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I get goosebumps and my stomach sinks when I stand at the entrance to the Wolf’s Lair, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s Polish war headquarters.
Here the Führer lived from 1940 to 1944, directing the Nazis in World War II and the Holocaust that led to the deaths of some 6 million European Jews.
Overall, World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history, killing some 70 million to 85 million people.
Here at the entrance to Hitler’s headquarters, my father stood guard, some 80 years ago. He told me about it, once I was old enough.

He was a sergeant in the Greater Germany Infantry Regiment. His job involved greeting incoming and outgoing Nazi celebrities briskly, while strictly controlling less famous visitors.
I did not know much more about my father’s years during the war, until that day in the Wolf’s Lair.
Then I became curious about what he thought about that time, and how he survived.
Like many from his generation, he seldom spoke about the Nazi dictatorship.
It was not until years later, while watching a TV documentary on the Stauffenberg assassination attempt, that he casually mentioned: “I experienced that myself back then. You cannot imagine what was going on with us guards.”
Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg was a key figure in a conspiracy to kill Hitler in July 1944.
He placed the explosive charge that was to rid Germany of the Führer, but the plot failed. All involved were jailed, tortured and executed after show trials.
My father never said anything more than those two dry sentences about one of the most important events in Germany’s recent history.


The Wolf’s Lair, in Poland, has a name that speaks volumes about this military situation centre for the German Wehrmacht, as the armed forces were known at the time.
For decades, the huge bunker complex hidden in the dense forest of Ketrzyn, in northeastern Poland, lay abandoned and forgotten. However, it has since become a place of remembrance.
Think of places where we remember the victims of the war, such as the former concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald; or where we remember the perpetrators, at the Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg.
A place like the Wolf’s Lair symbolises both victims and perpetrators.
“A lot of emphasis has been placed here on a proper reappraisal of this period,” says teacher Agnieszka Zduniak, who guides me through the complex.
The barracks’ map room, where von Stauffenberg carried out the assassination attempt on Hitler, has been meticulously reconstructed by the Polish administration of the Wolf’s Lair.
A life-size figure of Hitler stands in front of a heavy oak table where Stauffenberg placed his briefcase containing explosives before leaving the map room, on a pretext.
Tragically, though the bomb exploded, the large table mostly shielded Hitler, who only suffered minor injuries.
Four officers who took part in the briefing were killed. Von Stauffenberg and three of his co-conspirators were arrested and executed in Berlin just hours after the failed assassination attempt.

The Wolf’s Lair was long virtually the second capital of the Third Reich, alongside Berlin.
Soon after the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Hitler had his command centre set up in Masuria, in what was then East Prussia.
The headquarters was made up of 50 bunkers, 70 barracks for accommodation for the guards and Hitler’s entourage, two airfields, a railway station, and various positions for anti-aircraft guns.
Hitler spent more than 900 days here, directing the campaign of annihilation against the Soviet Union and brutal suppression of the Warsaw Uprising.
When Russian troops advanced into East Prussia in 1945, the dictator gave the order to raze the complex to the ground.
To this day, a vast concrete wasteland bears witness to the megalomania and contempt for humanity of the Nazi dictatorship.












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The concrete walls and ceilings of the Wolf’s Lair were up to nine metres (30 feet) thick to protect leading figures of the Nazi movement such as Hermann Göring and foreign state guests such as the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini and the Romanian leader Ion Antonescu.
The stories told by Zduniak and her colleague Iwona Krzyskowska make life in the bunker a little more tangible, sharing anecdotes that are not only part of contemporary history, but also a piece of my family history.
Their tales speak volumes. Because Hitler suffered from insomnia, his closest associates often had to listen to his endless monologues until dawn.
Whatever he said was written down by a small army of stenographers because Hitler believed he had to record it for posterity. Most of the notes were burnt, however. Only 1 per cent survived and are stored in the German Federal Archives.












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“Hitler didn’t like living in the bunker even though he could live in 80 square metres [860 square feet] of wood-panelled rooms with painted window and door simulations,” Zduniak says.
He himself described his living conditions as “modest” and boasted that he lived “like his soldiers”, overlooking the fact that they were fighting for their lives, not protected by such a massive concrete bunker.
My father and his comrades from the guard team would not have stood a chance in an air raid as their quarters were far outside the bunker area, I realise as I walk around the grounds.
Those who had to protect Hitler were never protected themselves.
Hitler was especially fond of his shepherd dog Blondi, which he trained in a meadow in front of his bunker and walked for hours on end.
“He once said that his dog was more important to him than all the people around him,” says Agnieszka – a sentence that says everything about a dictator who was responsible for the deaths of so many millions of people.












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The Wolf’s Lair attracts 340,000 visitors every year, with many from Germany.
Most visitors are driven by genuine historical interest and curiosity.
However, amid the recent rise in far-right sentiment across Europe, there are concerns that some may be newly affiliated or former Nazis, though the exact numbers remain unclear.


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Inside Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair, his World War II HQ and where he was almost assassinated

The Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s World War II headquarter and site fo the failed Stauffenberg assassination attempt, is hidden in dense forest close to Poland’s border with Russia. Photo: Instagram/dushi_travel

A memorial stone is displayed at the Wolf’s Lair’s storage barracks in memory of the failed assassination attempt of Hitler on July 20, 1944. Photo: Instagram/chr.haack

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Travel & Leisure

The son of a former Nazi guard at the Wolf’s Lair visits Hitler’s World War II Polish headquarters, site of a failed assassination attempt


The son of a former Nazi guard at the Wolf’s Lair visits Hitler’s World War II Polish headquarters, site of a failed assassination attempt.


War and conflict

Poland

History