Berchtesgaden Escape pt. 2 ~ Illegitimis Non Carborundum

** Sorry for the gap between posts! I've been rather busy! **

So, on Sunday was our tour with “Eagles-Nest-Tours”….I HIGHLY recommend using them! Christine, who was our tour guide, was VERY informative throughout the four hour tour, great personality and made it a very enjoyable experience. From what she was telling us, this is the first time in several years in which the Eagles Nest was opened early in May… I guess it’s normally opened in mid to late May, sometimes even in June depending on how bad the snow is on the mountain. Plus, her tour normally does the Eagles Nest which is a two hour thing, but in this trip, she did both the Eagles Nest as well as the Obersalzberg bunkers (from what her site said, that’s normally a separate tour). And (yes, there’s more), there were only eight of us rather than having a whole bus full of people crammed together. It was SO nice! Definetly a lot better than straining to hear everything she has to say while stuck behind 20+ people. From what she was saying, the max amount of people she takes on the tours is twenty five since she doesn’t want people to have a problem hearing while she’d walking around and giving the lengthy tour. Totally understandable and VERY appreciated!

Our tour van

Since we got to her office an hour early, we walked around the town square and checked out the river that ran through it. In all honesty, that’s the CLEAREST river water I’ve ever seen! Now I can totally see why some of those water commercials talking about their water being from the Bavarian Alps. No joke... crystal clear water.

Our view from a nearby cafe we chilled at while waiting for our tour to start

When the tour started, she drove us around part of the mountain side to check out various former SS housing buildings (they're now owned by the government and are rented out to private residences), various locations of former Nazi officers homes and such. It was pretty interesting to see how that some of those buildings were still standing considering the Allied Forces went through and made it a point to blow up anything that was Nazi affiliated.

Hitlers driveway... during the air raids, his house had two direct hits which dessimated the building. Once the war was over, the Allied Forces went back and blew it up again to completely wipe out any remainders of the house..all that's there now is a concrete slab from where it used to be.

From there, we checked out the Obersalzberg bunkers… that alone was pretty impressive. Did you know that the Germans managed to build that complex in twenty months? Not to mention that included an underground, two lane road as an escape route UNDERNEITH the bunkers. Holy cow! When you looked at a map that displayed where the bunkers were and how far they stretched, it was literally a little town underground. Sneaky sneaky Germans! They had their own hospital & recovery ward, private apartments for high ranking officials and their families, a high tech air purification and water treatment system …it had a detection system if there was gas being pumped into the bunkers, the vents would close and seal. If gas DID come in, it had a constant high pressure system built in so the gas would be pushed out. I was just impressed with the types of things that were created and used back in…ohhh… the 1940’s.

The Obersalzberg Documentation Center

The original entry way to the bunkers; the Documentation Center actually built itself around it.

Some of the media propaganda that Hitler had for the public

A map that displays the bunker system that sprawled across the mountain side

A bunker room that was built as a medical ward for injured SS troops

From there, we made our way over to the bus stop that takes tourists up to the top of the mountain where the actual “Eagles Nest” is located. You’re not allowed to drive your own vehicle up to it considering it’s a one lane road, very steep incline in some parts and there really isn’t enough room up there for people to park (there’s enough room for buses to drop off people and turn around). The buses were pretty spiffy... they’re made SPECIFICALLY (by Mercedes) to get up the steep inclines, three braking systems and some other stuff that I can’t quite remember at the moment…but it was impressive, believe me. We managed to get the bus to ourselves (there were only eight of us total on the tour, AWESOME!) and the view the entire way up was amazing! There were some parts of the road that kinda freaked me out since the bus seemed to get a lil TOO close to the edge of the road (sheer drop offs). On the way up, there's only one hairpin switchback with an incline of 27%. That's just UNREAL to me considering how steep the road already is..then smush another 27% in there. Geesh!

Our tour guide, Christine

The view from the bus on the way up

Once we made it to the top, Christine talked more about Hitler’s long time girlfriend, Eva Braun. Honestly, I didn’t know he had a girlfriend...not to mention, they were together for fourteen years. Talk about the best kept secret! They got married forty hours before Hitler ended up killing himself (she also killed herself). Random food for thought.

The Eagles Nest was actually a gift to Hitler for his 50th birthday, but the irony of the whole thing was that he was scared of heights (sure, let’s built a house teetering on a sheer cliff), and he’d get vertigo on the ride up. The elevator was made large enough to fit forty people since he was also claustrophobic (sorry for not having a picture of it; no pics allowed), and another interesting fact: no one ever slept overnight there. Hitler only visited the place fourteen times and he’d leave the same day that he’d get there. Cost wise, the eagles nest cost roughly (to today’s equivalent) about one hundred and fifty million dollars to build. That’s due to “importing” thousands of Italians, Austrians and other Germans that were familiar with building mountain terrain roads, then building the actual building itself. Money well spent! Right before the end of the war, the US reached the Eagles Nest (Easy Company, 3rd Infantry) first while the French found the bunkers first…although from my understanding, there was a bickering match as to who actually found the bunkers (between the French and the United States). Christine mentioned that she was lucky enough to meet several of the guys that were from Easy Company; Shifty, Buck Compton, and a few others that I happen to be drawing a blank on.

The view from there was absolutely breath taking. By far the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen! I took lots and lots of photos that are definitely going to take some time to edit, but man, the pictures can’t even compare to seeing it in real life. Luckily for us, even though it was a little overcast, we were still able to see down into Berchtesgaden and even over into Austria… for miles. Just the day before, it was SO overcast that we couldn’t see more than 100 feet in front of us. That was just from the drop off point from the buses; we then had to walk through a tunnel that was made specifically for Hitler since there’s an elevator to take to actually get into the Eagles Nest.

The tunnel itself was pretty interesting since when they were actually building the house, they didn’t want to “ruin” the view of the house by breaking up part of the mountainside to make the road. So, they dug into the mountain instead, lol. The exterior is made of marble and there were vents throughout the tunnel that heat was pumped into so whenever Hitler DID come, the tunnel was warm for him. Funny thing is, he never walked through the tunnel (it’s chilly even without the heaters), he was always driven in with a limo, lol. So, all that work to make sure he wasn’t cold, yet he never physically walked through there. Go figure!

When some people are heading to the Eagles Nest, they assume the entire thing is going to be a massive museum about Hitler and all of Hitler’s stuff. Wrong. There’s only..hmm.. three rooms you can really go into considering the rest of the building as been converted into a restraunt. It’s been like that since 1952, so really, it’s been like that for quite some time. I don’t understand why there were some tourists around me complaining about the place…. “We came all this way and there’s really nothing here”. I’m sorry, say what? You’re in the Bavarian Alps, overlooking amazing scenery and walking in a building that Hitler was in. Sorry, but there’s plenty of people out there in the world that’ll never have the chance to do this… appreciate that you’re even here!!!