Visiting Hitler’s holiday home, Jamie Morton is astounded that evil was able to survive and flourish in the peaceful surrounds of the beautiful Bavarian countryside.

Bavaria is home to many great things – beer being the obvious standout – but when given the chance to travel to the great German state, I couldn’t resist delving into some of its darker history.

Being something of a history geek, I’d long wanted to explore the alpine paradise that was once a family retreat for the elite of Nazi Germany, and the mountaintop teahouse gifted as a birthday present to Adolf Hitler.

My comfortable train ride from Switzerland to Munich takes me alongside placid Lake Constance, through charming Austrian villages and then into the wide open countryside of Bavaria.

Lush pastures, crops, patches of woodland gently sloping down rolling hills and rural hamlets float by my window as the train takes me into the heart of Munich, where I spend the afternoon absorbing the old city’s wealth of history, architectural splendour and famous ale.

A bus tour notes the site of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch – Hitler’s failed attempt at revolution served only to further his party’s malicious ambitions.

By the time Hitler claimed power a decade later, the Nazis had entrenched themselves at Obersalzberg, a picturesque pocket in the Bavarian Alps above the 900-year-old mountain village of Berchtesgaden.

The second part of Hitler’s roadmap manifesto, Mein Kampf, was dictated in an Obersalzberg cabin (the Berghof) before the dictator expanded his presence in the valley, with leaders including Hermann Goering, Albert Speer and Martin Bormann also taking up residence.

While here Hitler spent most of his time at his sprawling Berghof, but having been bombed in 1945, all that remains of it are the grainy holiday reels of Hitler and mistress Eva Braun relaxing on its sunny terraces with their dogs.

However, Allied bombing didn’t touch the Kehlsteinhaus – popularly known as the Eagle’s Nest – which straddles the summit high above.

The retreat was commissioned by Bormann in 1938 and formally presented to Hitler on his 50th birthday in April 1939, just months before he opened a global war that would cost the lives of more than 50 million people.

Today, this dark monument is accessible only by tour bus, which takes visitors on a brief but breathtaking ride that passes through five tunnels and climbs 800m up the Kehlstein mountain, itself a sub-peak of the imposing Hoher Goll.

The chalet-style structure now looming above, I walk through a gloomy stone tunnel that cuts 124m into the mountain, and then step into a polished brass elevator that takes me the same distance up to the top.

I exit the lift inside the teahouse, where Nazi Germany’s high society once clinked Champagne glasses at the wedding reception of Eva Braun’s sister and on several other extravagant occasions.

Today there’s not a swastika in sight.

The building now houses a restaurant, and its main reception room, windows offering stunning views of the surrounding alps, boasts a fireplace of red Italian marble that was presented by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.

Pieces of this grand fireplace were chipped off as souvenirs by Allied soldiers, and to this day it remains up for debate which company took the prized objective first.

Herds of tourists mill about the viewing platforms that wrap around the teahouse, cafe sun umbrellas fanning out into a path leading up the mountain to a large cross above.

The panorama is sensational – forested valleys open out into the Austrian city of Salzburg in one direction, while far in another, the blue-green waters of Lake Konigsee sparkle below the alpine mist.

I take in the vista and think it puzzling that a corner of the world holding such beauty could be so intertwined with such a ghastly legacy – a legacy that still hasn’t lost its grip on this high mountaintop 60 years on.

CHECKLIST

Getting there: Several airlines offer round trips from Auckland to Munich.

You can get a 25 per cent discount on a German Rail Pass if you buy by December 7, 2014. Travel is valid from November 1 to January 31, 2015.

Berchtesgaden is accessible by bus or car.

Details: The Eagle’s Nest is accessible only by bus tours which make regular trips up the mountain. Visitors can also learn about the area’s dark Nazi past at a local museum and bunker system. Guided tours are available.

Jamie Morton travelled through Germany as a guest of Rail Europe.

– NZ Herald