We got up at 5am this morning to go to another site that I’ve been looking forward to this whole trip: Berchtesgaden Eagle’s Nest, or Kehlsteinhaus as it’s locally known. Our trip up was a little bit stressful but the views were absolutely worth it. It poured rain and the mountains were covered in fog, but it all lifted when we reached the peak! Just in time for fantastic views.
Sadly, our awful hotel internet means no photos again today. I’ll do my best to get them up in the next day or two!
Description
Eagle’s Nest is where Hitler built the ultimate Nazi elite vacationing resort high up in the Bavarian Alps. He spent large amounts of his time there planning out his crimes against humanity. I learned today that Hitler originally visited the site in the 1920s and fell in love with it. He loved the locals and rented a home out in the early ’30s before buying it a few years later. Once he rose to power, he felt it necessary that a protected Fuhrer-only zone be established, so all of the locals in the village were pushed out. Senior Nazi officials took over homes as their own, adding and renovating to create the perfect community for Germany’s highest, both literally and politically.
I’m not sure whether the homes still remain. I know for a fact that Hitler’s home was burned so as to not become a site for neo-Nazi pilgrimages. What does remain is the Eagle’s Nest, a beautiful retreat on top of one of the mountains. Today, it’s a restaurant set in one of the most beautiful areas of Europe.
Down the mountain a little ways is the bunker complex that was designed to act as a last-stand location for the Nazi regime. The SS worked for years with forced laborers to construct a large, reinforced tunnel system that could support the government in a last stand. It was never used for that purpose. Hitler chose to spend his final days in Berlin, believing that a retreat to the Alps to fight a guerilla war was tantamount to defeat. He killed himself in Berlin and the last vestiges of the German military surrendered before significant fighting occurred around Eagle’s Nest.
The bunker museum
I didn’t have a lot of time to go through the bunker, but I had enough time to see that it was massive. Clearly meant to hold hundreds of individuals. Apparently, everything from furniture and trinkets to carpet and wallpaper was looted from the bunker in the years following the war. There was still a massive interest in all things Hitler. The US attempted to put a stop to that by blowing up Hitler’s home and closing the bunker. Interest never waned though, so a museum opened in the ’90s to teach people about the significance of the place.
The museum had all kinds of important artifacts of the area, teaching about the history of Hitler taking over the region for himself. Strong emphasis was put on his public image and how things were rarely as they seemed. The main focus of the museum was obviously on contrast. There were significant differences between public Hitler and the reality of his private life. For example, he was portrayed as a tireless toiler for the nation; in reality, he had a mistress and loved spending time in his mountain home.
Perhaps the greatest contrast focused on was the use of the location. So much effort was put into suppressing the history of the area, but too many history buffs (like me) are just fascinated and want to come anyways. There are also lots of tourists just coming to relax in the beautiful mountains. The museum made it clear that it’s crucial to move on from the terrible history of a site. Building a playground on top of an execution site might seem awful, but we aren’t meant to preserve the awfulness of an event in a specific place. After all, the place itself has done nothing. We must learn from the things that happened and allow ourselves to once again find beauty in the land of horror. Just like a family building a sand castle on Omaha Beach.
Differences in accounts
Once of the most fascinating things to me on this trip of rapid location change is the difference in tone and portrayal from place to place. I’ve been to around a dozen WWII museums now, with each one having exhibits that overlap with other museums. As I go through, the same narrative is often told from very different perspectives, emphasizing different aspects and even sometimes giving contradictory facts. It’s something that any decent history buff should know — there is no such thing as a “true” account of what happened in history. All we ever have is the experiences of individuals and groups, told through the perspectives and worldviews of those people. It’s a fact I try to stay aware of but find blatantly obvious as I rapidly travel from country to country, reading about the same events. I’ll give a couple examples.
The road to Berlin is one of the great debates of the end of the war. As the British, French, and Americans pushed into Germany from the west, the Soviet Union pushed in from the East. I’ve always heard that it was negotiated that the USSR would be permitted to take Berlin while the Americans & Co. held back. In the German museum today, they stated that Hitler left for Berlin for some unknown reason without the Western Allies knowing it. Because they were unaware, they halted their push to Berlin and diverted forces to southern Germany in preparation for fierce fighting. That may be true or true from one point of view, but it certainly wasn’t the idea of negotiation I’d always heard.
Another example of difference is the fighting spirit of the French army early in the war. At Dunkirk, our guide talked about the French perspective of the evacuation. She said that the French were not informed of the evacuation initially and that they were left to defend the retreating English armies until the last minute. Listening to Churchill’s account throughout this trip, he stated that the French were part of the evacuation planning and had actually refused to retreat immediately, choosing in honor to stay to defend the British army. Again, both could be true depending on your perspective. Definitely different though.
One last example. Growing up a WWII history buff in America, I’ve heard a lot about Charles de Gaulle. He was the Free France leader from the time France surrendered until the end of the war. Most American accounts follow Eisenhower’s opinions: de Gaulle was an arrogant and lazy man that voiced his thoughts and speeches far louder than his actions. He would swoop in to take credit for victories of the Americans and Brits. That was in stark contrast to what I hear in France! They absolutely revered him in a couple of the museums I visited. De Gaulle was seen as a brave minority, willing to stand and fight when nobody else was. His speeches were inspiring and hope-inducing, his presence on mainland Europe after D-Day was honorable, and he was a charismatic leader. In third contrast, Churchill’s account talks about him as a difficult man to work with but nonetheless likeable and good-hearted.
Fascinating how the countries that we come from and the cultural values we hold dear can have such a massive effect on our perceptions. Was de Gaulle a vulture, a hero, or a great leader? Honestly, he might be all three or he might be none. History is only as good as our interpretations of it, and it’s crucial that we examine multiple interpretations. That’s how we learn to find wisdom in the past.
The Alps
Alright, that’s a lot of history for one post. A quick mention about the Alps — they’re absolutely stunning. They tower into the sky with jagged edges and gray snow-capped peaks. In the large valleys below, there are green forests and thriving communities. It’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. The beauty of the mountains was so great in my eyes that they simply didn’t look real. It made me wonder what the New Earth will be like someday. Surely, something like this.
There were lots of hiking trails on the mountain, so I’ll have to come back someday. Along the trails, there was little evidence of humans (thank goodness). However, one particular feature stuck out to me. There were several small rock monuments scattered throughout the area. Each one made me think of the Bible and how God told various prophets and priests and leaders in Israel to climb mountains and build stone monuments. The monuments often marked important moments in Israel’s history when God had brought them through something tough, like when Abraham went to sacrifice his son, Isaac, only to have God rescue him at the last moment. The monuments on Hitler’s mountain retreat made me wonder at the deliverance that God provided on that mountain 80 years ago. Evil was defeated. The Jews were once again spared. The place where the worst of man plotted to kill and destroy was, and is, now a monument to salvation. How beautiful is the work of the Lord, especially in moments that only whisper His name.
Concluding the day
Phew. That was quite the experience if you couldn’t tell! As always, there’s so much more to say, but I’ll stop there. We spent the rest of our day shopping for antiques again, eating phenomenal Austrian sausage, and just hanging out in the hotel. Mom leaves at 5:30am, so it’s a big day tomorrow. Valerie and I will head to Nuremberg to hang out in my favorite German city.
I can’t believe there’s only a week and a half left. In many ways, this trip has felt like forever. Looking back though, it’s gone so fast. Although, there’s a lot left to see yet!