My holiday pictures, Berghof, Mauthausen and Berlin. 56K beware, HUGE!

[Joris]

Of course these were not the only places I vistited during my vacation but the rest is probably not as interesting to you all.

 

At the Berchtesgaden pictures I have added a number of historic pictures and a map to give you a better idea of what you are looking at.

 

Berchtesgaden:

First lets start with Hitlers Eagles nest:

 

We walked up and down to the Eagles nest (Kehslteinhaus) which is quite a walk. The Eagles nest is at 1800m and the parkinglot at 600..

 

 

In the middle of the picture you see a short stretch of wall which was part the security fence which was all around the Eagles Nest.

 

The Documentation centre, built on the demolished Guesthouse:

 

The guesthouse, after the war:

 

The remaining parts of the old Guesthouse:

 

 

The location of Hitlers Berghof:

 

The last remaining wall of the Berghof and this was not even part of the house, it's the wall that keeps the mountain back.

 

 

 

The Berghof in it's "better" years:

 

We also visited the remains of Hitlers Teahouse and the overlook, both of which he visited nearly every day whilst staying at the Berghof.

 

The overlook:

 

 

The overlook in WWII:

 

 

The remains of the Teehaus:

 

 

 

 

The Teahouse in WWII:

 

 

Hitler entering his teehaus:

 

The Teehaus and the Eaglesnest:

 

The bunkers under the mountain are for a part open to the public, you were not allowed to take pictures. But I seem to have missed that sign :evil:

 

This is a part of a map which shows the bunker system, the green area is what is open top public and what we visited.

 

 

 

Defensive positions:

 

Hitlers bunker was of course not possible:

 

But I did manage to sneak a few pictures through a hole in the wall:

 

 

Panzerfaust vs Bunker wall:

 

Mauthausen:

The sinister looking entrance to the concentration / death camp in which prisoners were worked to death. They also had a working gas chamber but I simply can't take pictures in those areas. Too much emotions, to shocking.

 

The exit as seen from the roll call area:

 

Some of the remaining baracks, the gaschamber and crematoria was located in the second building from the right:

 

Inside the barracks, inmates slept with 10 where we would sleep alone:

 

The prison:

 

Roll call area as seen from the exit / entrance:

 

The quary where the prisoners were forced to get the stones and then haul them up a 168 step stair with some steps as high as 0,5m. Each stone would weight around 50kg.

 

The stair, the steps are leveled now but still it was very hard to climb them, and I did not even have a 50kg stone on my shoulders (let alone all the other horrors).

 

 

This was what the guards called the "parachute wall", because they would throw the prisoners down.

 

Berlin

 

The russian victory memorial at the Brandenburg gate:

 

 

 

 

The holocaust memorial:

 

 

Location of Hitlers Bunker, it stars at the bottom of the photo and it ends just before the houses on the left. Only the outer walls and the bottom is still there, the rest has been demolished.

 

Map of the bunkers in Berlin Center, the Fuhrerbunker is located at number 7.

 

That about wraps it up!

[berni]

WOW,

great photos & after visiting a camp myself i can fully understand why you didn't take pictures, i couldn't either.

maybe one day i'll get to see these sights for real

thanks for sharing your pics

cheers

Berni

[Enigma]

Hi Joris

Thanks for sharing the photo's, guess Mauthausen is a very sad place even after al these years.

[Jack]

Exceptional pictures Joris, not to sure if I can add any comments but thank you for sharing.

[Joris]

If you want to know more about the Hitler bunker there is a good article at the Der Spiegel site with a flash map of the bunker.

 

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,420483,00.html