Popularized under the name of the “Eagle’s Nest” because of its geographical location, the Kehlsteinhaus was ravaged by flames on the night of October 23 to 24. For the moment, the possibility of an arson in this former Nazi reception area is favored. The suspect, a 33-year-old German, was placed on October 24 in a closed psychiatric establishment by court order. No injuries have been reported at this stage of the investigation.
Around 200 firefighters were mobilized to put out the fire that broke out in the building on Friday October 23, around 9 p.m. Located at more than 1,830 meters above sea level, in an area that is difficult to access, firefighters struggled to contain the flames, which were still active on Saturday morning. During the construction of the building, between 1937 and 1938, an elevator was dug into the mountain to take diplomats and high-ranking Nazi officers there, a technical feat for the time. The Berghof, Hitler’s mountain residence was located further down in Obersalzberg.
Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (Kehlsteinhaus) in the Bavarian Alps in Germany.
Built on the initiative of Martin Bormann, deputy head of the party chancellery in 1937, its location at the top of Kehlstein mountain helped to make it a strong symbol of Nazism. On May 4, 1945, the “Eagle’s Nest” was seized by the Allies, then used as a military command post until 1949, when it became the property of the State of Bavaria. A sad irony is that several pieces of furniture used to furnish the Kehlsteinhaus were designed by Hungarian designer Paul László, who was forced to flee the Nazi regime because of his Jewish origins.
In 1952, the Bavarian state decided to convert the building into a mountain restaurant. A few years later, in 1960, the public authorities transferred certain operating rights and associated revenues to a public interest foundation which has since administered the place. More recently, in 2017, a historical exhibition designed by the Institute of Contemporary History was installed on the building’s terrace, to contextualize the history of the place and its links with the Nazis.
