BRITISH SPY MAP OF CENTRAL BERLIN, 1945.

BRITISH SPY MAP OF CENTRAL BERLIN, 1945.
[Secret Spymap of the streets around the Reichs Chancellery, in heart of Berlin. Annotated for British bombing missions.] [British; February to early March 1945.]
2 mimeographic copies of a hand-drawn street plan of the vicinity of the Reichs Chancellery, covering 7 blocks, marking all the house numbers by street, the street names in code, west to the top, each plan 325 x 200 mm. One marking primary targets for a low level bombing raid, the block targets marked F1-6, in pencil, gone over in ink, the targets extending along Heiligen (Wilhelm Strasse). The second more fully marked up in ink and pencil for a bombing mission with primary targets, blocks M1-6, running along and straddling the Heiligen, and further annotated with secondary targets 1-12, comprising individual houses or groups of houses, in the streets adjacent to the Chancellery, including numbered and named targets added in pencil...Van Papen (2), Runsted (4), Adolph (6), Goering (7), Himmler (8), Goebbels (10), with other areas circled and lettered I and K, also marking "Harrassing Fire German Martons" (Anti aircraft towers). Both sheets lightly browned, old creases, both with adhesive stain at upper left.
Provenance: The War Museum, Mass.

An exceptionally rare and interesting street map likely drawn up by a spy working in Berlin in early 1945, and issued to pilots for RAF use. The plans are marked out with primary and secondary targets for low level bombing runs over Berlin by RAF de Havilland Mosquitoes in February or early March 1945. The dating can be estimated from the time that the principal members of Hitler's cabinet were demoted or sent away from Berlin by Hitler. Generalfeldmarschall Von Runstedt had his final audience with Hitler on March 11, 1945, Goering was disowned as a traitor in April 1945, and Himmler left Berlin on April 20th, 1945. Hitler went down into his especially built Bunker under the Reichs Chancellery in January 1945, and remained there, running the war, until his suicide on April 30th, 1945. This is a very rare survival, of an important historical map.

Whether the British carried out this specific bombing mission, to knock out the senior members of the German High Command, is not known, but the survival of this map is evidence of a plan to do so.