A horrifying discovery. On February 24, archaeologists discovered the skeletons of five people, missing hands and feet, during an excavation carried out in the “Wolfsschanze” (“The Wolf’s Lair” in French), former home of Nazi leader Hermann Göring, located in Adolf Hitler’s headquarters in the East.
The remains, probably those of a family, were discovered during excavations at this site near the town of Kętrzyn in northeastern Poland, where Nazi leaders spent much of the Second World War worldwide.
While the team of researchers led by Oktavian Bartoszewski thought that the former house of the creator of the Gestapo had been searched from top to bottom, one of them noticed the presence of a floor in this burned home. 1945. He then decided to dig and found a human skull about 10 cm underground, alongside water pipes. The team immediately called the police, who went to the scene and discovered the remains of five people.
“The most horrible thing we found”
According to forensic expertise, these are the skeletons of three adults, an adolescent and a newborn. “It’s the most horrible thing we found,” Oktavian Bartoszewski said. “They were all lying next to each other, facing the same direction,” he describes.
No traces of clothing or other personal items were found, meaning the corpses were likely undressed before being buried. While it is possible that the bones of the hands and feet have decomposed, because they are thinner than the others, it cannot be ruled out that they were amputated.
Mystery remains surrounding this discovery, including the identity of the victims, the circumstances of their burial and whether Hermann Göring knew the bones were there when he lived in the house.
Top high-ranking Nazi leaders such as Hitler and Göring used this isolated and well-protected site to plan numerous military attacks. Adolf Hitler is said to have spent more time there than anywhere else during the war. It was here that the failed coup d’état of July 20, 1944, known as Operation Valkyrie, took place, aimed at assassinating the Führer.
Hermann Göring, an exceptional fighter pilot during World War I who became Adolf Hitler’s loyal lieutenant, was the highest-ranking Nazi official tried at the Nuremberg Trials. He committed suicide in prison with cyanide in 1946, just before his execution.
