Volkssturm was a last ditch effort of the Nazis to call all men (aged 16 to 60 years old) to fight against the invading Allied forces in the final stages of the war. Poorly armed and inadequately equipped, the Volkssturm answered not to the Wehrmacht leadership but instead to Himmler in his capacity as the commander of the Reserve Army. Primarily engaged against the Red Army along Germany's eastern corridor, over 175,000 members of this ragtag military auxiliary were killed in action. Historian Martin Kitchen describes the establishment of the Volkssturm as a "pathetic affair." Against the advancing Russian, Canadian, American, and British forces, members of the Volkssturm (mainly young and old men, with little training) were expected to use handheld anti-tank weapons and small arms in the fight alongside the remaining Wehrmacht soldiers in repulsing the onslaught. Even if they were to prove unsuccessful, the Volkssturm was to set a shining example to future generations by fighting to the 'last man and the last bullet' for the Fatherland; as if these efforts would somehow expunge the surrender of 1918. Vorbunker – (the upper bunker) or "forward bunker" was located behind the large reception hall of the old Reich Chancellery in Berlin. It was meant to be a temporary air-raid shelter for Adolf Hitler and was officially called the "Reich Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter" until 1943 and the expansion of the complex with the Führerbunker. Vorsicht Hochspannung Lebensgefahr – Typical warning message on signs affixed to electrified fences around concentration camps, labor camps, and death camps. Essentially: "watch out high voltage life-danger." W Waffenamt "Weapons Office" – responsible the procurement of military equipment; WaA with a number was the standard arms inspection stamp or mark. Waffen-SS "Armed SS" – the combat branch of the Schutzstaffel, formed in August 1940 from earlier SS military formations; by war's end had grown into a parallel army with (nominally) 38 divisions. Wachmänner (singular Wachmann) – "watchmen", the SS guards at death camps recruited of their own free will from Soviet POW camps and trained at Trawniki. Waldkommando – "Wood-commando" prisoner-laborers assigned to work in forests, primarily to obtain firewood for heating and for burning corpses. Wannsee-Konferenz – a conference held on January 20, 1942, beside Lake Wannsee in Berlin in which it was decided and made official Nazi policy that the total annihilation of European Jews was the only rational means of a "Final Solution"