Exploring Hitler's Eagle's Nest!!! | History Traveler Episode 274

foreign [Music] there is a long list of places that I would like to visit I would like to go to pelalu I would like to go to the island of Iwo Jima to go see the the ruins in Greece and to maybe go to Machu Picchu but one place that I've always wanted to go that's been near the top of my list is the spot where we are going today I am about ready to hop on one of these big red buses and go up this big dead gun Mountain to that little tiny dot at the top that little tiny dot was something that took 13 months to build and was scheduled to be completed in time for Hitler's 50th birthday we all know it better as the Eagles Nest foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] we just made it to the parking area here at the Eagle's Nest and holy smokes look at this View this is really something else so in in the 1930s Martin Borman who was Hitler's secretary commissioned the construction of the Eagles Nest which is above us so you can't get cars up there that's why there's a parking area here but there is a an access tunnel that goes to an elevator that would have taken the guest of the Eagle's Nest up to the top well here we are again in the parking area and up here on the the kelstein uh outcropping well there is the Eagles Nest so uh the the guests of Hitler and Hitler himself would have come up the mountain just in the same way that we did and would have entered into this tunnel now I've seen some uh accounts that they would drive into the tunnel all the way down to the elevator and uh some that he would be dropped off uh probably the answer is both but there are a few things on on the door of this access tunnel that I want to show my goodness I cannot get over the view here uh so I stood back and we allowed a few people to clear out because I'm marginally anti-social and again here is the access tunnel that would take you to the elevator and uh on the American artifact series we have something pretty cool an artifact that Eric is going to be bringing to this very spot that is associated with this door but I wanted to show a few things so American soldiers would have frequented this spot after the end of the war and at the end of the war and there are little bits of graffiti where they carved their name into uh into this tunnel door all right here I found one of the etchings with a name on it so somebody with the initials GFS and then you can see the date 1945 with a diamond around it here is another one it's kind of hard to see uh I can see 1945 and it looks like several initials there like a w-h-o-m-l-g I think I see a Glo all right but these are soldiers who would have left their mark on uh on Hitler's place okay we're going to go ahead and uh make our way down the tunnel okay now as I mentioned uh this this tunnel is wide enough to hold a vehicle and again sometimes uh it said that Hitler would be driven down to the end sometimes it would be dropped off and would walk but this is kind of a surreal moment for me uh I've I've wanted to visit this place for a long time and Eric was telling me that on one of their visits they were here with Brad Freeman and as they were walking through here they were singing Blood on the risers now I'm not going to sing because I want people to watch this video and not tune out uh but anyway pretty cool experience all right almost to the elevator now during the Third Reich era there would have been heated air that would have been forced through this tunnel and right here at the end there would have been a swastika in the stone work but it has been sandblasted out but if you look hard enough you can probably see in some of the darker areas remnants of it and then as we move in through here we already had Eric in here well there's the famous elevator okay now I just found out that I am not allowed to film inside the elevator so I'm going to honor that request but something else that's kind of interesting that people may not know if you look at these two green benches here these would have originally been in the elevator so the you know Hitler wouldn't have to stand as he you know ascended to the Eagles Nest but anyway yeah we're gonna go ahead and head on up okay quick Amendment uh talk to the elevator operator and he said that I could go ahead and film in here so this is the famous golden elevator of the eagle's nest man this thing is wild laughs okay now there's the elevator that we use to get up here to the Eagle's Nest now when the Allied soldiers got here that elevator was not working so they had to climb up and when they got here right back here at the kitchen was going to be the place that they made a beeline for because that's where the silver was at all right we just got up here to the Eagle's Nest and made our way first to the great room and uh holy smokes I have to say this place is nice uh I can see why there are so many pictures and photos that were taken right here in this very spot foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] I cannot believe that I'm here right now uh this this really is something else I've seen so many pictures over the years and of course it's depicted in the series Band of Brothers today the the great room serves as a restaurant and you'll have a lot of tourists like me who will make their way to this room first and uh probably the the main centerpiece of this room is this giant red marble fireplace now it was said that this was a gift from Mussolini for Hitler's 50th birthday in recent years that has kind of been called into question there are other parts of this area that uh that have this this red marble or other parts of the Eagles Nest and as a matter of fact they even note that on the signage here it says this fireplace is made of marble probably a gift of the Italian dictator Mussolini and then if we look closely Eric and I were checking this out earlier well there are all kinds of etchings and graffiti from U.S soldiers who who left their mark right here on this fireplace but yeah a lot of history right here in this room of the great room now to the dining room here at the Eagle's Nest and you can see some people dining wondering why some bearded redneck is talking into a camera but there originally would have been like a big long table that would have extended the length of this room and then if we continue on down well you can see through that door is the kitchen all right so right now I'm standing in the kitchen area which they've asked me not to film in but I can film this room which nobody really ever gets access to this was The Bodyguard room for the Eagles Nest so the the bodyguards who were stationed here would come back here to kind of relax or maybe kind of get away from the boss or something a little bit but uh yeah very cool to be able to see this part of the Eagles Nest that uh typically is restricted okay so moving into another room here in the Eagle's Nest so back here is the great room so I'm leaving the great room now and entering into a space that is known as the the Charlotte's killer room I think I'm saying that properly uh but this has also been called the the Ava broad room and holy cow this is quite a view [Music] foreign so again this room here is called the shards Kell room and you know has this this wood paneling giving it a a very rustic look but if we move out this way look at The View from this space a little bit cloudy today but man oh man this is really something else let me go over to uh to this window here as well and again you can see these snow-capped Peaks in this room wow all right uh going to move now to the Sun Terrace [Music] foreign [Music] moving out of the shards kale now and onto the Sun Terrace so you can see here on the left they have some information panels talking about the kelstein house or the Eagles Nest and uh originally you see some some glass panes up here this would have all been open but this would have been a place where people could come out and kind of Lounge and talk and look out over this view right here man that is something else and again we have some some clouds and fog and some weather today but still quite the uh the amazing view it's a view that was enjoyed by Hitler a few times and then later by men from the US Army [Music] foreign foreign just uh made our way out of the Sun Terrace and are now here on the I guess what we would consider the backside of the Eagle's Nest and we're going to go up to the top of the hill where a lot of well-known photos were taken of this spot right here but when you get up here and look man this really is an engineering Marvel I think at the time it was one of the most expensive projects that had ever been undertaken in Germany and uh yeah pretty pretty impressive [Music] thank you [Music] okay we've moved up this kelstein Ridge just a little bit and are looking back now at the Eagles Nest this is a view that you see a lot of photos of people getting up here kind of on the higher ground and then taking a snapshot back down as you can see naturally there are a lot of people here today um let me just walk back down here real quick and show something else all right had to come back down a little bit further than what I thought but uh in addition to the Eagles Nest well they also have some defensive positions that were set up here as well now on April 25th of 1945 there was a bombing raid of the Ober Salzburg and right up here just over these mountains the RAF would have flown a bombing mission right over those mountains down into the valley and didn't hit the Eagle's Nest but hit a lot of important structures Down Below in the valley but uh yeah a little machine gun position or anti-aircraft position right there I'm not sure which I'll have to look that up okay since we're here now we might as well go to the top but again just look at this crazy View this is really something else we got a little bit of snow starting to fall right now so yeah man oh man something else all right now in all of the videos that I've seen at the Eagles Nest I don't know if I've ever seen anybody come back here or come all the way to the top so we're going to uh take a look for ourselves and holy smokes dude this is absolutely stunning holy cow I feel like Sir Edmund Hillary right now up on this thing what an incredible View [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] all right well there we go that was uh the kelstein house or Hitler's Eagle's Nest on on the uh the bucket list of History items that is a big one that I just checked off so so much history here this place was at one time a symbol of of power and and of Nazi dominance and uh later became a symbol of that power being crushed when Allied soldiers came up here and occupied this place uh but yeah so cool to be here today uh so glad that I had the opportunity but we got a lot of other places that we are going to be visiting right here in Birches Garden [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 4,535,915

Keywords: history, history traveler, history underground, wwii, wwii history, ww2, obersalzberg, germany, bavaria, german history, urban exploration, berchtesgaden, martin bormann, wwii sites, 101st airborne, eagle's nest, eagles nest

Id: kQT1IJ-sR2Y

Length: 21min 45sec (1305 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 05 2023