Four-Storey Underground Bunker Found at Hitler's Wolfsschanze Site Near Vinnytsia

Scientists previously doubted whether anything had survived there.

In the urban-type settlement of Strizhavka in Vinnytsia Region, where one of Adolf Hitler's headquarters, Werwolf, was located during World War II, an underground four-storey building was discovered.

This was reported by the Vinnytsia Regional Museum of Local Lore.

According to a report by the Kyiv-based Institute of Applied Problems of Ecology, Geophysics and Geochemistry, with which the museum studied the area of Hitler's headquarters, a signal from a man-made underground structure is recorded on the site. It is a four-storey building at a depth of 9.96 to 11.75 m with concrete floors and tunnels.

The height of the rooms reaches 1.8 m. Void signals are recorded at four depth intervals:

1. 3.01 — 4.82 m
2. 5.22 — 7.01 m,
   
3. 7.55 — 9.36 m,
   
4. 9.94 — 11.76 m.
   

On the first and second levels of voids from the surface, gas signals are also recorded—argon and radon. Scientists want to conduct additional research for the third and fourth levels.

Werwolf — one of Adolf Hitler's headquarters, located 8 km north of the city of Vinnytsia. It operated from 16 July 1942 to 15 March 1944, after which German troops blew up the entrances to the bunker during their retreat.

As the director of the Vinnytsia Regional Museum of Local Lore, Yekaterina Vysotskaya, told the newspaper Den, when the Historical and Memorial Complex of the Victims of Nazism was only opening at the site of the headquarters in 2011, there were no documents or even photographs of these places. The last large-scale studies were conducted by Moscow scientists in the 1980s, but they never presented their findings.

"For quite a long time the idea prevailed that when the headquarters were blown up, not only the surface but also the underground rooms were destroyed. — Vysotskaya noted. — But last year we met with the director of the Institute of Applied Problems of Ecology, Geophysics and Geochemistry, Nikolai Yakimchuk. He took several photos and reported that there is something underground."

Scientists conducted a two-stage study of 24 hectares of territory using mobile geophysical survey technology, including the method of frequency-resonance processing, interpretation of satellite image data, and ground-based geoelectric methods of vertical electro-resonance sounding.

Specialists from the capital scanned the territory, took samples of soil, concrete and sand, and photographed a pipe from a cleared sewer well.

"Thanks to the work done, we now know for sure that there is a large underground space at the headquarters," the museum director said. — "Four storeys of the bunker with tunnels were found in the surveyed area. The two upper floors, which are closer to the surface, are filled with gases (argon and radon), and the two lower ones with an unknown mixture of gases with potassium and francium."

However, according to Vysotskaya, it is too early to talk about any excavations. It is unknown exactly which substances are in the bunker and whether they are safe.

Earlier, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier apologised for the "Nazi tyranny".