FOCUS ON BAVARIA
NOW that I’ve introduced readers of this Blog to my passion of visiting wartime sites of significance on my travels, (recently The Bridge at Remagen and the Bridge on the River Kwai), an obvious addition to interesting WWII sites is the Kehlsteinhaus, otherwise known as the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s mountain retreat in Bavaria.
It’s the Third Reich-era building on a rocky outcrop that rises above the Obersalzberg near the town of Berchtesgaden, a stunningly beautiful part of the Alps two hours drive from Munich. Hitler’s house, the Berghof, was on the lower slopes of the mountain but it was almost completely destroyed by bombing and the rest of it demolished so that it could not be turned into some sort of shrine in future.
The Eagle’s Nest however, was used by Adolf Hitler for entertaining and planning, and TV documentaries about the War regularly include footage of Hitler socialising there surrounded by people like Bormann, Himmler, Goebbels and rest, including his mistress Eva Braun.
The Eagle’s Nest was in fact a gift to Hitler by Bormann, but the Fuhrer was apparently lukewarm about its location due to his fear of heights and lightning strikes, the risk of bad weather, and the thin mountain air. Today it is open seasonally as a restaurant, beer garden, and tourist site. To access the Eagle’s Nest you take a special bus along a winding and steep mountain road from the beautiful village of Berchtesgaden itself, before you walk inside the mountain to access the huge brass bound elevator.
I must say it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end to visualise that 75 years ago I would have been sharing the same elevator chamber with some of the most evil individuals and mass murderers in the history of the world. Actually, this week, (Monday May 4 to be exact) was the 75th anniversary of the Allies reaching the site of the Berghof and The Eagle’s Nest.
‘Berchtesgadener Land’ is a wonderful place for a holiday, it’s a stunningly beautiful part of the Alps, an area of hundreds of kilometres of of paths and walks through mountains, hills and Alpine meadows, of greenery, wild flowers and tinkling cow bells.
I stayed in the town of Bertchesgaden itself, where I had the best Appel Strudl in the world looking up at the Watzman, the third highest peak in Germany, and spent a couple of nights in a beautiful little guest house called Maria Gern facing a pastel pink-painted chapel on the side of hill, but not to be missed is the enchanting stillness and peace of a lake called Konigssee and its beautiful abbey.
On the way to Bertchesgaden from Munich you pass the popular lake of Chiemsee (too many people for me) while north of Munich on the way to the Airport you drive close to the town of Dachau, a place of infamy.
It was the first Nazi concentration camp in 1933 and achieved notoriety well in advance of the outbreak of the War in 1939. The camp is in a good state of preservation and is popular with travellers to and from the airport who stop off to reflect….. Oh, almost forgot, the most important reason to visit Bavaria, the sensational gargantuan portions of restaurant and Bier Keller food and of course Bavarian beer!
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