Houses tell stories. They were built, reconstructed, torn off and demolished. Small houses became mansions, others disappeared. The buildings, their usages as well as their former residents give us an insight on the eventful history of the 20th century. This applies not only, but perhaps especially to Obersalzberg and its surroundings. The Mountainside above Berchtesgaden was Hitler’s residence and a center of power during the Nazi era. The buildings demonstrate the political changes of the last century. A couple of examples will be presented now. The Dokumentation Obersalzberg informs about the history of the mountain. The museum was opened in 1999. Previously the building had not been in use since 1945. It remained undamaged from the bombardment in April 1945 and therefore it had been a spooky object to explore for decades. The round arches in the entrance hall remind us of its past. The history of the building reaches back to the start of tourism at Obersalzberg. It was built by Mauritia - called Moritz - Mayer. She opened the first guesthouse at the mountain in the 1870s. A lot of guests came and her guesthouse "Pension Moritz" soon became too small. In 1882 she built the dependance "Haus Hoher Göll", which is "Dokumentation Obersalzberg" today. 1926 the pension association of "Gebrüder Arnhold" bought the house. Workers of the bank in Dresden were able to spend their holidays here for a low price. After 1933 it all changed. The bank that was viewed as “Jewish”, was expropriated. The guesthouse was turned into a residence for the guests of Adolf Hitler and into an office for the National Socialist Party. Whenever Hitler was at Obersalzberg, the daily political business was supposed to go as usual. Therefore offices were opened at Obersalzberg and its surroundings. Files and staff had to commute between Berlin or Munich and the outposts in Berchtesgaden. Hitler's Berghof stood only a few hundred meters from the Dokumentation Obersalzberg. Today trees grow there. Very few traces left from the former building. The most dominant one is the slope retaining wall, the building was once placed in front of. Until a few years ago one had to go through undergrowth in order to reach this area. Today there is a path across the terrain. For a long time nothing should remind of the place. In the beginning of the 1950s the U.S. military government together with the State of Bavaria decided to remove nearly all traces of the Nazi era at the Mountain. The ruins of Berghof were blown up, the rubble removed and the area reforested. Today this decision can be viewed as repression of remembrance. However from the perspective of the government back then, there were fears the mountain would turn into a pilgrimage site for Nazis. The fears were justified. Already shortly after 1945 thousands came to see the ruins of the Berghof. Their motives varied. History could not be repressed though. Even after the ruins were blown up, thousands traveled to the mountain each year. The reasons were interest in history or fascination for Hitler. But why did Adolf Hitler even come to Obersalzberg in the first place? It was coincidence. In 1923 Hitler visited his mentor Dietrich Eckart here. Eckart hid himself from police in the deposited village in the Mountain. From then on, Hitler came regularly. In 1928 he rented "Haus Wachenfeld". He bought it in 1933 and had it reconstructed into the Berghof. Obersalzberg was a retreat for him. In the 1920s he used it to dodge disputes in his party. From 1933 onwards, he came here to make difficult decisions. In this idyllic mountain region Hitler decided on the disbandment of the unions, decided to attack Poland and decided on the criminal war against Sowjet Union. Here he decided on the assassination of thousands of disabled people, as well as the deportation of all Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. Laws were passed, commands were given and war was waged. It almost seems paradox to have in mind that Hitler commanded to defend Stalingrad and thus the killing of thousands of German soldiers while he stood at the table inside the Berghof, looking through the big panorama window into the mountains. The Obersalzberg was not known for the inhuman politics, but for thousands of photographs, that were taken here and that were widely spread. For his personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffman, Hitler posed as different roles. In front of the impressive peaks he staged as a powerful ruler. Next to neighbors, children or animals he staged as sympathetic People’s chancellor. Here in the mountains Hitler made himself seem like a caring person. A person, he never was in reality. This can be seen already in his neighborhood. A couple of other people had already bought summer houses at Obersalzberg before him. On the other side of the road, there was "Haus Mitterwurf". Today you barely find any traces from this house anymore. The house was owned by the respected chemist & physicist Arthur Eichengrün. During the summer he came with his family from Berlin to Obersalzberg. Photos from their family album show them hiking, in the salt mine or together with children from the village. When Adolf Hitler moved to Obersalzberg, the happy family life took a drastic turn. Even though Arthur Eichengrün had left the Jewish community already in 1894, he was still viewed as Jew by the Nazis. SA-men threatened his family, making them selling their estate already in 1932. A few years later, when it became property of the National Socialists, they tore the house down and removed all its traces. After 1933 Arthur Eichengrün lost his company. He was arrested and later deported to Theresienstadt. Even though Arthur Eichengrün survived the Nazi regime, he was a sick man and died only a few years later. Eichengrün was not the only resident of the Mountain, who was evicted by the Nazis. Right across "Haus Mitterwurf" there was "Hotel zum Türken". Today the main building looks very similar to what it looked like when it opened in 1911. The inn was a center for the village's community. That the National Socialists took over the mountain, was no problem for the owner, Karl Schuster, at the beginning. Karl Schuster supported the Nazis and was a member of the party. In his inn there were party meetings in the 1920s. And he profited financially from Hitler. When Hitler's fame drastically increased in 1932, his supporters traveled to the mountain. The inn advertised the exclusive view of Hitler's house. The National Socialists felt bothered by this. When he expressed slight critics in summer 1933, they arrested Schuster. The NSDAP in Berchtesgaden called for a boycott of the inn and Schuster was not freed until he agreed to sell the house. The building was not demolished, but used by the security service and Hitler’s personal bodyguards until 1945. The inn is one of the very few buildings, the original owners managed to get back after the war. In most cases the Free State of Bavaria, owner of the properties at Obersalzberg after 1945, decided to not return property bought by the National Socialist. Karl Schuster's widow was successful though. With the Nazi's call for boycott, she could prove to the U.S. military government that her husband did not sell the inn on his free will. She rebuilt the house and opened it as a hotel in 1950. On the surface the building did not look much different, a lot changed underground though. From 1943 to 1945 there were bunkers with a length of 6 kilometers built into the mountain. A part of it could be explored at the Hotel after paying entrance. However, the Family of Karl Schuster did not have an educational purpose in mind, but just followed economic interests. As a consequence they were not bothered by anti-Semitic slogans at the bunker's walls. Karl Schuster’s biography shows how quickly a supporter and profiteer could get arrested in the Nazi era. In a similar manner Hitler and his right-hand Martin Bormann acted against the other residents of Obersalzberg. When families refused to sell, the Nazis threatened them with concentration camp detention. This threat became reality in the case of Johann Brandner. The young photographer had a small photo store at the so-called Mittertratten, beneath Hitler’s house. Johann - Hansl, as other residents called him - earned well thanks to Hitler. He sold his photographs to the plenty of people, who traveled to the Mountain and he stood next to Haus Wachenfeld to make photos of the “pilgrims” for money. 1937 he was pressured into selling his property too by the National Socialists. He tried to fight for his building by writing a letter to his neighbour Adolf Hitler. On the same day he was arrested and brought to the concentration camp in Dachau. His shop and the surrounding buildings were torn down within a short amount of time. 2 years later Johann Brandner was released. He could not live his old life again though. He never talked about his experience in the concentration camp. After the war began he had to fight for the Wehrmacht and died in January 1945. There are no traces of his shop, it even cannot be localized exactly The "old" Obersalzberg was wiped out by the National Socialists, however it is not forgotten. On specific dates descendants remember the disappeared village. Offside the streets and paths a board, refers to the Obertallehen for example that was bought and torn down by the Nazis in 1937. At another place a cross remembers a chapel that was blown up during the “Third Reich”, because the Nazis did not tolerate any Christian symbols. The old Obersalzberg village got replaced Military barracks, functional buildings and houses for the Nazi leaders, such as Hermann Göring, Martin Bormann and Albert Speer, were built instead For these projects the regime needed thousands of workers. They lived in camps at Obersalzberg. One of the biggest camp was Antenberg - only a few hundred meters away from Dokumentation Obersalzberg. The camp consisted of over 20 barracks for around 750 people. The wooden buildings were constructed in the mid-1930s on hillside terraces. In the beginning there were mostly Austrian and German workers, who built roads. Later, in the end of the 1930s, there were mostly Czech, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Slovakian and Estonian workers. In the neighborhood of the "race-fanatic" Hitler, plenty of various Nationalities lived together on a tiny space. In the course of the war, they were no longer volunteers, but people forced to work. Years later, the Czech forced laborer Josef Drda still remembered the conditions in the camp: "In one room, we were 14 people. The barracks and the beds were full of bugs. The winter was very tough. As long as the oven was turned on, it was warm, but once we turned out the lights to sleep, it quickly became as cold inside as it was outside. In the morning when I got up, there was hoarfrost on the bedding, especially around the face. food rations we received were roughly sized for a six-year-old child. That meant we were constantly hungry. Hygiene was very bad.” The workers had to share a 50-meter long latrine that barely had any roof. They were beaten and kicked. Slight misbehavior was punished draconically. In the days following the air raid at the end of April 1945, the power structures at Obersalzberg dissolved. When U.S. and French soldiers reached the mountain on May 4, 1945, the workers were finally free. One year later the camp was inhabited again. Now there were 320 people from the eastern part of the former German Reich. The situation in Lager Antenberg was so bad, many of them were housed in other camps or residential houses shortly afterwards. In 1949 the last families moved away. The barracks were torn down, the material was sold. Only a few leftovers remained which today disappear in the undergrowth. Farm families, tourists, leading Nazis, forced laborers, soldiers and refugees. They were all on Obersalzberg within two decades. Some of them lived in the same places and in the same buildings - each under different circumstances and conditions, but each as an expression of world-political caesura.
