Have you heard the song that has this line, "I'm sittin' on top of the world"? Well, that is how we were to finish our tour -- visiting the Eagle's Nest, located on top of the Bavarian Alps. This was Hitler's birthday present from Hermann Göring. Built high in the Bavarian Alps, it was not one of Hitler's favorite places.
After Adolf Hitler took his own life on April 30, 1945, and Soviet forces captured Berlin on May 2, only one prize remained for the Allies: Berchtesgaden, the town near Adolf Hitler's mountaintop retreat, the Obersalzberg (Eagle's Nest), where many of the highest-ranking Nazi leaders had homes.
It was visited on 14 documented instances by Adolf Hitler, who disliked the location due to his fear of heights, the risk of bad weather, and the thin mountain air. Today it is open seasonally as a restaurant, beer garden, and tourist site.
In the HBO series, Band of Brothers, viewers get a good look at the site. But, until one visits it personally, the actual height in the alps, the road and path up to it, the tunnels, all the underground support systems, the anti-aircraft guns built into the side of the mountain go unseen. What a place. I have included links to my pictures, and links to other sources of information, but again, these don't fully give you a full appreciation for this place.
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| This little path led from the building to a cross shown below. In order to get up to it, one had to walk up a pretty steep path that dropped off on both sides. Get too careless and you might not stop until you got to the bottom of the mountain. The view from here was spectacular. |
The flower on this cross is the edelweiss. It
was a sign of manhood, the soldier had to climb up to where the
edelweiss grows and pick his flower to prove he had made the accent.
Also it was the badge of the Alpine troops. 
This is the meeting room. Now it is used as a dining room for larger groups. All of the windows overlook the mountains. Very little of this room has changed from the time it was built.
This fireplace was a gift from Benito Mussolini to Hitler for his birthday. If you click on the picture and enlarge it, you can see inside a cast firebox with pictures sculpted into it.
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| One of the highlights was having lunch on the terrace which overlooked the mountains and valleys. |
What a way to end our trip. The next morning at 0300 hours, I would fly out of Germany and back to the US. What a long flight. But I finally arrived in Columbus, via a lay-over in Boston and met my wife at the airport. I was really hungry that morning (0230 the next morning) after meeting them, and we stopped at a Wendy's (only thing in Columbus that was open). Imagine, eating at the Eagle's Nest overlooking the Bavarian Alps on one day, and at a Wendy's the next. Hmmmmm.
My pictures of the Eagle's Nest
Other pictures of the Eagle's Nest (Shutterstock)
Background to Hitler's Eagle's Nest by Rick Steves
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| Easy Company Soldiers sitting on the patio at the Eagle's Nest. |
"In thinking back on the days of Easy Company, I'm treasuring my remark to a grandson who asked, 'Grandpa, were you a hero in the war?'
No,'" I answered, 'but I served in a company of heroes.” (Dick Winters)
Hooah
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