The Vorbunker was an underground concrete structure originally intended to be a temporary
air-raid shelter for Adolf Hitler and his guards and servants.
It was located behind the large reception hall that was added onto the old Reich Chancellery,
in Berlin, Germany, in 1936.
The bunker was officially called the "Reich Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter" until 1943,
when the complex was expanded with the addition of the Führerbunker, located one level below.
On 16 January 1945, Hitler moved into the Führerbunker.
He was joined by his senior staff, including Martin Bormann.
Later, Eva Braun and Joseph Goebbels moved into the Führerbunker while Magda Goebbels
and their six children took residence in the upper Vorbunker.
The Goebbels family lived in the Vorbunker until their deaths on 1 May 1945.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler decided to expand the Reich Chancellery, which he considered too
small for his needs.
On 21 July 1935, Leonhard Gall submitted plans for a large reception hall to be built onto
the old Chancellery.
The drawings were unique because of the large cellar that led a further one-and-a-half meters
down to a bunker which later became known as the Vorbunker.
The Vorbunker's roof was 1.6 meters thick, twice as thick as that of the bunker underneath
the nearby Air Ministry building.
The thick walls of the Vorbunker supported the weight of the reception hall overhead.
It had three entry points, to the north, west, and south.
Construction was completed in 1936.
It had 12 rooms branching out from a single corridor.
The Führerbunker was built by the Hochtief company as part of an extensive program of
subterranean construction in Berlin.
It was finished by 1944 and was connected to the Vorbunker by a stairway set at right
angles.
The two bunkers could be closed off from each other by a bulkhead and steel door.
A permanent guard detail was posted by the steel door.
The Führerbunker was located about 8.5 metres beneath the garden of the old Reich Chancellery,
120 meters north of the new Reich Chancellery building at Voßstraße 6.
The Führerbunker was located 2.5 meters lower than the Vorbunker and to the west-southwest
of it.
The accommodations for Hitler were moved to the Führerbunker, and by February 1945 it
had been decorated with high-quality furniture taken from the Chancellery, along with several
framed oil paintings.
To carry out the air raid drills, a precise regulation is required for the three office
buildings, Wilhelmstraße 77, Wilhelmstraße 78 and Voßstraße 1 ... The officials and
residents of Wilhelmstraße 78 and Voßstraße 1 can go to the substitute shelters in Wilhelmstraße
78 and Voßstraße 1.
The inhabitants of the Reich Chancellor House, Wilhelmstraße 77, will use the shelter under
the ballroom.
The only residents of Wilhelmstraße 77 were Hitler and his bodyguards, adjutants, orderlies
and servants.
It is unknown if the Vorbunker was used before January 1945.
Hitler transferred his headquarters to the Führerbunker in Berlin on 16 January 1945,
where he remained until the end of April.
Thereafter, the Vorbunker was used by various military officers and housed men from Hitler's
personal bodyguard.
In April 1945, as the Battle in Berlin raged on, Joseph Goebbels showed his strong support
for Hitler by moving his family into the Vorbunker.
He occupied a room in the Führerbunker which had recently been vacated by Hitler's personal
physician, Theodor Morell.
Two rooms in the Vorbunker were used for food supply.
Constanze Manziarly, Hitler's personal cook/dietitian, made meals in the kitchen, which was equipped
with a refrigerator and a wine store.
On the evening of 1 May 1945, Goebbels arranged for an SS dentist, Helmut Kunz, to inject
his six children with morphine so that when they were unconscious, an ampule of cyanide
could be crushed in each of their mouths.
According to Kunz's later testimony, he gave the children morphine injections but it was
Magda Goebbels and SS-Obersturmbannführer Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler's personal doctor,
who administered the cyanide.