Flames destroy the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's famous residence in the Alps

The flames illuminated the sky of Berchtesgaden on Friday night, a tourist municipality in the German Alps known for hosting The Eagle's Nest. The imposing residence of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler on Mount Kehlstein, 1,800 meters high, was burning due to an intentional fire, according to the investigation by the Bavarian authorities. The police of Bavaria, the land where the events occurred, reported this Saturday that they had arrested a suspect.

The Kehlstein House, as The Eagle's Nest is officially known, was built for Hitler in 1938 under the supervision of Martin Bormann, head of the National Socialist Party and secretary of the Führer. It has been protected as a public monument since the 1950s. Up to 200 firefighters were assigned to put out the fire and stop its expansion in the forests in the area. The police have confirmed that no one was injured because the building was empty at the time the fire started, after 9:00 p.m.

Police sources have assured the newspaper Bild that the place has been razed: "There is nothing in the building that can be saved." Live images from a camera located in the Kehlstein House showed this Saturday that the fire had already been put out, but the building continued to smoke.

The Eagle's Nest was one of Hitler's residences where he met with his closest circle or summoned the military leadership to supervise the evolution of World War II. Some of the best-known photos of the dictator at leisure were taken in the Kehlstein House. From a young age, Hitler was in love with Obersalzberg, the district of Berchstesgaden where the Kehlstein House is located. In a pension in Obersalzberg he wrote a good part of Mein Kampf (My Struggle) in the 1920s, the book that served as a doctrine of Nazism, now banned for sale in Germany.

At the foot of the mountain is the Obersalzberg Documentation Center, which was renovated in 2024 as a space for education and memory of the horror of Nazism. The educational center stands near where the Berghof, Hitler's other residence in the town, was located. The dictator combined his stay between this house, since 1935, and El Nido del Águila. Historians emphasize that where the Nazi leader spent the most time was in the Berghof.

Obersalzberg was a militarized municipality, with barracks for soldiers, defense systems and a network of bunkers six kilometers long. The town was severely destroyed in April 1945 during a British bombing raid, a few weeks before the end of World War II. Hitler's Berghof was dynamited in 1952 by the American Administration, which occupied the region, to put an end to the pilgrimage of curious people.

Several historical studies indicate that the name Eagle's Nest was used for the first time in 1938 by the French diplomat André François-Poncet. He visited Hitler there to present his resignation as French ambassador to Germany and in a subsequent report coined the residence with its now famous nickname.