Führer Headquarters
Hitler frequently made the presentations of the Oak Leaves and higher grades himself. The first presentations in 1940 and 1941 were made in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin or at the Berghof near Berchtesgaden. Beginning with Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the presentations were made at the Führer Headquarters "Wolf's Lair" in East Prussia, in the "Werwolf" near Vinnytsia in Ukraine, and at the Berghof. After the July 20 plot, the presentations were only made sporadically by Hitler himself. The last presentations by Hitler were made early in 1945 in the "Führerbunker" in Berlin. Senior commanders, like the commanders in chief of the "Kriegsmarine" and the Luftwaffe, and from the fall of 1944 also by the "Reichsführer-SS" Heinrich Himmler, made the presentations instead.