LITTLE ROCK — Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of articles by Culea Abraham, a 2008 graduate of Pea Ridge High School, and a senior at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Mo. She is the daughter of Russ and Lisa Abraham of Pea Ridge.
She traveled to World War II sites in Europe as one of 20 C of O students with 10 American World War II veterans to learn more about patriotism.
Kehlsteinhaus
BERCHTESGADEN ALPS, BAVARIA, Germany - Some reading this may be claustrophobic, some may have a fear of heights and I know at least a couple people who were born on April 20. If you fall into any of these categories, youhave something in common with Adolf Hitler.
What you most likely don’t have in common with him is the fact that for his 50th birthday, he was given a gift of a brand new house located just on the other side of the Austrian border from him. This house is known as Hitler’s Eagle Nest, or, in German, Kehlsteinhaus. Ironically, the house was on top of a mountain, something a person who is afraid of heights won’t really enjoy too much. Another funny thing: to get into this house on top of a mountain, Hitler had to ride up through the middle of the mountain in a small elevator. Needless to say, this wasn’t Hitler’s favorite place to be. He only visited this house 14 times between 1939 and the day he died. No one ever stayed overnight at this house except for the guards.
When we visited this huge palace, it was a snowy day in May. The house is so high on the mountain, that we were caught in the snow cloud and therefore could not really appreciate the view as much as we would have liked. Nonetheless, it wasn’t a wasted trip.
We were able to sit on the edge of the fireplace inside this house. As we sat in front of it sipping on hot chocolate, we were told of how the room had been changed from its original look to what we saw before us today.
The dining room of the house, in which we sat, had been reconstructed into what was now a restaurant for tourists. Our tour guide told us how when the Allies found the house this room underwent many different changes. Soldierswho had been the first to find the house took pieces of the massive carpet and the fireplaces as souvenirs.
Many of them carved their names into the dining room table in the middle of the room. The table and the carpet are no longer there.
The table was brought to America, never to be seen again. The carpet was pretty much destroyed by those soldiers who cut pieces for themselves to take. The fireplace is still there and still works. It has chunks that were shot off and broken to take home and even some names can be seen carved into the frame that is left.
To get to the house, we had to ride in an elevator which is in the middle of the mountain. To get to the elevator, there is a tunnel big enough for a limousine to drive into. This tunnel was heated up when guests came to the house.
At the end of this tunnel, the builder had a swastika pattern made of red marble brick built into the wall.
Hitler was very disappointed in this because since it was built in brick, the swastika lines were not completely straight. Recently, this swastika was sanded off as much as possible, but can still be faintly seen.
On April 22, 1945, the Allies dropped about 1,200 pounds of bombs on Salzburg, Austria, and onto the Eagle Nest. However, not one of these bombs hit Eagle Nest because of the snow that still had the house completely covered.
The house is only open for people to see during the summer and there are a lot of things that must be done before visitors are allowed to see the house today.
For movie lovers, here are a few facts that we learned while visiting the Eagle Nest. In the movie “Band of Brothers,” they show the discovery of Eagle Nest by Allied soldiers. Our tour guide of the house told us one of the mistakes that was made during the film. To the side of the dining room was a room for Hitler’s mistress to use at her own convenience. In the movie, the soldiers go upstairs into this room. In reality, you must go downstairs to enter this room. I thought this was a very interesting mistake. Another movie that that was actually filmed very close to the Eagle Nest was the ending scene of “Sound of Music,” when the family is escaping over the hill, they were actually on the same mountain not far away.
News, Pages 6 on 03/02/2011