May 19: The Eagle's Nest

The Eagle's Nest

On Tuesday, we journeyed to Hitler’s Eagle's Nest (or the Kehlsteinhaus as it is known in German). We caught a bus at the Salzburg train station that took us to Berchtesgaden. There, we were picked up by the Eagle's Nest Tour and they took us up the Obersalzberg mountain. Martin Bormann, perhaps the most powerful member of the Nazi Party behind Hitler himself,  gave the Eagle's Nest to Adolf Hitler for his 50^th birthday in the summer of 1937. The Eagle's Nest cost the German state about 10 million dollars, but today it is worth about 150 million dollars. After it was built, Hitler only visited the facility 14 times, and only 6 times for personal visits. The Eagle's Nest ties into what we explored in our previous days in Germany and Austria, because the Eagle's Nest was where the Nazi leadership met and talked about the war and genocide that it perpetrated. This is ironic, because it was such an amazing and  beautiful place, but this was the place where the destruction that later drove German policies was discussed. 

On the Bus Ascending the Obersalzberg

As we began our winding journey up narrow and twisty roads to the Eagle's Nest, our tour guide explained that the community that surrounded the mountain top was taken over by the SS and other leading Nazis for their own personal use. Many families had to evacuate and leave their homes. In one case a family was forced to give up their family-run hotel to the SS. After exploring these places, we began our 6,017 feet accent to the top of the Eagle's Nest.

Tunnel Linking the Road with the Elevator

 After walking down the tunnel built to accommodate the car that would drive Hitler to an elevator, were we then we took the bronze elevator to the top. We explored the inside of the Eagle's Nest, which consisted of a meeting area, dinning room, and parlor, but which it did not include a bedroom. Today, a restaurant occupies the Eagle's Nest. Inside the restaurant is the original marble fireplace that was heavily damaged by American GIs who fired their weapons at it in hopes of bringing home a piece of "Hitler's fireplace."

"Hitler's Fireplace"

We then got the opportunity to explore outside. Many of us hiked outside and got some photos of the amazing scenery. While it was an overcast day, the views were still breath-taking and we all climbed through the snow, while feeling like we were literally on top of the world. All in all, the Eagle's Nest was an amazing and somewhat disconcerting place due to the strange juxtaposition of its beauty and history. 

The Bunker System under the Obersalzberg

We then traveled to the Documentation Center below the Eagle’s Nest, which had a lot to offer. Not only was there a large model of the complex showing how the Nazi leadership lived on the mountain, but connected to the center was an entrance to a large underground tunnel system connecting numerous bunkers underneath the entire area. The system was large and built so well that even at the war's end when the Allies dropped large bombs specially designed to destroy underground bunkers, most of the system remained unaffected. Many of the tunnels themselves actually remained unfinished, but if given the time the Germans may have been able to connect the system together on a much grander scale. There were even plans to dig even deeper into what some believe could have become a atomic bomb shelter. Our tour guide led us throughout the bunker system and shared numerous interesting an informative anecdotes about the Nazi system as it developed on the Obersalzberg. We cannot recommended enough this tour to anyone who plans on visiting the area.

 

Stolpersteine in Salzburg

After sending the morning and much of the afternoon at the Eagle's Nest, we got the opportunity to go back to Old Salzburg to shop and grab dinner. We all went our separate ways, but ended up ironically going to the same place for dinner. The place that we chose had a variety of  delicious Austrian food, along with some Italian dishes. While wandering back to our hotel, the group found some Stolpersteine, or brass plaques in front of addresses of victims of the Holocaust and other Nazi policies.This particular cluster highlighted the scale and breath of Nazi terror as the victims memorialized here were murdered throughout Nazi-occupied Europe, from Maly Trostenets near Minsk in present day Belarus and Riga, Latvia, to Dachau, Bergen-Belsen in Germany, Salzburg itself, and finally in Nisko and the Treblinka death camp in Poland. The juxtaposition between the civilization of the west (as signified by the beauty and technological wonder of the Eagle's Nest and Obersalzberg complex) and the barbarism lurking just under the surface once again appeared on our trip.

We then headed back to the hostel to rest up for our early morning journey back to Munich the next day.