Ilse Hirsch, born in 1922 in Hamm, was a Nazi resistance fighter who played a key role in the assassination of Franz Oppenhof the mayor of Aachen in the later days of World War Two.

Born in 1922, Ilse Hirsch  joined the League of German Girl s  , part of the Hitler Youth movement , when she was 16 years old and became one of the organisation’s leaders. In 1945 she became involved with the Nazi resistance force, dubbed ’The Werewolves’ , whose mission was to work behind enemy lines as the Allies advanced into Germany. 

In a whirlwind recruiting campaign he collected almost 5,000 young militants by year’s end and established a clandestine training complex in medieval Hülchrath Castle,  some 45 miles northeast of Aachen. The surrounding village was not only isolated, but also conveniently near the Western Front, where the battered Allies were soon embroiled in the Battle of the Bulge and unlikely to launch any major offensives before spring. Just after Christmas, Prützmann and his officers code-named the Aachen mission Operation Carnival and began selecting a team. Chosen to command the squad was 30-something SS-Untersturmführer Herbert Wenzel,

Hirsch was selected to take part in Operation Carnival  , a mission to assassinate Dr. Franz Oppenhoff , who had recently been appointed mayor of Aachen by the Americans who had taken control of the city.

Oppenhoff was considered a traitor and a collaborationist by the Nazi regime, and his assassination, code named Unternehmen Karneval (“Operation Carnival”), was ordered by Heinrich Himmler,  planned by SS Obergruppenführer Hans Adolf Prutzmann   , and carried out by an assassination unit composed of four SS men and two members of the Hitler Youth.

Hirsch knew the ground well and acted as a guide for the team. Along with 5 other Werewolves she was parachuted in near Aachen and guided them to Oppenhoff’s countryside home outside the city. Oppenhoff was shot by SS-Unterscharführer Joseph Leitgeb  from Innsbruck, on the steps of his home , after which Hirsch attempted to lead the Werewolves to safety. However she caught her foot on a trip-wire and triggered a landmine, gravely injuring her and killing Leitgeb.

Hirch’s  injuries kept her in hospital for a long time but she eventually returned home. In 1949 the surviving members of the team, barring one, were arrested and became the subject of Aachen ‘Werewolf Trial’.  All were found guilty and sentenced to 1-4 years in prison, but Hirsch was released. Following the war Hirsch continued to live in the Aachen area, marrying and having two sons.

Franz Oppenhoff is buried with his wife Irmgard, born Nimax, who died age 92 in 2001, on the Hauptfriedhof of Aachen.

The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European theatre of World War II. Beginning on 12 January 1945, the Red Army breached the German front as a result of the Vistula-Oder Offensive  and advanced westward as much as 40 kilometres (25 miles) a day through East Prussia, Lower Silesia , East Pomeria, and Upper Silesia, temporarily halting on a line 60 km (37 mi) east of Berlin along the Oder River. When the offensive resumed, two Soviet fronts, army groups attacked Berlin from the east and south, while a third overran German forces positioned north of Berlin. The battle within the city lasted from 20 April until the morning of 2 May.

The three Soviet fronts had altogether 2.5 million men (including 78,556 soldiers of the 1st Polish Army), 6,250 tanks, 7,500 aircraft, 41,600 artillery pieces and mortars, 3,255 truck-mounted Katyusha rocket launchers (nicknamed ‘Stalin’s Pipe Organs’), and 95,383 motor vehicles, many manufactured in the US

The first defensive preparations at the outskirts of Berlin were made on 20 March, when the newly appointed commander of Army Group Vistula, General Gotthard Heinrici,  correctly anticipated that the main Soviet thrust would be made over the Oder River. Before the main battle in Berlin commenced, the Soviets managed to encircle the city as a result of their success in the battles of the Seelow Heights and Halbe. During 20 April 1945, the 1^st Belorussian Front led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov started shelling Berlin’s city centre, while Marshal Ivan Konev’s 1^st Ukrainian Front had pushed from the south through the last formations of Army Group Centre under Generalfeldmarschall der Gebirgstruppe, Ferdinand Schörner. The German defences, roughly 45,000 soldiers, were mainly led by Helmuth Weidling  and consisted of several depleted, badly equipped, and disorganised Wehrmacht and Waffen SS  divisions, the latter of which included many SS foreign volunteers, many French, Dutch, Belgium, as well as poorly trained Volkssturm and Hitler Youth members. Within the next few days, the Soviets rapidly advanced through the city and reached the city centre where close-quarters combat raged. Helmuth Weidling died in captivity on 17-11-1955, age 64 in Russia.

Before the battle was over, German Führer Adolf Hitler  and a number of his followers committed suicide. The city’s defenders finally surrendered on 2 May; however, fighting continued to the north-west, west, and south-west of the city until the end of the war in Europe on 8 May (9 May in the Soviet Union) as German units fought westward so that they could surrender to the Western Allies rather than to the Soviets.

 Soviet forces sustained 81,116 dead for the entire operation, which included the battles of Seelow Heights and the Halbe; another 280,251 were reported wounded or sick during the operational period.[123][h] The operation also cost the Soviets about 1,997 tanks and SPGs. Krivosheev noted: “All losses of arms and equipment are counted as irrecoverable losses, i.e. beyond economic repair or no longer serviceable”. Soviet estimates based on kill claims placed German losses at 458,080 killed and 479,298 captured, but German research puts the number of dead at approximately 92,000 – 100,000. The number of civilian casualties is unknown, but 125,000 are estimated to have perished during the entire operation

Hitler’s retreat in the mountains of Bavaria was one of the most important centers of government in the Third Reich. Hitler spent more time in the Berghof than in his Berlin office.

The Berghof began as a much smaller chalet called Haus Wachenfeld, a holiday home built in 1916 (or 1917) by Kommerzienrat Otto Winter, a businessman from Buxtehude. This was located near the Platterhof , the former Pension Moritz  where Hitler had stayed in 1922–23. By 1926, the family running the Pension had left and Hitler did not like the new owner. He moved first to the Marineheim and then to a hotel in Berchtesgaden, the Deutsches Haus, where he dictated the second volume of Mein Kampf in the summer of 1926. Hitler met his alleged lover Maria “Mimi” Reiter,  who worked in a shop on the ground floor of the hotel, during another visit in autumn 1926. In 1928, Winter’s widow rented Haus Wachenfeld to Hitler and his half-sister Angela  came to live there as housekeeper, although she left soon after her daughter Geli Raubal’s 1931 death in Hitler’s Munich apartment 

By 1933 Hitler had purchased Haus Wachenfeld with funds he received from the sale of his political manifesto Mein Kampf.

The small chalet-style building was refurbished and much expanded during 1935–36 by architect Alois Degano when it was renamed The Berghof. A large terrace was built and featured big, colorful, resort-style canvas umbrellas.

It was in this over sized chalet that Hitler planned the invasions of Poland, France and Russia and the events that would change the lives of millions.

Adolf Hitler’s interest in the hills above Berchtesgaden began in 1923, when he came to visit his friend and mentor, Dietrich Eckart,  who was living at the Platterhof Hotel. Hitler traveled there under the name of “Herr Wolf” and held meetings with supporters in local guesthouses.

After he was released from Landsberg prison in 1926, following his unsuccessful coup in Munich, he came back to the Obersalzberg.

He stayed in a small cabin (no longer there) on the mountain near the Platterhof. The remainder of Mein Kampf was written during his visit there.

In 1928, Hitler rented a pretty, alpine-style vacation home, Haus Wachenfeld, next door to the Hotel zum Türken.

After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Hitler purchased the house from the money he had made from Mein Kampf (a best seller) and lived there for a couple of years, with his mistress Eva Braun and their dogs, before starting a major expansion of the building.

The Berghof.

The expansion of the house was carried out in 1935 and 1936. The result was another larger, alpine-style residence that he named “The Berghof”, or “mountain farm”.
A large area of the mountain was taken over by the Nazis and numerous buildings were built on the rolling farmland. The neighbors for miles around were bought out, including families who had lived on the mountain for generations.

Hitler Greets the Public.

Hitler’s home became quite a tourist attraction. Crowds of admirers used to wait at the end of the driveway for a chance to greet the Führer. Heinrich Hoffmann,  Hitler’s official photographer, took lots of photos of these scenes.

He especially liked greeting the children, who came to visit in the thousands. Various youth groups would visit the Berghof and meet the Führer. Below, Hitler got a visit from the Bund Deutscher Mädel (BDM), or League of German Girls, the feminine version of the Hitler Youth, in July, 1939. They had tea on the Berghof terrace.

SS Guards

The SS guarding Hitler were stationed in the barracks further up the hill (now an open field with a Segway track for guests of the Kempinski Hotel Berchtesgaden, formerly the Intercontinental). The SS withdrew just hours before the American soldiers arrived. Barracks Square, as it was called, was heavily damaged in the bombing; no traces are left now.

Famous visitors.

British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler at the Berghof in 1938 during the negotiations that lead to the signing of the Munich Agreement handing part of Czechoslovakia over to Germany (“peace for our time”). Former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George had met with Hitler at the Berghof in 1936. Other important guests were received there as well, including Benito Mussolini and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Dogs and Children.

Other favorite photographic themes at the Berghof, some produced for public consumption and others just candid shots, were photos of Hitler with small children and Hitler with his dog, Blondi.

The Führer and the Children.

According to those who knew him, Hitler was genuinely fond of children and enjoyed having them visit at his mountain home. When the war ended, the Berghof was damaged but mostly intact in spite of the heaving bombing raid on the Obersalzberg on April 25, 1945.

Pff Yes we were their many times and have to search for the pictures as the

Eight women, all the same types, that are thought, possibly, to have been intimate with Hitler, attempted suicide:

Maria ” Mimi” Reiter   his first love, the thirty-seven-year-old Adolf became infatuated with Mitzi, a sixteen-year-old Munich shop girl. He proposed marriage but said his “duty and mission” consumed him and she would have to wait for him.She tried to hang herself in 1928 in Berchtesgaden with a clothesline as Hitler ended the relation suspected from sex with an underage girl, She had another tryst with Hitler in 1931, about which she said, “I let everything happen. I had never been so happy as I was that night”. He asked her to be his mistress and replace Eva Braun, but she insisted on marriage and the two parted.

Angelika “Geli” Raubal,  Hitler’s nice, in 1931 begged her possessive uncle to allow her to leave Munich and go to Vienna to study, and they had a terrible row. Hitler left Munich and she shot herself with Hitler’s Walter PPK 7.65 pistol in his study.

Eva  Braun tried twice to suicide in 1932 and 1935 before succeeding in 1945, Lonely and disappointed of the endless waiting, Eva Braun first attempted suicide on 01-02-1932 at the age of 20 by shooting herself in the neck with her father’s pistol. The bullet almost hit her artery, but she recovered. She even could make a phonecall directly after and was zo smart to call Dr. Wilhelm Plate, a brother in law of Heinrich Hoffmann and Hitler soon knew what was going on, Eva had speculated well. She attempted suicide a second time on 28-05-1935 by taking an overdose of Phanodorm, 20 pills, her sister Ilse found her unconcious. Married to Hitler in April 1945 she bit into a pill of cyanide and he shot himself with the same PPK 7.65 that had killed his niece.
Frau Inge Ley,

     a dancer, actress and socialite and the wife of volatile alcoholic Robert Ley, the director of the Strength Though Joy Program.KDF. Inga was said to be infatuated with Hitler for a time. One evening, she escaped from her domineering husband and appeared at Hitler’s door. Whether the two became lovers is unknown, but she eventually returned to her husband. Later in her life she survived a difficult childbirth, but seems to have been saddled with a consuming depression and took her own life with a pistol in 1942.

Renaté Müller , a siren of German films, held Hitler’s fascination for a time. He said she was the epitome of the blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan. Friends said she didn’t return the man’s affections. Hitler pressured her to make propaganda films. Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels intensified the pressure and had her hounded by the Gestapo. After two agents arrived at her building she either threw herself from her window or was pushed. No one will ever know. Renate Müller was cremated in Wilmersdorf Krematorium and buried on the Parkfriedhof Lichterfelde, Berlin, Steglitz.

Erna Hanfstaengl sister of Hitler favorite Ernst Hanfstaegl may have been his next infatuation. Immediately following his 1923 botched coup d’état (the Beer Hall Putsch), Hitler was spirited away in a car and hidden from authorities at a country house owned by the well-connected Hanfstaengl Family. There, Erna Hanfstaengl cared for him. She repeatedly talked him out of taking his own life as he sat on the edge of a bed toying with a revolver. Whether they ever had a romantic involvement can be doubted. While her society friends would later tease her about her new “suitor”, she was most probably out of his league. Both she and her brother later became disillusioned with Hitler and the Nazi Party. Her brother defected to the US, eventually to become an advisor to FDR on the Nazis, and Erna conspired with Heinrich Himmler to kidnap Hitler and negotiate a peace with the British from Paris. Obviously nothing came of the plot.

Martha Dodd  was the daughter of William Dodd, the American Ambassador to Germany. She may have had the most bizarre life story of any of Hitler’s possible lovers. While living in Berlin, she became infatuated with Hitler and the Nazi Party. One of her lovers, Ernst Hanfstaengl the brother of Erna mentioned above), encouraged a romantic relationship between Dodd and Hitler, but it seems little came of it. She became disillusioned with the party after the carnage of the “Night of the Long Knives” and attempted suicide by slitting her wrists. Upon returning to Washington, Martha did a political about-face, joined the radical left, and using her access to her father and other government officials, became a spy for the Soviet Union. She died in Prague in 1990.

Unity Mitford , an English debutante and ardent supporter of the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley and his Black Shirts, spent ten months stalking Adolf Hitler in Munich. Hitler, always of predictable habits, frequented the Osteria Bavaria Café. attempted suicide in 1939. In 1939, when war with Britain was declared, Unity went to the Englisher Garden, Munich’s huge urban park, and shot herself in the head with a pearl-handled pistol given to her by Hitler for her protection. She survived the suicide attempt and it was not until 1948 that she died in the UK from complications caused by the bullet still lodged in her skull.