Dick Winters, A Dead Nazi & Buried Treasure – A Band of Brothers Mystery Solved 

Before we continue with today’s video, I’d just like to draw your attention to my revamped Patreon where supporters can receive a whole new series of benefits. Check out the link in the description box below. In the brilliant 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers, episode 10 points deals with the 101st Airborne Division’s occupation of Bactus Garden in early May 1945.

Famously, members of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment are shown capturing the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s famous tea house high at top Kelstein Mountain. And on entering the building’s main room, the GIS come upon a dead body of a senior German officer. Luga pistol still in hand. Later still, Major Dick Winters, commanding the second battalion of the 506th, is depicted finding Herman Guring’s enormous champagne and wine collection in the cellar beneath his ruined house at Orazoutsburg.

Both of these things happened but in reality they both occurred in the same building which was different from both buildings depicted in the TV series. Bectus garden and particularly Orbisburg Hitler’s gated village in the mountains above were naturally of much fascination to the advancing allies and a race had developed between three divisions to get there first and capture Hitler’s house.

Those units were the US Third Infantry Division, the French Second Armor Division, and the 101st Airborne. But suffice it to say that the argument still rumbles on eight decades later. The problem may stem from the fact that the divisions advanced on the region from different directions reaching different parts of the Beas Garden area from the town of Beckus Garden itself to Orazoutsburg above and the Eagle’s Nest even higher up in the mountains.

 This story however is only concerned with the 101st Airborne. On the 3rd of May 1945, its second battalion commanded by Major Winters and of course containing the famous Easy Company portrayed throughout Band of Brothers had reached the town of Talam after encountering little organized German resistance for several days.

 The following morning, the battalion was given orders to move out and seize Bactus Garden, which was easier said than done. The US convoy moved down the Altoban towards Salsburg, passing Rosenheim and Kay to Ziggsdorf, turning right onto Route 30 for Bectas Garden. 8 mi later they ran into elements of the stalled French second armored division.

Further progress was impossible as the Germans had blown a bridge over a deep ravine. The bridge also being under heavy German machine gun fire. While the US and French officers were fratonizing, Dick Winters received permission from the 506 commanding officer, Colonel Sink, to try and find a new route to Beactus Garden.

 Winters and second battalion backtracked to the Altoban, then drove to Bad Reichenhal, but was stopped by another blown bridge 35 km from their prize. The men spent the night in local houses and at first light on the 5th of May resumed trying to reach Bectus Garden which they managed by 12:30 p.m. The Americans immediately commandeered the Bectus Garden Hof a large hotel for headquarters and Winters sent out patrols to secure various points.

 There was no resistance. It was on the following day that Winters out by himself discovered three extremely interesting things in one building that had not yet been captured. Driving out of Bakus Garden a few kilome south is a village of Sherna Amarnig that is built at the end of the lake of the same name Kernig. In due course, the 506 would find several buildings of interest in this village, including Hinrich Himmler’s house that he shared with his mistress and two children.

 This building is still intact today. Many of the larger hotels and buildings had been taken over as military headquarters. A major winters found one now, a small complex of Alpine style chalets belonging to Herman Guring’s Luftvafer, a headquarters for the air force. As the situation had deteriorated in Berlin and elsewhere, Guring had ordered large parts of the Luftvafa Central Command to be evacuated to Bectus Garden.

Much confusion reigns in history books and online videos concerning Dick Winter’s visits to this building and his discoveries therein. The confusion lies in the fact that 5 km up the mountain at Orbizsburg was Reich’s Marshall Herman Guring’s house and close by another building called the Guring agitancy. When Guring had been in residence near to Hitler’s house, the agitancy was occupied by a senior member of his staff, Ginahal Khal Bordonz, and his staff, providing Guring with direct communication links with the wider

Luftvafa chain of command. A bunker system running beneath Guring’s house and the agitancy building, primarily luxurious air raid accommodation for Guring, his family and staff, survives today, completely intact, though inaccessible. In another tunnel system was the local Luftvafa air defense and communications bunker that now lies undisturbed beneath the Kinsky Hotel’s garden.

 This bunker complex controlled the flack, search light, and smoke generating units located in the hills around Orbizsburg to protect the Fura’s house and the other buildings from Allied air raids. It was only visible above ground by a large concrete tower, radio antennas, and a periscope above and behind Hitler’s greenh houses, now the rear retaining wall of the Kinsky Hotel.

The tower is today buried under the hotel’s lawn. However, due to the large numbers of Luftvafa officers who had been evacuated from areas threatened by the advancing Soviets, accommodation was provided in another building down the mountain in Kernigay, combining an officer’s accommodation block and officers club and so on.

 And it was this building that Major Winters approached on the 5th of May 1945. The small complex survived the war and was later used by the US Army who turned Orbus Altsburg and parts of Bectus Garden into an armed forces recreation center postwar renaming the Luftvafa headquarters building the Alpine Inn and Chapel. It was demolished in 1996.

It was into the main building that Dick Winters ventured alone on the 5th of May 1945. The building was deserted, but in one of the bedrooms, Winters made a grizzly discovery. The body of a German general lay on a bed, a Luga pistol still clasped in his right hand. In Band of Brothers, this scene is portrayed as occurring in the main room of the Eagle’s Nest.

So, who was this officer? Luftvafa Gennal de Fleger Gustaf Kasna Kerdorf was a former World War I pilot and between 1939 and 1943 head of the Luftvafa personnel office in April 1943. Guring had appointed him chief of the Luftvafa office for enforcement and clemency matters which he had held until his death.

 His office was responsible for Luftvafa disciplinary matters. Each year, hundreds of Luftvafa personnel being executed or imprisoned following courts marshall proceedings for many infractions of German military law. It seems that as Allied forces approached Bectus Garden on the 4th of May 1945, most of the remaining German troops had abandoned the area.

 The SS unit tasked with guarding Orbizadsburg had even set fire to Hitler’s home as they departed. Kasnner Kerdorf had not run away. From the photographs of the room taken soon after by acclaimed US war photographer Lee Miller, 64year-old Kasnner Kerdorf had laying down on his bed, telephoned someone, and then shot himself.

 His reasons for doing this are unknown, as he left no note, but he clearly did not wish to be captured. His Luga was missing in Miller’s photographs, presumably pocketed by US troops who entered the building after Winters. Leaving this grizzly scene behind, Winters continued exploring the building. He came upon a flight of stone steps leading to a large basement and stumbled upon the extraordinary sight of Herman Guring’s vast and expensive wine collection, completely intact.

 In Band of Brothers, this discovery is shown as being made at Herman Guring’s house at Orazaldsburg. But in fact, Guring had ordered his wine collection removed from his home and trucked down the mountain and secured in the cellar of what became the Alpine Inn. On the 25th of April 1945, the Royal Air Force had heavily bombed Orbazburg and Guring’s home had been destroyed and any wine collection would have been seriously damaged by the concussive effect of the large bombs demolishing the building above and the resultant fires that raged

uncontrollably afterwards. Incredibly, the Guring Agitancy building nearby survived the war completely intact and still stands today, now converted into apartments, as well as the tunnel system beneath both buildings. Guring’s house was later pulled down in the early 1950s, and the site now forms part of the gardens of the Kimpinsky Hotel.

Only the remains of this stone flight of steps from Guring’s favorite seating area close to his home survives. and behind it in the woods, this emergency exit from Guring’s bunker system. Following GIS at the 506 discovered something even more amazing in the grounds of the Luftvafa building at Shernow.

 Guring had ordered the construction of a large bunker and into that bunker had been placed for safekeeping. Some of his fabulous art collection much of it looted from across Europe. Some kilometers away on Kernig Lake. Guring had a hunting lodge constructed which no longer exists today. And like all of his residences, he filled it with art.

As the war situation deteriorated, Guring ordered the place stripped of its valuables along with much of the art from his oraltsburg house and placed for safekeeping into the bunker at Shernow. Added to this were the best pieces from his huge country estate, Karenhal, in the Shawhider outside Berlin, evacuated to Bectis Garden aboard three trains along with all of his other property in late April 1945.

These trains were found abandoned and partially looted at Bectis Garden station by the 101st Airborne in early May 1945. The so-called Guring Art Bunker was emptied by US paratroopers and the contents taken to the Huberta’s house, a large building in Bectus Garden for careful cataloging. The 101st Airborne even arranged an exhibition of the art at the Hubertus House for US soldiers and later much of it was returned to the museums and private collections which had been stolen from.

So there you go, the true story of Dick Winter’s discoveries at Beexus Garden rather than the Hollywood version presented in Band of Brothers. However, I can understand the artistic license that was taken in Band of Brothers. It’s a complex story and even today it is difficult to understand all the different buildings at different levels in the mountains in that region.

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