OBERSALZBERG, Germany, 16 September 2003 — Adolf Hitler once said he would prefer his Alpine home, the “Berghof”, to go up in flames after his death rather than have tourists flock to see where he had breakfast.
He would have mixed feelings if he saw it today.
The Berghof, built on the Obersalzberg mountain facing a panorama of craggy peaks and green pastures, did indeed come to a fiery end in a British air raid in April 1945.
But well over 100,000 tourists visit the site near the German border with Austria each year, lured by a lasting fascination with Hitler, both in Germany and abroad.
“It’s the same phenomenon you see in other places where global history was made, such as the battlefields of Austerlitz or Waterloo,” said historian Volker Dahm.
“The difference is that the lure of the Obersalzberg is greater because extreme history was shaped here,” said Dahm, who devised a government-sponsored permanent exhibition at the site.
Hitler has attracted tourists to the mountain, where he wrote part of his book “Mein Kampf” and ordered the assault on the Soviet Union, since the late 1920s. It remains big business for souvenir sellers to this day.
Books and videos about the mountain’s history, Hitler and his mistress Eva Braun cram shops throughout the region and are top sellers alongside yodeling teddy bears.
“They sell very well, they’re all approved by the government and they don’t glorify anything,” said Monika Merz, owner of a souvenir shop in the nearby town of Berchtesgaden which stocks an array of Hitler books and videos.
“It’s mostly older people who buy them but young people who come here also get to think about what happened and that nothing like this must ever happen again.”
Ursula Karbacher, spokeswoman for the Berchtesgaden region tourist authority, said: “When I walk through town I often get stopped and asked, ‘How do I get to Hitler’s house?’
“It’s in people’s heads and you won’t be able to do anything about that but you can’t say this is a pilgrimage site.”
Still, makeshift shrines to Hitler made of stones, flowers and candles sometimes appear near the moss-covered concrete foundations of the Berghof — all that remains of Hitler’s home after US forces detonated the ruin in 1952.
Hitler first visited the area in 1923 and kept returning, attracted by its splendor and the serenity that let him develop his vision of racial supremacy, conquest and genocide in peace.
He bought a house and had it expanded into the 30-room Berghof.
The view through a grand picture window resembled a huge painting of the Alps and impressed visiting dignitaries during the 1930s, including the British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Hitler’s secretary Martin Bormann forced local residents to sell their homes on the mountain and turned it into a second seat of government and playground for the Nazi top brass. Air force chief Hermann Goering and Hitler’s favorite architect Albert Speer built houses there.
Accounts of Hitler’s routine at the Berghof reveal a dull existence for his obsequious private visitors who were forced to listen to the Fuehrer talk until long past midnight.
“At the coffee table Hitler lost himself in endless monologues,” Speer recalled. “Occasionally Hitler would fall asleep during his monologue, the party would then converse in whispers and hope he would wake up in time for dinner.”
Before military defeats prompted him to avoid public appearances, the Berghof served an important propaganda purpose — to show the “private” Hitler as the People’s Chancellor, close to nature, patting the heads of children and his pet Alsatian named Blondi.
From 1933, when he became Chancellor, thousands of supporters would march up the mountain chanting: “We want to see our Fuehrer!” and wait for hours to catch a glimpse of him.
Back then, there was a flourishing trade in decorative plates and photographs showing the Fuehrer relaxing.
Austrian police bent on protecting his privacy stopped tourists watching Hitler’s home through telescopes from across the border in Salzburg, more than 20 km away.
The interest persists, except many of the tourists are foreign. Belgian tourist Luc de Putter, visiting the Obersalzberg for the second time, said: “I first came here with my father who was a prisoner of war, we wanted to see where Hitler lived.”
The Bavarian government, keen to find a use for the area after the US Army gave up a recreation center there in 1996, decided on a twin strategy of encouraging tourism and informing visitors about the region’s history with an exhibition.
It invited Britain’s Inter.Continental Hotel Group to build a luxury hotel there due for completion by early 2004, located precisely on the site of Goering’s holiday home.
Jewish groups are unhappy with the plans to exploit the site commercially but have been unable to stop them.
Dahm said the permanent exhibition, which contains graphic pictures and frank accounts of Hitler’s crimes, makes sure the tourists learn of the horrors of the Third Reich.
Jasmin Piepke, 15, a pupil on a school trip to the area, said: “It’s interesting to see how things were, it’s sinister.”
Peter Reich, a pensioner from Berlin said: “It’s especially important for the generations after 1945 to know what happened.”
The area’s only visible tourist attraction today is almost 1,000 meters higher up on top of 1,834 meter (6,017 feet) Mount Kehlstein — the so-called “Eagle’s Nest”, a grand lodge which the Nazi party built for Hitler to mark his 50th birthday in 1939.
The lodge remains in its original state and houses a restaurant. Hitler visited it only a few times because he did not like heights.
