Perched above the rugged peaks of the Bavarian Alps, the Kehlsteinhaus—better known to the world as the Eagle's Nest—remains one of the most striking surviving relics of the Nazi era. Completed in 1938, the building sits more than 6,000 feet above sea level, overlooking the village of Obersalzberg and, far below, the town of Berchtesgaden.
The project was ordered by Martin Bormann, the short, heavy-set party official who became Hitler's private secretary and who oversaw the entire Obersalzberg complex. Bormann never missed a chance to flatter the Führer, and he presented the Kehlsteinhaus to Hitler as a gift for his 50th birthday in 1939.
The building was intended as a spectacular diplomatic reception center, a place where heads of state and foreign dignitaries could be overawed by the location and the enormous effort required to construct it. Hitler, however, did not appreciate the gift.
Reaching the house required a four-mile drive from Obersalzberg along a frightening mountain road that often skirted deep precipices, passing through five tunnels cut into the rock. From a parking area below the building, visitors then rode a special elevator bored roughly 400 feet up through the mountain itself.
Hitler disliked heights, despite enjoying travel in large aircraft, and he had a morbid fear of being trapped in the elevator. He also distrusted high altitudes, believing they harmed his blood pressure, so he avoided the place as much as possible and visited only 14 times. Some of those visits lasted just 30 minutes at the summit, and he usually spent only a morning or an afternoon there.
The interior was decorated in a lavish and extremely expensive style. Eva Braun, Hitler's companion, used the Eagle's Nest frequently for parties and social gatherings throughout the war. Hitler's last visit came in 1940, when he received Crown Princess Marie, sister of King Leopold III of Belgium.
On May 4, 1945, troops of the French 2nd Armored Division reached Obersalzberg. At the same time, soldiers of the 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division captured Berchtesgaden below and sent a platoon up the mountain road toward Obersalzberg.
A small number of French soldiers managed to climb to the Eagle's Nest from the parking area below after retreating SS troops disabled the elevator. The French withdrew quickly after taking souvenirs from the Obersalzberg buildings, including the Eagle's Nest.
American soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division also began collecting souvenirs from the bomb-damaged buildings at Obersalzberg and from the vast, intact tunnel complex beneath them. The next day, the 3rd Division held a formal flag-raising ceremony at Obersalzberg, then handed the area over to the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, famous from the series "Band of Brothers."
An advance unit of the 101st reached the Eagle's Nest that day, and the entire Berchtesgaden area came under its control. All the buildings were heavily looted for souvenirs, including the tunnels beneath Hitler's home, the Berghof.
The Eagle's Nest became the focus of intense plundering, representing for many American soldiers the final victory over Nazi Germany—the capture of Hitler's mountaintop café. Many of the items taken by American troops still survive today.
One of the finest collections of these objects was recently examined in detail. The story begins in the entrance hall leading from the elevator. Along the left wall were hooks for visitors to hang their coats, overcoats, and hats.
The wooden paneling is original and remains in place today, but the hooks are replacements. The original hooks were pried off as souvenirs. Two hooks survived, taken from the wall by Captain Paul Riedel of the U.S. Air Force, attached to the appropriately named 31st Mobile Reclamation and Repair Squadron.
Moving down the corridor to the right was Hitler's study, which he apparently never used but which was fully furnished and filled with artifacts. Years ago, two large photographs were sent in by a subscriber, Tim Price, along with a background story linking them to Hitler's study at the Eagle's Nest.
Inside that room were kept a number of photo albums, two of which were certainly taken by Soldier Alton Moore, known from "Band of Brothers," who carried the books to Casper, Wyoming after the war. Those albums have never surfaced.
The two large black-and-white photographs, however, came from a Korean War veteran, who said he obtained them from a fellow veteran of World War II who had taken them from the Eagle's Nest, specifically from Hitler's office. Similar photographs in the same size have appeared in documented Eagle's Nest collections, so the source may be genuine, though it cannot be proven conclusively.
They certainly show Hitler before the war, in the late 1930s, at a location that looks very much like Obersalzberg. The photographs are dated after 1936 because of the type of eagle on the SS officer's cap, which was only introduced in February or March of that year.
Another item taken from Hitler's office by an American soldier is a Berchtesgaden telephone directory that sat on Hitler's desk, listing all the numbers of the various offices and buildings that made up the Obersalzberg complex. Obersalzberg had an underground telephone exchange and a switchboard for 900 telephone lines spread across the area.
According to the book "War Relics," the directory was taken by Joseph Johnson, who in May 1945 was a translator attached to a French unit that first reached the Eagle's Nest. He also took many other items.
Next to Hitler's office, back along the corridor toward the elevator doors, is the dining room, now used as a café. During World War II, the room looked very different, with a huge 30-foot table at its center surrounded by comfortable dining chairs.
Above the table hung a long white tablecloth, measuring 30 feet by 6.5 feet, made of linen with a 7-inch lace border and a decorative central design. According to "War Relics," this was also taken by Joseph Johnson of the 290th Combat Engineer Company, attached to the French 2nd Armored Division.
At the far end of the corridor, then as now, was the Eagle's Nest kitchen, and many items were liberated from the cabinets that lined the room and survive today. A remarkable set of red dragon tea sets was taken, again according to "War Relics," by Joseph Johnson.
Made by Meissen, each piece is hand-painted and numbered. They were part of a large service of cups, saucers, plates, and bowls. Johnson also took a steel container from the kitchen and packed the items inside it for shipment home.
The Eagle's Nest was well stocked with wine and spirits for entertaining, and victorious soldiers drank freely for weeks afterward. Among the surviving silver pieces is a bottle stopper bearing the initials of Adolf Hitler, which according to "War Relics" was taken by a member of C Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.
Records indicate that only 10 such stoppers were made exclusively for the Eagle's Nest, making them among the rarest surviving pieces today. Another soldier of the 506th, Private Clarence Overman, was among the first 101st Airborne troops to enter the building. He seized a 10.5-inch silver cake knife, one of four at the Eagle's Nest, along with a silver beer glass base bearing Hitler's initials.
Other items seized from the Eagle's Nest kitchen, according to "War Relics," include two wine glasses. The glass on the left was for white wine, the one on the right for red. They were made by the Steigerwald company in Munich and delivered in 1941, and they are very rare survivors given how fragile they are.
The largest room in the Eagle's Nest was known as the Great Hall. Octagonal in shape, it now serves as a visitor restaurant, but during World War II it was a comfortable lounge where people could drink coffee and relax before a massive red marble fireplace said to have been a gift from Mussolini.
Some lighting came from wall sconces fitted with large candles. The current light fixtures are modern replacements, since American troops seized the originals at the end of the war. Eight brass sconces with candles were found around the Great Hall.
Most remarkably, a candle made of beeswax from one of those sconces still survives intact. One of the wall sconces appears in "War Relics." Originally, six of them formed a single lighting unit, and records show these pieces were taken by a soldier of the U.S. Army Signal Corps.
Comfortable chairs and coffee tables were distributed throughout the Great Hall. After the war, much of the Eagle's Nest furniture was moved to the Platterhof hotel in Obersalzberg, where it remained in steadily deteriorating condition until the hotel closed in the 1990s. Some of it was saved.
One specific chair, according to "War Relics," was rescued by a film production company and returned, along with other pieces, to the Eagle's Nest after the filming of the series "War and Remembrance" in the 1980s. The cushion did not actually belong to that chair.
It was taken as a souvenir from the Eagle's Nest in 1945 by a British soldier who visited the site with an American guide. His U.S. Army guide appears to have taken the cushion for him. All the cushions were the same color but had slightly different designs.
Also among the surviving Great Hall furniture is a walnut coffee table with a marble top. Originally there were eight such tables in the room, and they too ended up at the Platterhof hotel for decades. According to "War Relics," this piece is the last known survivor.
On such tables were placed lace doilies with a design almost identical to the large dining tablecloth seen earlier. A second identical doily was taken by a French soldier and is displayed today at the French Army Museum at Les Invalides in Paris.
Although Hitler did not smoke and smoking in his presence was forbidden, and although he rarely visited the Eagle's Nest, silver smoking accessories bearing his initials were kept there for guests. A cigar box, according to "War Relics," is one of the rarest and most sought-after Eagle's Nest souvenirs.
Surprisingly, it still contains a cigar. Unfortunately, permission was not granted to light one. Accompanying the cigar box was a matchbox, still remarkably full of original large matches, along with a silver cigar cutter bearing the initials "AH" and an empty silver cigarette case.
The silver cigar cutter was one of two in the Great Hall of the Eagle's Nest, and according to "War Relics," it was seized by Adler Mueller of the 506th Parachute Infantry Battalion. The final item did not come from inside the Eagle's Nest but from outside it.
Shortly after the building was captured, the 101st Airborne Division erected a flagpole beside it and raised, according to "War Relics," an American flag measuring 9 by 5 feet. When the 101st left the area, the flag passed into the possession of John Sibal of C Company, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment.
Sibal kept the flag for the rest of his life and wrote on it, though he got the date wrong by one day. Photographs of the flag flying over the Eagle's Nest were only published after Sibal's death in 2017. The flag was later sold in his hometown of Rochester, New York, to a local collector.
A future episode will examine souvenirs from the Berghof, Hitler's private home. In that episode, an attempt will be made to play one of Hitler's records from his personal collection, recovered from the cellar beneath it, after roughly 82 years of silence.