about Bormann’s mother’s birthday.

The French soldiers’ trophies
from the Berghof show a sumptuous lifestyle in high contrast
to that of the Berchtesgaden residents.

The residents of the city of Berchtesgaden
call the residence of the Obersalzberg, Adolf and his cronies, “Those out there.

” There were waiters in white gloves.

Everything was very methodical, orchestrated with a high level of protocol
for the visits of the heads of state.

Since the Berghof was a place of power, we found objects given by dignitaries
to show their friendship, as is the case for this box.

It was a gift given to Hitler
for his 50th birthday on April 20th, 1939.

It is a gold and silver box.

It shows the functions
of the Chancellor as the nation’s savior.

With time, the Obersalzberg
became the Reich’s second capital.

Between the trinkets
and the men standing at attention, politics continued to operate.

It’s quite surprising, but the mountain had become
a real second seat of power that functioned completely outside
of normal bureaucracy.

When Heinrich Himmler was there
in this quiet, green environment, they did not talk about the weather but about the deportation
of the Hungarian Jews or how many people
were going to be murdered in the gas chambers.

All of this was decided orally.

Mixed with their daily
ordinary conversations, weighty decisions were made.

A symbol of the Chancellor’s omnipotence, the Obersalzberg
and the Berghof became key places in the diplomatic relations
between Germany and the rest of the world.

The press often reported
on world leaders and ambassadors who made official visits to Hitler
in his vast Bavarian residence.

Hitler would orchestrate these arrivals.

Sometimes he would come
all the way down to the steps.

I think when the Prince of Wales visited, he met him at the base of the stairs
and accompanied him up.

When Chamberlain came,
Hitler walked halfway down the stairs.

On other occasions, he is said
to have stood at the top of the stairs and simply waited
for the person to come up to him.

He designed his own protocol
and his own theatrics around this.

From the writing of Mein Kampf
to the final decisions of the war, it was in this breathtaking setting
that Hitler hatched the key strategies of the Third Reich.

All the planning
for the summer of 1939 took place there.

Across from the Berghof,
you have the Untersberg.

The soul of Friedrich Barbarossa
is said to reside in the Untersberg, who would one day rise
to conquest and power.

Hitler named the invasion of Russia
“Operation Barbarossa”.

This was the place
of “inspiration” for him.

He famously said that that was where
he had spent his most pleasant times and conceived his great ideas.

When it comes to ideas, the list is long.

It was at the Berghof
that he ordered the boycott of all Jewish businesses in 1933.

It was where he prepared
the Munich Agreement in 1938 and ordered
the handicapped euthanasia program in 1941.

Finally, it is where
Hitler ordered the deportation of half a million Hungarian Jews in 1944.

Behind these gruesome scenes
was Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler’s mistress.

She began living there secretly in 1936 because Hitler wanted to show the world
that he had no private life.

However, when he had no guests
or when he was absent, Eva Braun took over the premises
and filmed her leisurely daily life.

For Eva Braun,
the Berghof is a kind of refuge.

She is recognized there.

She’s the boss.

Hitler always tells her
to go to the mountain and take her friends and sisters.

Robert Brandner
is an antiques dealer in Berchtesgaden.

He specializes in a niche market,
the Berghof relics.

Numerous objects
have passed through his hands, and among them are letters
written by Eva Braun to her best friend, Herta Schneider.

Herta received her letters or cards.

I had a bundle of them.

They said: “How are you, my little Herta?” “Do you want to spend
a few days in the mountains?” “I’m a little lonely up here.

” “I would enjoy your company.

” “My sisters are coming next week.

” Et cetera.

Upon her death,
Eva Braun left many belongings to Herta Schneider, and Robert Brandner
was later in charge of selling them.

I had suitcases, clothes, nightgowns, tights, gloves, everything.

There was some furniture too.

This dressing table
comes from Eva Braun’s room.

It stayed at the Berghof until the end.

At the end of the war, a resident of Berchtesgaden
took it from the Berghof.

One could also say that she looted it.

It turns out it was probably fair game since Martin Bormann himself
had stolen it in the first place.

During the war, Eva Braun continued
to spend time with her close entourage.

In 1944, the marriage between her sister and SS Fegelein was the occasion
for a final festive moment.

At that time, Germany was undergoing
the Allied Force’s incessant attacks.

In 1943, when bombs fell on Munich,
which was just a 20-minute flight away, the Obersalzberg trembled.

Hitler and his faithful secretary,
Martin Bormann, knew that their mountain was vulnerable.

Despite all the precautions taken
to build an ultra-secure area, an airstrike could easily destroy
their Bavarian retreat.

To protect them, Martin Bormann
launched an enormous new project, the construction of a network of bunkers and tunnels
buried deep inside the mountain.

This was one of the emergency exits
to Hitler’s own personal tunnel.

This is the only access
to Hitler’s tunnel system today, because all the other entrances
have either been buried or blocked off.

Back there, in Hitler’s own tunnel system, there were some 17 rooms,
if you count the toilets.

There were rooms for Hitler,
for his mistress, Eva Braun, for his personal physician, Doctor Morell, for his personal servants
and his closest adjutants, and also some staff rooms
for the SS guards.

The Berghof’s bunker
was first built in 1943.

Its construction took place
in three distinct phases.

Section A was completed
around Christmas 1943.

It went from a staircase
located just behind the Berghof and extended to the basement
of the former hotel Zum Türken, where Hitler’s personal bodyguard stayed.

It included the personal apartments
of the Führer and his entourage.

Section B, built in 1944,
extended westward.

It contained
all of the operational facilities, a telecommunications room,
archives, a kitchen, and a control room
for the electricity and air conditioning.

Section C,
whose construction could not be completed, included a tunnel
that went even deeper into the mountain to escape potential attackers.

The Führer’s bunker was equipped
with several emergency exits, but it was also connected to the bunker
of Martin Bormann by a tunnel.

Between the two,
a shelter designed to accommodate 400 men was built under the SS barracks.

Göring and Speer’s houses
had their own burrows.

In total, in less than two years, a sprawling 6-kilometer
and 22,000-square-meter network was dug inside the Obersalzberg.

This rare footage dates back to 2004.

It comes from one of the rare times the Bavarian government
authorized a complete exploration of the Obersalzberg’s bunkers.

It was led by a German archaeologist
accompanied by a camera operator.

Here’s another pass.

Here, we are under Martin Bormann’s house.

Although Allied Forces went
through these tunnels just after the war, there are still traces
of the German occupation during the war years.

Here, they called it the casino, which served as a living room
and dining room.

[German spoken audio] [German spoken audio] That’s some ointment.

We’re heading for the emergency exit.

We are again above the air ducts.

Here we can see the old armored door
which is on the ground.

To avoid neo-Nazi pilgrimages, the Obersalzberg’s bunkers
are now closed off, but one area,
which is a few hundred meters long, is still accessible.

In this second seat of power, the bunkers were to be used
not only as anti-aircraft shelters, but also as the government’s
underground headquarters.

That’s why they were intended
to be so immense right from the start.

Axel Drecoll is the site’s custodian.

The Contemporary History Institute
of Munich has entrusted him with preserving
the memory of Obersalzberg.

Here, we are in a room
originally reserved for the operations, hence the appearance of a large hall.

Otherwise, many rooms
were supposed to accommodate the families of senior party officials for long stays.

They were therefore habitable.

It was sparse, not luxurious.

However, the small rooms
could serve as bedrooms, offices, and control rooms.

The idea was to be able
to continue the war from here.

Inside, everything was designed so that the occupants could remain
underground for as long as possible while remaining isolated from the surface.

In the 1940s,
Goebbels called for a total war, and the logical consequence was that as the ideological delirium
no longer worked above ground, they buried themselves underground.

That’s what the bunker shows.

The sprawling network has two levels.

One is filled with habitable shelters.

The second, located just below,
held the electricity, heat, water, and especially
the very sophisticated ventilation system.

At a rate of 3,000 cubic meters per hour, the air was drawn in,
filtered, dehumidified, and then vented
into the bunker’s corridors.

A slight extra pressure
then allowed the stale air to be pushed outside.

This system made it possible
both to renew the air and most importantly, to prevent any contaminated air
from infiltrating the network.

In the event
of a chemical attack or bombing, leakproof valves were used
to block chemicals and fumes from entering the tunnels.

The underground complex could thus operate
in a closed circuit for several hours.

This gigantic construction
mobilized the Reich’s best engineers, making it almost indestructible.

The tunnels were constructed
from several materials.

First, solid concrete
that touched the rock.

Then a first brick wall
to drain water leaks.

Then a layer of plastic insulation, and finally, a second wall
made of a double row of bricks covered with plaster.

In 1945, as the war was ending,
the network was still under construction.

The Nazi leader’s goal
was to create another, even deeper level.

Behind, there is still an elevator shaft.

The shaft is finished,
but there was never an elevator.

Imagine lifts that could carry trucks.

In fact, it should have been
a real underground city.

Here, we have a bunker entrance or exit.

It could be reached by this staircase.

At the bottom of the stairs, access was monitored
by soldiers armed with machine guns.

On the surface, the Luftwaffe added
a few lines of classic defense, a battalion of anti-aircraft artillery, and a fog machine in addition
to camouflaging the main buildings.

In the spring of 1945, when the German Army
suffered heavy losses on all fronts and the country was being massively bombed
by Allied Aviation, the Royal Air Force decided to strike
the alpine retreat of Adolf Hitler as a symbolic gesture.

On April 28th, 1945, a shower of bombs
fell on the Obersalzberg.

It was practically
the only thing in Germany that hadn’t been bombed.

However,
I think it was a strategic decision to say that they moving the war into that particular location.

At the time,
there was an early warning system.

When the 15 warnings sounded,
you had 15 minutes to get to safety, so you had to go home.

With the ten and five warnings,
you had to go to the nearest bunker.

On the day of the Obersalzberg bombing, I did not want to go down into a bunker
because I wanted to go home.

However,
I was half an hour’s walk from my house.

On the road, a plane shot at me.

Imagine, I was on the road,
and a plane shot at me, a little kid.

On the surface,
all buildings were affected, but the bunker had worked.

The bombing caused only six deaths.

In the region, the residents
of Berchtesgaden were traumatized and would soon discover
the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

I was convinced that the Führer
was the biggest and the strongest.

I did not understand
why my parents did not agree.

At the end of the war, I was 13 years old.

You must understand that for me, as a kid,
losing the war was a catastrophe, a humiliation.

We were the ideal country.

The Nazis were the best,
pure, and without flaws.

I did not know anything at the time.

As the locals finally ventured
into the mountains, French troops from General Leclerc,
2nd Armored Division, moved toward
the quintessential symbol of Nazi power.

At the same time,
US forces were also arriving.

Even today,
two versions of history don’t agree on who arrived at the Berghof first.

Berlin had fallen a few days before.

The ground troops didn’t know
that Hitler had committed suicide.

They think that he might be up there,
so it’s a race to victory.

The Americans arrived
in the city of Berchtesgaden on May 4th.

They believe they have reached their goal,
Hitler’s house.

They are close, but so far away.

However, not knowing the area,
they stop in the city center.

The 2nd Armored Division
arrives on their heels two or three hours after,
according to the railway’s records.

The French knew more
about the area because an officer, who had been taken prisoner
and had traveled through there in 1940, took them to the Berghof.

Therefore, the French arrived
on the Obersalzberg first.

A few hours earlier, the last SS soldiers on the site
had set fire to the buildings, so the French soldiers
happen upon a smoking Berghof.

Alain Raphaël is one of the first soldiers
to have entered Adolf Hitler’s lair.

At that time, he was 24.

We traveled up to it
on an extremely damaged road.

We parked our tanks under the terrace.

I can still see myself entering this room
that overlooked the Alps.

I had seen photos
and movies of Hitler parading around, and I found myself in this room.

I enjoyed it.

Under the stairs, we broke down a door
and discovered a small room.

In there, there were items
that were as kitschy as you could imagine.

Everyone helped themselves
to as much as they could.

However, as I lost my tank afterward,
I wasn’t able to keep anything.

French soldiers found
the huge tunnel network built under the Berghof.

To mark their passage, three of them engraved their initials,
as well as the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol of the Free French Forces.

Quickly, the GIs caught up
with the French on the mountain, also finding
the smoking remains of the Berghof.

After having lived
under the Nazi stranglehold, the village was about to live
with the American army for 45 years.

The last remains of the Berghof
were completely destroyed in 1952, and until 1995,
US soldiers went to the Obersalzberg to relax in their free time.

Once Germany reunited, Bavaria tried to make the mountain
attractive to tourists again.

The area has been reforested, and the last remains of the structures
built by the Nazis were destroyed to make room for new buildings,
like this immense luxury hotel.

Today, the Obersalzberg
has become peaceful again, but what little remains from the wartime
offers precious evidence of the period.

In their own way, the remains recount
the 20 years of Nazi occupation, which saw Adolf Hitler and his followers
take over a small Bavarian mountain to satisfy their thirst for power.

 

« Prev