Before the Downfall
Hitler's Years in the Wolf's Lair
Felix Bohr author Jessica Spengler translator
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Polity Press
Publishing:13th Nov '26
£25.00
This title is due to be published on 13th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
The Wolf's Lair: hidden deep in the forest of what is now north-eastern Poland, this complex of concrete bunkers and barracks, once covered in moss and draped with camouflage netting, was one of the central sites of the Second World War. After launching his invasion of the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler spent the vast majority of his time in this compound. It was here that the systematic murder of European Jewry was decided upon. It was also the site of Claus von Stauffenberg's failed assassination attempt on 20 July 1944, which the dictator survived with just minor injuries. And it is where Hitler, barricading himself away from the world, sank into depression and malaise after Germany's defeat at Stalingrad. But, while many people may be familiar with the name, few people have a clear idea of the compound itself, and of the pivotal events that unfolded there over almost three and a half years.
Drawing on eye-witness accounts and newly available documents, Felix Bohr reconstructs the Wolf's Lair in vivid detail and shows what everyday life was like in this secretive and secluded compound. Some two thousand people lived in the complex, to which a café, sauna, brewery and cinema were added over the years. What can we learn about Hitler's personality from the first-hand accounts of secretaries, officers, cooks and servants? And how did the increasingly chaotic environment and the paranoid atmosphere in this isolated complex influence the decisions that were made there? Bohr's detailed descriptions provide a precise analysis of the upper echelons of the Nazi regime, which, between strolls through the forest and regular teatimes, plotted Germany's gruesome crimes against humanity.
"With Felix Bohr's magisterial Before the Downfall, we can finally understand how Hitler brought the world to the gates of hell. Adolf Hitler killed from a distance, from the fantasy world he had erected in his hideouts and retreats. To comprehend how Hitler orchestrated his war of extermination and genocide, we need to look at that world. Bohr's book for the first time comprehensively recreates and analyses the darkest of all of Hitler's worlds: that of the Wolf's Lair, Hitler's military HQ deep in the woods of East Prussia. Ever since Hugh Trevor-Roper's chilling account of Hitler's final days in the bunker, the world has been waiting for a corresponding account of Hitler's more than 800 days in the Wolf's Lair. That book is finally here."
Thomas Weber, University of Aberdeen
"Drawing on diaries, memoirs and other eyewitness accounts, Before the Downfall reconstructs everyday life in the Führer's infamous East Prussian headquarters. Far from humanizing, much less romanticizing, Hitler and his entourage, Bohr shows how ideological extremism, bureaucratic chaos and mass murder were propagated within and normalized by adherence to the daily routines of the Wolf's Lair."
Eric Kurlander, Stetson University
"Between June 1941 and November 1944, the Wolf's Lair was not just the location from which the battles on the Eastern Front were directed but was, for weeks and months at a time, Hitler's residence and therefore the beating heart of the Nazi Empire. It was in this mosquito-infested redoubt, rather than in Berlin or Berchtesgaden, that many of the regime's most fateful decisions were taken, both military and political, including the final launch of the Holocaust. In Felix Bohr's extraordinary book Before the Downfall, he describes in fascinating and ultimately chilling detail how the Wolf's Lair was built, how it functioned, the bizarre cast of flatterers and place-seekers who flocked there alongside the essential military staff, and most of all how Adolf Hitler, who spent so much time there, dominated the place. We are granted intimate witness to his illnesses, to his private habits, to his changing moods – brutal, terrifying dictator one moment, courtly Austrian gentleman the next – and last, but not least, the way that the Wolf's Lair's unique environment itself influenced Hitler's decisions and behaviour at crucial times."
Frederick Taylor, author of 1939: A People's History of the Coming of the Second World War
ISBN: 9781509573912
Dimensions: 234mm x 163mm x 24mm
Weight: 510g
256 pages