Travel Guide Gierłoż

Nine kilometers east of Kętrzyn, Gierłoź is home to the Wolf's Den, a veritable fortress of bunkers that served as a base for the command center of the German offensive to the East and in which Hitler spent the majority of the war, safe from Allied bombing. Lost deep in the forest, the titanic concrete ruins stretch over 18 hectares and include 80 buildings. It was a small town that generated its own electricity, had its own railroad, airfield and cinema. It was surrounded by a network of barbed wire and minefields, hidden under vegetation: the Soviets had to defuse up to 55,000 of them.