Hitler's Secret Headquarters: the Fuhrer's Wartime Bases, from the Invasion of France to the Berlin Bunker

This is the first and most comprehensive record of all Hitler's bunkers and command centres v including those built and used, those under construction, and those that never got past planning v throughout World War II. Between 1939 and 1945 almost twenty Fnhrerhaupt-Quartier were completed. At the end of the war numerous projects were being built and countless other suitable sites were being investigated. While observing the crushing early campaigns in Poland and Yugoslavia from special µFnhrer-trains', Hitler made the decision that for the invasion of France, his foray into the Soviet Union and the defence of the Atlantic coastline against Allied counter-attacks, he needed solid, impenetrable headquarters. To that end 20,000 workers were employed in the construction of a string of concrete bunkers that stretched from the middle of France deep into the Ukraine. Throughout the course of the war the bunkers allowed Hitler to evade successfully Allied detection and afforded him an extraordinary level of personal protection. Franz W. Seidler and Dieter Zeigert have pieced together the history of Hitler's secret headquarters thanks to the diaries of Siegfried Schmelcher, head of the construction project, and Leo Muller, site supervisor, both of whom had unparalleled knowledge of a process that involved the movemmennt of over a quarter of a million cubic metres of concrete. Their records include 158 illustrations, documents and diagrams, as well as detailed structural and material references, cutaway plans, safety instructions and codenames. This unique book is about an extraordinary and previously undocumented aspect of World War II.