler's future companion-in-arms had a local lover and a child, although this fact could hardly have mattered in choosing the place of the stake. One way or another, Goering's idea to build a headquarters near Vinnitsa, which he expressed in December 1940 and proved by the strategic and geographic features of the area, pleased Hitler.
It is still unclear if the bunker is safe for the surrounding land. There are many versions:
- The headquarters can be mined and lead to an explosion with unknown consequences for the Southern Bug and surrounding settlements. Only the Germans have a mining plan.
- Danger of radioactive contamination of the territory. There is an assumption that in the Vinnitsa bunker, Hitler fell ill with radiation sickness, which was "awarded" to him by Strizhavsky granite. They say that the concentration of radioactive substances in the bunker exceeded the permissible limit by 500 times!
- The same radiation, but associated with the fact that atomic weapons were created in the bunker. The underground premises and passages are suspiciously close to the uranium layer in the Kirovograd region. If only military operations were developed in the bunker, so why was it necessary to dig a dungeon deep into a 7-story building?
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Bacteriological weapons were developed here. Perhaps that is why the German side will not publish the information it has at the rate and is not interested in joint excavations with Ukraine?
- Something else, in connection with which neither Moscow, nor Berlin, nor Kiev consider it necessary or safe to excavate the headquarters.
But the measurements indicate that the level of radiation in the center of Vinnitsa exceeds the level of radiation on the territory of the headquarters.
According to the stories of the first military commandant of the liberated Vinnitsa I. Yu. Bekker (weekly "PIK", 1992, Vinnitsa), the bunker was a seven-story underground building, standing on granite.
A railway line approached the third floor from the top, along which the Fuehrer's train ran, and the doors of the carriages opened directly into the bunker!
The fifth floor from the top was occupied by the Fuehrer's apartments. Below are the life support systems. Only one room was not opened during the inspection of the headquarters by the Soviet special services, it is not marked on the plan and has no analogues in other headquarters of Hitler. On the results of satellite imagery, it looks like a solid black spot. This is the so-called room number 3. What is there? Reich treasures? Some kind of weapon of retaliation or dark forces with which Hitler, who shared the ideology of Satanism, came into contact?
There is evidence that the former chief of foreign policy intelligence W. Schellenberg at the Nuremberg trials showed that agents and guards from the Fuhrer's entourage in their reports described tall ape-like creatures with whom the Fuhrer periodically met in the dungeon. These testimonies are so fantastic that they are not even taken into account, although it is no secret that Hitler was fascinated by Magic and tried to get in touch with otherworldly forces.
Some authors have suggested that the headquarters were conducting experiments on people and mysterious creatures are none other than mutants whom Hitler wanted to use in his crazy purposes of mastering the World.
In 1989, on the eve of the collapse of the USSR, the "Werewolf" was suddenly remembered in Moscow, and a group was sent to Vinnitsa to start prospecting according to the "HERMES" program. The program was headed by the head of the Department of Cybernetics of the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute prof. L. Z. Bobrovnikov. The work was carried out by the MP "From". Photographs were obtained from space. They clearly show the cable lines, the location of the bunkers and their sizes, communications. We were getting ready to start excavations.
And suddenly rumors spread that the rate should not be touched, they say, it was mined and radioactive. Immediately the program ran out of funds, the work was curtailed, and Muscovites left for good. Soon the USSR ceased to exist, splitting up into independent powers. This was the end of the history of the Werewolf excavation.
In 1992, the Bulgarian fortune teller Vanga said: "Werewolf" is the city of the dead. Be afraid to disturb him! "And she told that if the dungeon was opened, a disease unknown to mankind would fall on the ground.
And according to astrologer Pavel Globa, Vinnitsa has two poles of energy: good - Pirogov's estate, and evil - Hitler's headquarters. By touching one of them, you can disrupt the energy balance and bring the city to natural disasters.
Theories have been put forward that the treasures of the disappeared Amber Room and jewelry plundered by the Nazis are kept in the bowels of the Werewolf. Many are of the opinion that the borders of the Werewolf are not limited to the Strizhavskaya meadow, but extend far beyond its borders.
Werewolf today
I stand on this incredibly beautiful land, which was chosen for his lair by one of the most terrible people who lived on Earth, and I regret that I am not a botanist. An unprecedented number of amazing trees and bushes grow around.
Not far from the territory of the headquarters, modern "new Ukrainian" cottages with colored tiles on the roofs are frozen. They are suspiciously empty. There are rumors that it is impossible to live in these houses. Some locals claim that at night a heartbreaking wolf howl is heard here, although no one has ever seen any wolves in the area.
The road built by the Germans is still relatively intact, and opposite the territory of the headquarters, on the other side of the highway, the arrow of the Obelisk, a monument erected in memory of 14 thousand people killed by the Nazis, froze up.
Next to Werewolf there is a summer camping with the romantic name “Swallow”.
In 2002, the Vinnytsia regional authorities announced a tender for the use of the ownerless ruins of the Werewolf, that is, for 10 hectares of land eight kilometers from the village of Strizhavka, Vinnytsia region. However, despite the presence of those wishing to take possession of this piece of land, the local authorities did not manage to "attach" the headquarters of the late Fuhrer - the state banned it.
By the decision of the government, a special commission studied this issue and issued a verdict that it was impossible to build any socially significant objects on the territory of the headquarters.
The topic of Hitler's rate has been discussed for many years - people talk about it, write books, articles and make films, it attracts both Ukrainians and Russians and Germans. Owned, it annoys local authorities and causes a lot of rumors and speculation.
Hitler's ruins will sooner or later be wiped off the face of the earth by time itself, but for now they are a terrible reminder to all of us that should never happen again, which should never be allowed to be - a reminder of fascism.
And yet, what is there - underground?..
Elena Ostapenko-Melenevskaya