Hitler's Home Movies at the Berghof (with commentary)

in the past few episodes of History traveler and American artifact we've been in southern Germany at Hitler's berghoff on the Ober Salzburg this is the mountain Retreat where Hitler spent a large part of his time and where he made many of his most consequential decisions it's also where many important meetings took place in those episodes we showed the ruins of the Burghoff along with archival footage shot by his mistress Ava Braun this footage that she shot on a 16 millimeter camera was seized by the U.S Army in Germany in 1945. from the 28 original camera rolls that were discovered the US Army assembled them into eight reels the footage that she shot has been used in many documentaries on World War II but who are the people in these films and what does this footage tell us about the berghoff these are questions that have largely been overlooked so we thought that we would set aside some time to do something different for this Channel and offer up an analysis of the sections of film from Hitler's home movies that were shot at or near the Burghoff thank you the footage that we are looking at right now was shot on the east side of the bear cough where people would primarily enter and exit and in this group are hereta and Irwin Schneider and also the bronze Heritage Schneider was Ava Braun's best friend we're going to see their two daughters right here this is Ursula and Bridget but while her husband was away on Military duties she spent a lot of time at the bear cough this is obviously uh different people greeting Hitler but we get a rare look inside of the bear cough and I want to take a moment to focus on this guy right here this is auto gunsha he is Hitler's personal bodyguard and not to ruin the end but on the 30th of April 1945 Hitler and Ava Braun are going to commit suicide in the fuhrer bunker in Berlin as the Soviet Army is closing in well it was Otto who was tasked with cremating the bodies after the suicide he stood outside the door as the Act was taking place and then announced their deaths and then carried out the cremation but right here in the berghoff at this moment he had no idea what was ahead of him now as we move on to the next clip the three guys that we're looking at here are Adolf Wagner Heinrich Hoffman and Martin Borman uh Wagner was the galactor of Munich and here we see Hitler and his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffman many of the famous photos of Hitler that you see were were taken by Heinrich Hoffman here he is again and in this next clip there in the background the guy in the glasses that is Dr Theo Morrell who was Hitler's personal physician it's thought that this footage was shot on New Year's Eve of 1939 and in this clip right here you can see Hitler and Ava Braun talking with their guest and in the background there's a very large tapestry well this is a goblin tapestry this is a French manufacturer that had been making tapestries for the French royal family ever since Louis XIV and Hitler was quite fond of them and wanted to have one right there at the berghoff now as we transition to the color footage I want to stop on this Frame right here this is most likely being shot from the second floor of the berghoff from Ava bronze bedroom we're facing East the house that you see up on the hill is Martin borman's house he was the secretary for Hitler and in the foreground we see the East wing of the barakoff so on the lower levels that would be the kitchen and then a little bit closer to us the dining room jumping now to the west side of the berghoff this is the main Terrace now we're going to be seeing a lot of footage from this spot right here this is the The View that you would have from the main Terrace and if we go back inside to the the main living room well what we're looking at here is the great window so this was about nine meters wide and about 3.5 3.6 meters tall had 90 panes of glass that could retract down into the floor so that from the inside you would have an open air view to the north of this scene right here so what we're looking at is the uttersburg just on the other side would be Hitler's homeland of Austria we've now jumped back to the east side of the barakoff on the Terrace and you can see this Nazi Banner here so dignitaries and guests well this is the first thing that they would see when visiting Hitler we're now looking at the Burghoff from a slightly different vantage point this is from the north looking back to the south from a place called muslana cup Hill this is where Hitler's tea house was now after the expansion of the house vacantfeld to the barakoff in 1936 Martin Borman commissioned the architect Roderick Fick to construct a tea house on muslaughterkov which was about a 20-minute walk from the barakoff you can see it's overlooking The Birches Garden Basin has quite the view and people make much of the Eagles Nest but this was actually Hitler's favorite spot so he would bring people down here on walks they would relax they would have tea in this cylindrical building that was built into the Hillside and Hitler would even sometimes you know take a nap and would then be driven back up to the bear cough but everybody else had to walk here again is Adolf Wagner notice the limp that he has well that's because he lost a leg in World War one and had a wooden leg shifting now to some footage of Ava Braun and her friends sunbathing and just generally goofing around on the Terrace of the berghoff so here's Ava Braun next to her is film actress Elsa Von molendorf who was a very popular German film actress at the time and next to her in blue is Garrett Borman who was the wife of Martin Borman and the woman that you just saw in pink was Ava bronze friend Heritage Schneider so garretta Borman is kind of an interesting character and while Elsa Von molendorf is uh posing and Hamming it up for the camera I want to talk a little bit more about Gerda this is a woman who dedicated her life to kind of living up to this ideal of German motherhood in a 13-year period She had 10 kids which qualified her for the mother's cross in gold which was awarded to women who had eight or more children for the German Reich and when we shift back here there's a another woman who is present you can see her in white that is Gretel Braun so I'm assuming that she was the one operating the camera at first here you can see her and Heritage Schneider taking pictures uh looks like we might have some of the the Borman children who are also here at the Terrace okay so here again you can see him taking pictures and then Ava Braun go going through some spices or some herbs or something like that something kind of interesting about Ava Braun of course I've already mentioned that she was Hitler's mistress what I didn't mention is that when they met Hitler was 40 years old and Ava Braun was only 17. so here you can see Ava Braun going out onto the Terrace with one of her Scottish Terriers I think that this one was named ushi and again here's another view of the berghoff from the north looking to the South you can see Hitler's office area there on the second floor here's Hitler on the main Terrace again this is also looking South and we're going to be seeing a different figure here in just a second here he is right here standing next to Hitler this is Julius Schaub now he was part of the beer hall Pooch with Hitler he actually served time in prison with Hitler and later became SS member number seven as time went on he became a personal aide to Hitler and took care of day-to-day operations and travel plans and things like that on April 22nd of 1945 Hitler admitted that the the war was basically over and ordered child to burn all of the documents and his safe there in the fury bunker and then ordered him to go down to Munich and burn all documents down there as well the man that you see in the background is Albert Speer this is a very recognizable face because he was part of Hitler's Inner Circle and he really shows up a lot the man who is entering the frame right now is Gerhart Engel he was the Army adjutant to Hitler Ingle was the recipient of the knights cross with oak leaves and in 1943 he gets transferred to the Western Front where he is going to command divisions in aachen Hurricane forest and also in the Battle of the Bulge now back to Albert Speer Albert Speer Was An Architect who had designed the reich's chancellery and also the Nazi party rally ground in Nuremberg in February of 1942 after the death of Fritz taught in a plane crash Well Albert Speer was appointed the reichs minister of armaments and war production here we're back on the Terrace of Burghoff and you can see Hitler with Albert speer's kids spear is going to be arrested after the war and one of the things that is going to draw some heat on spear is that as the reichs minister of armaments and war production there was a lot of slave labor that was used in the Reich here we'll introduced to a new figure in Ava bronze home movies and if you'll notice on the left arm there's an armband that has a red white red color pattern well that is for the Hitler Youth the man that we are looking at right now is balder Von sharock who was the leader of the Hitler Youth and then now we're back on the Terrace so something that I want to point out here the the main Terrace actually set on top of the garage of the berghoff this was in the first stage of reconstruction of the house vacantfeld so here you can see Hitler looking out over the untersburg looking towards his homeland in Austria I think that this is Albert Speer right here and here for the first time we get introduced to Hitler's dog Blondie here are a few more new faces the man on the far right in the dark suit is Walter huel he was a foreign office liaison and he worked very closely with the man who is walking up from behind that is Joachim Von riventrop who was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Nazi Germany we're now back over on the east side of the berghoff and I believe this is being filmed from a guest room on the second floor of the East Wing the three men that you see there on the steps are members of the SS livestand darta Adolf Hitler this was Hitler's personal bodyguard unit now after the war the berghoff is going to be completely wrecked it would have been hit with bombs it would have been burned by the SS and the first men to reach the berghoff were members of the U.S third infantry division and there's a really famous photo that was taken right here on the east side of the berghoff right about where Hitler and these other two are standing one of my big regrets from the trip that I took is that I didn't do a then and now shot while I was there we're now back in the berghoff and here we see some of the top leaders in the Third Reich so in this shot right here you can see Reinhard heydrich you can see Heinrich Himmler you can see Martin Borman right there up front here in this next shot we're back to yoken Von ribbon trop he was again the foreign minister who had a key role in brokering The Pact of Steel with Italy and also the molotov ribbon Trot pact with the Soviet Union which carries his name he is going to be the first one of the Nuremberg defendants to be executed by hanging at the end of the war the room that they are in right now I'm not exactly sure which one it is but I think that it is a small living room that was a part of the original House vacuumfeld reel number two is going to open up with a little bit different view on the west side of berghoff and again we're looking to the north from this vantage point right here looking towards Salzburg Austria now in episode 67 of American artifact we talked about the Borman tree so you can go back and watch that episode to get the story on that tree at the end of the driveway and then we're looking at this car pulling up and who is it that is coming up the steps uh well it's none other than Hitler's pet monkey Joseph Goebbels so Goebbels was the minister of propaganda and uh was also the president of something called the Chamber of culture so under his leadership well propaganda was being put into the press and into the radio in theater and films and literature and music so culture flows Downstream so if you can put your message in Upstream well it can go down to the people and here we are again at the tea house or rather in front of the tea house this Overlook here's a quick shot of a guy that I think is Dr Carl Brandt Carl Brandt was an exceptionally terrible individual who was in charge of something called the T4 euthanasia program and uh after the war he would be tried and convicted for his crimes and would be sentenced to execution by hanging here we have another quick view of the Berg Hall from the Northeast side and that was from down below obviously and then we get a bunch of just Little snapshots of the scenery around the Ober Salzburg and in the area Looking Back Now towards the berghoff from the north so all of these little shots that we are seeing now kind of give us context as to what the Ober Salzburg looked like during the era of the Third Reich this is a clip that gets used pretty often in a lot of documentaries the man that you see on the left who just looked back at the camera is Wilhelm Bruckner he participated in the beer hall Pooch with Hitler so wore the blood order on his uniform here we can see Hitler doing a little dance for some reason Wilhelm Bruckner ended up becoming the chief adjutant for Hitler from 1934 to 1940 and later went on to serve in the German Army and Rose all the way to the rank of Colonel back on the east side now where some men who look to be on some official business have arrived at the berghoff this next clip features some exceptionally evil men in the Third Reich the man on the left is very recognizable that is Heinrich Himmler who was the head of the SS and also the architect of the Holocaust next to him is Reinhardt heydrich who many consider to be the most evil man in the Nazi regime which is really saying something Hitler called him the man with the iron heart others called him the butcherer of Prague now Himmler would commit suicide at the end of the war heydrich was going to die in 1942 by assassins in something called operation anthropoid that man that you see on the right is Carl forth he was the chief of staff for Heinrich Himmler and also the SS liaison for Adolf Hitler here we see Hitler examining some photo through a magnifying glass the man on his left is Julia Schaub and the guy who is on his right might be Herman Esser you can see the SS Honor Guard here getting ready on the east side of the berghoff getting everything cleaned up and and spiffy got a pretty creative shot right here uh here's heiner Kaufman in some very formal attire and then again we can see the SS Honor Guard getting gloved up and ready for something that appears to be very important and it is the arrival of countiano who was the Italian foreign minister who had come to the berghoff to have a meeting with Hitler and some of the other high-ranking Nazis we're moving now to a scene where there's some sort of dinner party going on at the berghoff and there are a lot of people here so I'm just going to point out a few the man that you see on the left in the tan jacket that is Max voncha now he was originally part of the SS bodyguard unit but went on to fight on the Eastern Front was at the Battle of hotterkief and he would end up commanding the 12th SS Panzer Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division we actually go to his grave in one of the episodes of History Traveler now as I've been talking we've moved to this table with ribbon trops during his drink and on the far right is a guy by the name of Jacob verland now Verlin was an auto salesman and had connections at the dolmer bins company and it was through him that Hitler was working to build the Volkswagen in this next scene we see Hitler and his Entourage descending down the steps on the east side of the berghoff and if you look at the top of the screen we get a little Glimpse at the zoom turkin and then now we are back at the Tea House which as I mentioned before was Hitler's favorite spot in in the Ober Salzburg and uh we're getting ready to see yeah here's another look inside of the the tea house so here we have Hitler sitting down and encouraging ribbon trop to have a seat next to him looks like now we've moved to a different time of year where the weather has cooled off the snow is seen in some different parts around the Burghoff here and also up on the mountains and as I'm watching these old films I'm always wondering you know what was it that that these people were talking about now something that I want to mention here because we have a really good look at the Terrace which is on top of the garage when I was looking at the ruins of the Burghoff I had some people commenting on something that I said about the window the great window retracting down into the floor they said that it went down into the garage but as you can see from these clips here that clearly cannot be the case now as we are looking here again here is Hitler's doctor and in the background is Herman Esser so this is definitely him I think we had a glimpse of him before and then we can also see uh their wives and also Ava Braun's sister sitting here on the Terrace we now have Ava Braun entering back into the film and as you can see she's kind of motioning and directing the person who is operating the camera Ava Braun had worked in the studio of Heinrich Hoffman so she knew her way around the camera as a matter of fact that's how she actually met Adolf Hitler was through her work with Heinrich Hoffman and as you can see she likes to be in front of the camera but having an eye would also want to make sure things were done right now the person we just saw who entered into the film who she has her arm around is Franz Schwartz who was the national treasurer of the Nazi party he had joined the Nazi party in 1922 and had participated in the beer hall Pooch as a matter of fact it was Sports who helped to raise money for the publication of Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf and as we continue on with the film and as Ava Braun is kind of doing her thing I'm going to talk a little bit more about Schwartz so in 1944 things were getting pretty rough for the uh for the Germans with the Allied bombings and uh Schwartz ended up receiving a war Merit cross first class with swords for helping out during a bombing raid in Munich in April of 1944 and then at the end of the war he would lead a volkster battalion he would end up being captured by the allies and died in an Allied internment camp near Regensburg due to some recurring gastric troubles he was 72 years old now earlier we saw kind of a dark clip of Hitler's dog but now we get a little bit clearer of you this is his German Shepherd Blondie poor Blondie is not going to make it to the end of the war when Hitler and Ava Braun decided to commit suicide in the fuhrer bunker in Berlin well the cyanide capsule was first tested out on the dog to make sure that it was potent enough here we get a quick look at Hitler in the Winter Garden which was a room in the original house and then we jump over to the great room to get a look at the window that we've talked about a couple of times already that could retract down into the floor and gave This Magnificent view to the north into his home country of Austria in this next clip Walter hewell is going to come back into the picture and with him is Gretel Braun who was Ava Braun's sister now Walter huel was with Hitler in the very beginning at the beer hall Pooch and he would be with him at the very end in the fuhrer bunker in 1945. Walter hewell was one of the men who attended the wedding of Ava Braun and Adolf Hitler and he was also one of the men who wished them farewell right before they went and committed suicide together and then here again we have Adolf Wagner he's always very easy to pick out in these old films because of the the big scar on his left cheek I'm not sure if that was from the war or not but I'm assuming that it is now we're back inside the burkhoff where Hitler is greeting some of the women on staff there and you can see the big tapestry in the background so we can kind of get a little bit different view of the Interior that tapestry could actually be moved to the side and they would project movies up there on the wall but again you take all of these pieces of footage and you put them together and each individual piece helps you to get a larger picture of what things looked like and then we move into what is obviously a winter scene here on the Ober Salzburg with really just some incredible views to to the north here here you can see a little birdhouse that they have set up and are feeding some of the wildlife and then back on the Terrace with Hitler and and Blondie from this angle right here we can get a little bit better view of the western side of the berghoff where some of the staff would be quartered than anything that we've seen so far and yeah it looks like they uh got a a pretty good snow there at the Burghoff that year [Music] and in this clip we see Hitler meeting with Martin Borman we're back inside of the great room and we really get a good look here at just the the space and also the fireplace in the back of the room so those were the clips shot at the berghoff that were pulled from the first two reels of the Ava Brawn films we'll continue looking at some of the other footage pulled from other reels in future videos one quick note if there are any corrections that we need to make in the future those Corrections will be noted in the description if you would like to see the episodes of History traveler and American artifact that we've shot here in southern Germany then click on the link at the top and if you would like to see the video that YouTube thinks that you would like to watch next well click on the link at the bottom foreign

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 667,716

Keywords: history traveler, history underground, berghof, wwii, wwii history, wwii documentary, eva braun, eva braun films, ww2, ww2 history, history, history documentary

Id: -Mx-cxwcPpU

Length: 25min 40sec (1540 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 02 2023