Why do we say that this airfield was lucky for some and unlucky for others?
UNLUCKY - Dr. Fritz Todt came to Wolfsschanze and told Hitler that he had lost the war in the east. As he was departing on 8 Feb. 1942, a very unlucky thing happened - his plane was about 300 meters in the air and it blew up! All aboard, including Dr. Todt, were killed. Unlucky? Or just not smart to board a plane right after telling the Führer he had lost the war? We'll never know for sure.
This is the very road on which these figures of history travelled.......the same road, the same cobblestones - this IS history!
LUCKY - Albert Speer was going to join Fritz Todt for the flight back to Berlin, but he had arrived Wolfsschanze just a few hours earlier and was too tired to make the trip. He was still at Wolfsschanze, resting, when the plane blew up in mid air and crashed. Was he lucky? Or did someone suggest he should remain behind at Wolfsschanze? We'll never know that either.
UNLUCKY - When von Stauffenberg heard his bomb detonate at the July 1944 assassination attempt, he rushed down this very road to a plane waiting right here, which took him to Berlin where he loudly announced 'Hitler is dead and we are now in charge'. He was informed that 'No, he isn't....and no, you aren't'. Without trial or hearing, von Stauffenberg was stood up against a wall and shot, presumably to prevent him from revealing all the others involved in the plot. Unlucky? For von Stauffenberg, it sure was.
The airport is now privately owned and is apparently being slowly turned into a museum as most of the items seen here are from the Soviet times, well after the war years. However, there is a row of these concrete fixtures along the perimeter, each with a clinched over steel strap that we believe were used as anchors for fence posts during the war years.
Above left - USMC combat veteran BILL NAPIER (2290-C/LIFE-1992) is walking in history.
Above left - where we are.
Above right - top of the line Soviet technology................more or less
Above left - there was a long line of these memorials to pilots who crashed; Soviet era.
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Above right and both below - these Antonov AN-2 aircraft are suddenly in demand - and these are parked in a place of history.
Above right - CHUCK THOMPSON (519-1988) looks over this MiG 21.....definitely NOT from the war years.
Check back tomorrow - more photos to be added daily.
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