Hitler’s ‘Eagle’s Nest’: 7 Secrets of the Nazi Mountain Retreat

The Eagle's Nest was the last major building constructed at the Obersalzberg enclave, which was transformed after 1933 into a heavily defended sanctuary for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi elite. Hitler had a house there, called the Berghof ("Mountain Manor"), as did several other top Nazis, including Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, and Martin Bormann. The Obersalzberg enclave was patrolled by a unit of SS soldiers, who were stationed in barracks at the site, and it featured miles of underground tunnels containing command centers, luxury air-raid shelters, food stores and vaults for stolen artwork.

Formally called the Kehlsteinhaus, after the mountain it was built on, the Eagle’s Nest was one of the last major buildings at Obersalzberg to survive World War II and the postwar demolitions. Bavaria’s state government demolished many of the remaining Nazi-era buildings in 1952, fearing they might encourage neo-Nazi pilgrimages, and the Eagle’s Nest later became a tourist attraction. But in October 2026, it was gutted by fire.

The Eagle's Nest was set apart from the other buildings at the Obersalzberg enclave, at the end of a 4-mile-long road cut through mountain granite that was considered an engineering marvel at the time. Visitors reached the building through a 400-foot tunnel and an opulent elevator that could accommodate more than 50 people at a time and featured polished brass paneling, green leather seats and ornate mirrors. The elevator ascended more than 400 feet from the tunnel to the teahouse in 41 seconds. From the mountain summit, at an altitude of 6,017 feet, the Eagle's Nest offered expansive views of the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, as well as the Austrian city of Salzburg—about 15 miles away—on clear days.

Many sources state that the Eagle's Nest was built by Martin Bormann for Hitler's 50th birthday, but this is not the case. Bormann, who eventually controlled most aspects of Hitler's life, started the project in 1937 as a showcase of German engineering for visiting diplomats. But it was ready in time for Hitler's 50th birthday on April 20, 1939—and so Bormann presented the Eagle's Nest to Hitler as a gift, complete with lavish furnishings that included an ornate red marble fireplace from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

"It wasn't commissioned as a gift, but it coincided nicely with the 50th birthday," says architectural historian Despina Stratigakos of the University at Buffalo and author of the 2015 book Hitler at Home.

The Eagle's Nest was the crowning glory of the Obersalzberg enclave and became its defining feature, but Hitler didn't like it much, says Stratigakos. He reportedly visited just 14 times and preferred to walk to the much lower (and less luxurious) Mooslahnerkopf teahouse in the Obersalzberg enclave.

"Reportedly Hitler was not fond of heights," Stratigakos says. Accounts also suggest that he disliked the thin mountain air at the Eagle’s Nest and worried that lightning would strike the brass-lined elevator.

The Allies were preoccupied at the end of the war by the threat of a last-ditch Nazi defense in an "alpine redoubt" in the Bavarian and Austrian Alps, and the Eagle's Nest was its symbolic core. Although it was nothing more than a teahouse that Hitler rarely visited, the Eagle's Nest was portrayed in some Allied reports as a command center for this supposed mountain fortress. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels exploited fears of an Alpine Redoubt, leaking reports through neutral countries that Allied forces would face fierce resistance if they attacked.

Fearing that Nazi leaders might retreat to a mountain stronghold, the Allies targeted the Obersalzberg enclave in a major bombing raid. On April 25, 1945, more than 300 Royal Air Force Lancaster bombers attacked the complex, heavily damaging many of the buildings there, including Hitler’s Berghof residence. But the Eagle’s Nest was unscathed by the bombing—possibly because the mountaintop was too hard to hit with the carpet-bombing methods of the time.

On May 4, 1945, four days before Germany’s surrender, units of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division secured the Obersalzberg enclave after fighting off only minor resistance. These soldiers reached the road to the Eagle’s Nest but advanced no further. Hours later, they were joined by soldiers from the French 2nd Armored Division—and it was these French troops who first reached and secured the Eagle’s Nest at the summit of the mountain.

The next day, however, soldiers from the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 101st Airborne Division arrived and took over the Obersalzberg site. They were later credited with capturing the summit tearoom, including in Stephen Ambrose’s book Band of Brothers and the HBO miniseries based on it. The victorious U.S. troops helped themselves to rare European wines and cigars stockpiled for the Nazi elite.