Exploring the Ruins of Hitler's Berghof | History Traveler Episode 273

[Music] right now I am in southern Germany outside of the Bavarian town of Burgess garden and when people think of Birches Garden usually the first thing that comes to mind is you know Hitler's Eagle's Nest and while that is one of the more I guess dramatic features and dramatic construction projects here in the the over Salzburg area Hitler was up there only a handful of times I've heard as low as 10 as high as 14. where most of his major decisions were made outside of Berlin was right here at this place where I'm heading today at the berghoff [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] okay a quick disclaimer before we get to exploring today we're going to have to use our imaginations a little bit the the berghoff and and the Ober Salzburg area was heavily bombed on April 25th of 1945. we'll talk a little bit more about that later but much of the the structures around here were completely destroyed the Burghoff itself was heavily heavily damaged and in the early 50s was was completely destroyed so there are still things that we can see and uh you know parts of of these structures that we can still make out and learn from so anyway just just a quick disclaimer before we get going today well if we are going to talk about the berghoff we might as well start at the beginning we're going to get up to the berghoff site itself here in just a moment but for Hitler and anyone who would have had who would have been visiting the Burghoff well this is the road that you would have ascended to get up to the Burghoff site and if we would have been here in the 1930s or 1940s no there would have been an SS guard house right here let me jump up here and see if I can maybe fall down um so there would have been like I said an SS guard house right here and then stretching across the road there would have been a wooden gate to kind of check people before they went up this road [Music] we've moved up the hill a little bit and we're looking in the direction that we just came from so cars coming up to the burkhoff would have come up this hill and he would have come around a bend and right here where these vehicles are parked going up that way would be the driveway for the buracoff now we're going to come back here in just a second something else that I wanted to show is this building right here this is the zoom turkin this opened as a hotel in 1911. and after Hitler uh purchased the area where the berghoff currently is uh to him and he you know in later years wanted to purchase it the owner wouldn't sell and uh when Hitler assumed power in 1933 well they just arrested the guy and then took the property it was turned over to Martin Borman if I remember correctly who was the secretary for Hitler and turned into kind of a headquarters for the Reich security service or the RSD so yeah here is the zoom turkin and one thing that would make this really an attractive spot it sets up higher than the burkhoff so security can kind of have an OverWatch over you know Hitler's home they could see anybody coming up this drive and there was also an extensive bunker system that connected this building to the burkhoff [Music] [Music] laughs okay back down now to the end of the driveway and again as I mentioned a lot of this area was destroyed but you can still see some remnants so right here you can see a a stone wall that would have been the the edge of the driveway here at the the berghoff and get around these vehicles here so we come up here well the driveway would have curled around and right up through here this is the road that would have taken you or the driveway that would have taken you to the berghoff so Hitler's armored Mercedes would have would have made its way right up through here [Music] okay we're making our way up the driveway now and you might be asking yourself why this spot why was this area so important well it was in this General vicinity not far from here where Hitler finished his book Mein Kampf and in the late 20s he was able to purchase a house up here called the vockenfeld house and it really became attached to the area and the view and and just the uh the Ambiance of this area and in 1933 had an opportunity to to purchase this property and then undergo put it under a lot of Renovations and really turn it into his his second headquarters here in Germany okay we are approaching the end of the driveway not not all the way to the end so there would have been a garage up ahead of us I'm going to try and throw in some uh archival photos and things like that to to show where we are but the vehicles would have stopped here and then there would have been a set of steps that would have ascended up to the berghoff site so if we walk up here we might be able to see some of those steps a lot of this area was was buried yeah look at here okay so here is one of the steps that would have been kind of at the the top of the staircase and that would have brought you right up here to Hitler's burkhoff [Music] foreign as I mentioned at the beginning of this video there's nothing really left of the Burghoff itself it was destroyed on April 25th of 1945 the RAF had a huge bombing raid of the Ober Salzburg targeting this area in case Hitler tried to get out of Berlin and come down here and and continue the resistance and continue the war effort the the building was heavily heavily damaged whenever the guys from the third infantry division got here I think they were a little bit disappointed that the whole thing was kind of blown up and then in the early 50s uh well they they completely leveled this structure and and blew it up but we still have a bit of a footprint of the building in the form of this retaining wall and a few other ruins so again what we are looking at is the retaining wall that would have been on the the back side of the bird cough and when the site was destroyed in the early 1950s the reason that they didn't destroy the retaining wall is uh well it's kind of holding up the side of the mountain right now so there would be a little bit of uh slippage of the earth down into the road below which would be a little bit inconvenient so this is kind of the the footprint of the berghoff again the original building that Hitler would have rented was was renovated and expanded upon so that he could entertain guests and uh also sit here with other members of the Nazi leadership and form their plans for the Third Reich okay now again we are really going to have to use our imaginations here where I am standing is the exact spot where the great room of the berghoff would have been so out here you would have had like a red carpet you would have had white walls with kind of a wood paneling at the bottom if we were to look up at the ceiling there would have been like this wooden lattice work uh structure and at the back of the great room would have been a red marble fireplace this is the exact spot where the fireplace stood so in this room lots of important historic meetings took place again I'm not saying that they were good but but they were historic Neville Chamberlain was entertained in this room Benito Mussolini many heads of state came right here to the Burghoff let me show you something else so out here this area would have been the front of the house and I might have to do a little bit of looking yeah okay right over here there with that brick work right here that's one corner of the house and then it would have extended uh about nine meters in this direction you would have had this amazing view out here and I'm looking I'm looking yeah right here here is the other corner of the house so you can see right here's the corner and come back up here if you would have stood right here well you would be looking out the the great window of the berghoff there were 90 individual panes it was this giant window that could retract down into the basement so then you'd have like this open air view and right out here Hitler could look you can kind of see where there's this little v-shape over there is Austria so he he could sit here in Germany at the burkhoff and look into his homeland again let me Orient us as to where we are right here is the the corner of the house right here is that giant window that that retracts down into the basement now there is a lot of uh video footage and uh photos and things like that that people commonly attribute to being taken at the Eagles Nest it was actually right here at the berghoff taken in this spot where I'm standing now on the Terrace as many people know Hitler had a mistress by the name of Ava Braun and somewhere along the line Ava Braun got a hold of a video camera and there are a lot of pieces of video footage that were shot right here in this very spot where I am standing so you can find these in in the U.S national archives they have the originals of Ava bronze footage and have it available online but uh lots of pictures here that were taken uh one that we will be taking a look at in an episode of American artifact but yeah Hitler would have spent a lot of time with dignitaries and other members of the Nazi leadership right here in this spot [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] earlier in the video we were talking about the driveway that came up to the berghoff the Terrace would have set above the driveway and here is the area of the garage so after you know dropping people off uh this right here is the area that they would have pulled into you can see it is all filled with debris and rubble and right here is the outer wall okay so the Terrace would have been right up there now you might wonder how I know all of this stuff well it's not because I'm the smartest guy in the world I just hang around with people who are smarter than me there's a guide here in berches Garden who is the best uh his name is Tom Lewis who who showed us a bunch of this stuff so we are indebted to him and I'm going to put his information up at the end of the video where you can get in contact with him if you ever come to Birches God he seriously knows everything okay now again I'm at the the back end of the berghoff area close to the retention wall one thing about the Ober Salzburg is there are tunnels and bunker complexes everywhere unfortunately we can't access any of them but but right here in this corner and I can see some some rebar that might kind of be where the access was but there was access to an escape tunnel uh that's probably about two three yards under the surface and then would continue down even further into the Earth and then exit uh kind of often in this direction so uh we're going to make our way down the hill now and take a look at where Hitler's uh escape hatch I guess you could say would have been here at the Burghoff I'm making my way down to where the emergency escape would have exited and real quick take a look at this I mentioned how on April 25th of 1945 the RAF launched a bombing raid of the Ober Salzburg well the burkhoff of course was a prime target and this is one of the bomb craters very interesting all right oh I've got a feeling that people are going to be watching this with great interest not for the history but to see if old JD is gonna slip in this mud and fall on his butt and there we go okay made it and look at here there is the exit to Hitler's Escape tunnel here at the Burghoff so the burkhoff is going to be up the hill and off I'll probably 100 yards I'm guessing and oh man boy this is a little bit of a bog right here the Hitler was going to get his feet muddy getting out of this place but anyway um yeah here you can see pretty heavy duty steel door and of course we can't go in there um but if we could Well we'd get into this series of tunnels and there would be machine gun positions set up to guard the entrance oh my gosh oh my shoe just got really nasty um it would have been machine guns like a three-man machine gun team couple spotters and a machine gunner that would be guarding the tunnel and then if we look over here I think what we are looking at is some remains of the security fence yeah that is cool as heck [Music] all right well there you go those are just some of the remnants of Hitler's berghoff right here in the over Salzburg all kinds of interesting things here to explore even though the structure is not here it's interesting to to bring pictures here and try and line them up and put yourself in in the place of some of the U.S soldiers who would have approached this in May of 1945 but anyway for now we are heading on to the next place foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 646,987

Keywords: history, history traveler, history underground, wwii, wwii history, ww2, berghof, obersalzberg, germany, bavaria, german history, urban exploration, berchtesgaden, 3rd infantry division, zum turken, martin bormann, wwii sites

Id: eoQNEv6_Jx0

Length: 22min 23sec (1343 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2023