Kehlsteinhaus (Eagles Nest): Then and Now

I've recently returned from a fantastic but hectic 7 day motorcycling tour of Europe. I did the trip with four friends and our continental leg of the tour started in Calais, France and passed through Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Germany and covered some 2,500 miles in total.

Of course, our trip wouldn’t have been complete without taking in some WW2 sights along the way!

While we were in southern Germany we camped at the foot of the mountain that has Hitler's Kehlsteinhaus or Eagles Nest atop of it. So we had to go up there for a visit and cup of tea!

Here are a few of my 'then and now' comparisons of the place...

This is the tunnel that leads to the elevator which takes you up to the Eagles Nest



Hitler sat on the sun terrace

 

Nice pics, John! Sadly the weather was bad and rainy. Do you have more?

 

Nice pics indeed.

 

Nice job. I've only been to the Obersalzberg once, and it was foggy and overcast the entire weekend. It was so bad I couldn't even see the mountains.

 

Nice one, JP44 ! I wondered where you'd got to......

Many years since I visited the Kehlsteinhaus - the bus trip up the mountain road was quite something....

 

Yes Ulrich I did a few more, although not as many as I'd liked to have.

The weather for most of our tour was very bad with torrential rain some days. Thankfully the day we visited the eagles nest the weather was quite nice.

I'd say the bus trip down was a white knuckle ride. The driver had to really swing round on one particular hairpin bend and the bus came very close to the edge!

 

Hitler with the French ambassador to Germany, Andre Francois Poncet, in 1938.

 

This is the fireplace in the round room. Lots of pieces of the marble surround were chipped off by souvernir hunters after the war.



Hitler in the same room and stood just right of the fireplace

 

excellent Photos John!! Very interesting

 

Great stuff!!!!!!!! What else did you visit?

 

Great place, nice pics! thanx! I was there back in 2001, and at the same time loadsa Russian tourists. I was almost laughing " If Hitler could hear this..."...

 

Great pics of the interior of the Restaurant.....I recall customers giving me odd looks when I paced around, copy of After The Battle in hand....

 

I don't know about Russians but there were lots of Japanese and Chinese visitors when we were there.

Same thing happened to me when I was shuffling in to position to take my shots whilst holding a handful of 'then' photos.

 

Much applause, Mr Panther.

All of these marvellous historical outings are but a step away for Europeans.

Half the world away for us philistines in historically irrelevent Australia.

In the city I live in now, Darwin, we uncovered an old Japanese bomb crater whilst workmen were doing something in town. Locals came from all over to take pictures with this "irrevocable link from the past.".

CAC and myself made mention of it at the time, suggesting that our locals find something else to get historically excited about, for this hole in the ground was not it!

Anyhow, salute for you, Mr Panther, because I more than just 'like' this. I want to do exactly what you have, but alas, will probably not get to, tyranny of distance, and all that!

 

Maybe one day you will get a chance to visit Europe.

Never say never, Volga....where there's a will, there's a way!

Enough of the proverbs and on with the comparisons.

General Mark Clark (left) entering the tunnel leading to the Eagles Nest elevator.



The period photo heading states that the military personel in the shot are members of the 101st Airborne.

 

I find the photo of the people in the restaurant/coffee/souvenir shop to be very surreal. How odd it is to see that in that spot.

Great photos.

 

We visited only one other WW2 related place on our tour, which I will be posting a thread about soon.

Glad to be of help, Lou.

It was indeed a surreal experience to be there and imagine who once occupied the same space.