Hitler’s switchboard
This unusual telephone exchange comes from the Nazi leader’s ‘Wolf’s Lair’ and contains direct lines to some of the most evil figures in history
This unusual telephone exchange was housed in the ‘Wolf’s Lair’
The ‘Wolf’s Lair’ was the nickname for Adolf Hitler’s Supreme Command Headquarters, which was located near Rastenburg in East Prussia (now Poland). The complex was one of several Führerhauptquartiere (Führer Headquarters) that were built in parts of Eastern Europe for the start of Operation Barbarossa in 1941, but the Rastenburg site was Hitler’s favourite. The Nazi leader spent over 800 days at the Wolf’s Lair and over 2,000 military staff, guards and support personnel worked there.
The headquarters was located in dense woodland, which provided effective camouflage from aerial reconnaissance, and consisted of bunkers that were fortified with barbed wire and 50,000 mines. Despite its formidable fortifications, the site was the scene of the failed ’20 July Plot’ (commonly known as ‘Operation Valkyrie’) in 1944 to assassinate Hitler. The Wolf’s Lair was ultimately abandoned in November 1944 when Soviet troops approached East Prussia.
Hitler held conferences and coordinated operations on the Eastern Front from a windowless bunker in the Wolf’s Lair, and could easily access his headquarters from a railway line in the middle of the site. To keep in touch with his high-ranking subordinates, Hitler also had a sophisticated telephone exchange that included this pictured switchboard. Although the switchboard is incomplete, it includes infamous war criminals from the Nazi military forces, including Hermann Göring (head of the Luftwaffe), Heinrich Himmler (head of the SS), Martin Bormann (head of the Nazi Party Chancellery), Alfred Jodl (chief-of-staff of the Wehrmacht) and Wilhelm Keitel (commander-inchief of the Armed Forces High Command).
“HITLER HELD CONFERENCES AND COORDINATED MAJOR OPERATIONS ON THE EASTERN FRONT FROM A WINDOWLESS BUNKER IN THE WOLF’S LAIR”