A fire at the Kehlsteinhaus

A fire broke out at the Kehlsteinhaus, the former teahouse of Adolf Hitler on the Obersalzberg above Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, on the evening of Friday, 23 October. According to the Polizeipräsidium Oberbayern Süd, the first rescue crews reached the building at 21:52 and found a large fire already burning. The police did not expect any injuries, and based on the information available at the time, nobody had been inside. The cause had not been established.

The police described the firefighting operation in a statement:

“The firefighting measures are currently in full swing.”

Firefighters were still working on the blaze around midnight, and the police had not yet released figures on the number of crews. The building, described as a 1,834-metre-high mountain restaurant, is the Kehlsteinhaus, also known as the Eagle's Nest.

Arrest and suspected arson

Bild, as cited by N-tv, reported that the police were investigating suspected arson. Officers driving toward the scene met a motorcyclist, alerted the fire engine following behind them, and that crew stopped the man. A police spokesperson told Bild that he had been arrested. AD reported that a man had been arrested, while NOS said police had detained a suspect shortly after the fire broke out, but it was still unclear whether he had anything to do with it. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Crews, damage and open questions

The number of responders is reported differently. Wochenblatt, cited by AD, put the number of firefighters on site at 150, while the Bavarian police, cited by NOS, said about 200 helpers were involved in fighting the blaze. N-tv reported that at midnight the police still had no figures on the number of crews. Whether the building can still be saved was also unclear, and AD reported that it was not yet known whether the fire was under control.

A building from the Nazi era

The Kehlsteinhaus sits at 1,834 metres on the Kehlstein and was completed in 1938, according to Spiegel and N-tv, while NOS gives 1937 and 1938 as the years of construction. It was built inside the closed residential and government area of the Nazi leadership, and it has operated as a mountain restaurant since 1952. The building was meant to receive diplomats and other foreign guests, but the Zweckverband Bergerlebnis Berchtesgaden says its importance remained small.

“In reality, the importance of the Kehlsteinhaus remained small.”

According to the house's own website, cited by Spiegel, the building was not a gift for Hitler's 50th birthday in 1939. Hitler visited it only rarely, and NOS reports that it was used mainly by people from his inner circle, including Eva Braun. His own residence, the Berghof, stood lower on the Obersalzberg, where Hermann Göring, Albert Speer and Martin Bormann also had houses.

Access and what comes next

Visitors reach the site by a 6.5-kilometre mountain road with five tunnels, which only buses use, and a gold-coloured lift cut into the rock covers the final roughly 125 metres, according to Spiegel and NOS, which gives the lift height as 124 metres. Spiegel reports that the building was not damaged in Allied air attacks, and an exhibition on the sun terrace covers its history. The Bergerlebnis Berchtesgaden website listed the season as open until 8 November, and the cause of the fire is still being investigated.