Police are investigating widespread photos from the Kehlsteinhaus ruins – and are expressing suspicion

After the fire at the Kehlsteinhaus near Berchtesgaden, which was built by the National Socialists, the police are now also investigating footage from the ruins circulating on the Internet. Everything indicates that some of them are real photos, said a spokesman for the Upper Bavaria South Police Headquarters. However, from a police perspective, this is highly problematic and may even be punishable. Initially, the investigators assumed that, like other widespread recordings, they were fakes created using artificial intelligence.

In principle, the area around the Kehlsteinhaus is cordoned off and is not allowed to be entered, the spokesman emphasized. “From a police perspective, this is a crime scene.” There are therefore many arguments against taking photos there – and especially against publishing them.

On Saturday night, the building on Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden, which was built by the National Socialists for representational purposes and is now used as a mountain inn, almost completely burned down. The police arrested a 33-year-old German who was previously believed to be mentally ill and was therefore placed in a psychiatric hospital.

According to the Berchtesgaden Mountain Experience Association, which manages the Kehlsteinhaus, located at an altitude of 1,834 meters, the damage caused cannot be quantified. Initial estimates said the damage would amount to millions.

It is also not yet clear whether the brass-clad luxury elevator, which climbs 124 meters through the mountain to the building, was also damaged. The former tea house was built in 1937/38 on the initiative of Hitler's confidant Martin Bormann and was part of the Führer restricted area Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden.