Alpha Threat by Ron Smoak Read Free Book Online Page A

the passenger car and boarded just as the conductor began waving his lamp to signal it was clear to move the train.   They settled in as the sun broke over the horizon.   Rauch looked out the window, amazed that the mass of SS troops that were once milling around had now also boarded the train.  
    Again the sight of the official Nazi markings on the crates crossed his mind.   What was in those crates that warranted this many crack SS troops to guard it?   Why were the crates stored in the bunker?   Why was that bunker there?   The Nazis did not build such structures and guard them with SS troops for a non-specific reason.   Was it really Hitler’s hiding place after the war?    His mind struggled with the questions.   Rauch imagined the amount of manpower that building such a structure required; and the cost.  
    Actually the bunker facility, known as S/III, was a very important but secret location for the German high command.   Most of the locals had no idea the complex was even there.    The facility was built about 300 kilometers southwest of Berlin in the Jonas Valley.   The area known locally as Jonastal was a series of high, rocky cliffs overlooking the valley below.   The main complex that Rauch and Schneider had visited was imbedded in a hill on the north side of the valley between Crawinkel and Arnstadt.  
    Construction of the hideaway was thought to have begun in early fall of 1944 using forced labor from the nearby Ohrdruf labor camp.   As part of the giant Buchenwald concentration camp, the Ohrdruf camp supplied nearly 18,000 laborers each day to work on the system of twenty-five tunnels, some over a mile and a half long.  
    The underground facilities were primarily built as emergency headquarters for Hitler and his high command if they had to retreat from Berlin.   Additionally some of Germany’s best and brightest scientists were brought there to do their research.  
    Construction debris from the facilities was meticulously removed from the site and spread widely across areas far from the complex to hide its location.   To further ensure security, most of the concentration camp workers were later exterminated at Buchenwald.   The Germans liked their secrets kept and did not care who perished to keep them secret.  
    The bunker facility was designed to be a stronghold from the very beginning.   Security was paramount since it would house the Führer.   Huge reinforced concrete walls and massive steel blast doors were the norm.   Although simple and utilitarian for the most part, there were several areas built with such elegance that one would think you were in one of the finest hotels in Paris.   Lush carpets, mahogany paneling and priceless works of art were the accoutrements of the elegant areas.   It was essentially an underground city with barracks, dining halls, kitchens, work and storage rooms and laboratories.    There were also recreation areas, theaters and massive garages.   The entire complex was centrally heated and air-conditioned and had a modern sewage system.  
    Since the site was so secure, many of the stolen artifacts and art works pilfered from all across Europe were also stored here.  
    After the war, the complex fell under the control of the Soviets and became part of East Germany.   Most of the information regarding the area is still held as a state secret by the Russian government.   Today most of the complex has been dynamited, sealing the underground spaces forever.   The exact purpose of most of the complex was never known, at least to the Allies.
     

     

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
     
    April 4, 1945
     
    Outside Rostock, Germany;   6:45 a.m.
     
     
     
    The entire trip took several days.   They crossed the heart of Germany.   What once was a beautiful countryside showed the strain of five years of war.   Each stop was quick, but military convoys and troop movements were the one constant in each town or city through which they passed.  
    Reroutes were