The Eagle's Nest — known in German as the Kehlsteinhaus — stands at 1,834 metres (6,017 feet) on the Kehlstein ridge in Berchtesgaden National Park, Bavaria. The nearest town is Berchtesgaden itself, roughly 20 kilometres south of Salzburg across the Austrian border. Its dramatic mountaintop position delivers sweeping 360-degree panoramas stretching across the Bavarian and Salzburg Alps, down to the Königssee lake and, on clear days, all the way toward the distant Austrian plains.
Commissioned as a 50th birthday gift for Adolf Hitler in 1938 and built in just 13 months by around 3,000 workers, the Kehlsteinhaus was conceived as a high-altitude tea house and diplomatic reception venue for the Nazi leadership. An extraordinary 6.5-kilometre mountain road and a 124-metre tunnel leading to a brass-fitted elevator were carved directly into the rock. Hitler himself visited only a handful of times, yet the site became a powerful symbol of Third Reich ambition and engineering bravado.
Today the building operates as a mountain restaurant and historical information centre, welcoming over 300,000 visitors each season. After the war, American troops used it briefly as a rest facility; the Bavarian state eventually took over stewardship. Visitors ride the original brass elevator to the summit, explore exhibition panels documenting the Nazi era, dine with Alpine views, and walk the short ridge paths. The season runs May to October — the access road closes entirely in winter due to snow.
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Altitude
1,834 m (6,017 ft)
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Season Open
May – October
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From Munich
~2 hrs by tour
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From Salzburg
~45 min by tour
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Built In
13 months (1937–38)
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Annual Visitors
~300,000+
