Berchtesgaden

The nature is just so beautiful, amazing, like you just feel like you're in a postcard.

And the whole time I was there I was, like, trying to compare it to other places that we've been, and it just really felt like a mix of Iceland, Alaska, Berchtesgaden, Germany, and the Canadian Rockies just, like, all in one.

And so if you've been to any of those places you can resonate with this, but it's just really just a combination of all of them, where every time we went out I'm like, "Oh, it reminds me of this region," that I just, I fell in love with the nature of it all.

Those are all gorgeous places.

But those elevated platforms are built into the side of the rock walls, so you have an overlook view of it.

And at some points too, even here in Aare, they've really carved into the mountain, so where they weren't able to put the boardwalk area that's hanging off the edge of the cliff, they'll walk you through the mountain then you'll come back out.

So it's just a really unique experience, and we did something very similar to this when we were actually in Berchtesgaden in Germany in the Bavarian Alps in this region.

They had something very similar to this.

As Europe was liberated in 1944 and 1945, they were brought in to assess what was discovered at approximately 1,500 different sites where collections of looted art and cultural artifacts were found.

Some of the most substantial were Göring's collection of about 1,000 paintings and sculptures found in Berchtesgaden in southern Germany when Bavaria was liberated in 1945, and Frank's collection of Renaissance masterpieces in Poland, while 6,500 paintings alone were uncovered in an abandoned salt mine in Austria, a tranche which included Michelangelo's Madonna of Bruges, Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece, and several paintings by the Dutch master Johannes Vermeer.

The work of the Monuments Men was the subject of a recent Hollywood movie.

The work of the Monuments Men continued for many years after the end of the Second World War, and was accompanied by the work of many art agents who sought to recover private possessions that had been stolen wholesale from Jewish people across the continent.

That's atop Eagle's Nest, Hitler's tea house at the, um, in the Bavarian Alps, as a matter of fact.

Just on top of Obersalzberg, which is, uh, Berchtesgaden, which is where Easy Company actually put an end to Hitler, put an end to the regime.

And the Berghof, Hitler's house, is at the bottom of that mountain.

That's, uh, an in- it's just an incredible, uh, a time that we had going through, walking through the steps of not just the Nazis, not just the Jews that the Nazis, uh, took on a death march for six days to Tegernsee Lake and Tegernsee the town, where they were gonna push them in the, in the, in the lake and kill them before Easy Company and the Japanese arm of the US Airborne, the Nisei, uh, were able to, to, to save these people, to take out the Nazi regime and to, and to liberate Dachau.

Uh, sorry, uh, the UK.

Some RAF guys are in there.

Uh, that's Berchtesgaden.

That's, that's where Hitler made his end, uh, in Berchtesgaden.

I can take you to Gary there.

Um, we can go up to, to Berchtesgaden and, and it's one of my favorite, favorite tours to, to get to lead, especially because it's, you're talking about a small group of guys, but it's so much larger.

Um, one of the stories that comes out of the Bois Jacques, that's Jacques Woods, that's outside of Foix, um, the, the Bastonia area.

Well, that's a real place.

The drive by Unken, Reichenbach, and amongst the ghost-like pines by moonlight to Salzburg will not soon be forgotten.

But the varied loveliness of the scenery around Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, the Königsee, the lakes of Poschl, St. Wolfgang, the Transee, the environs of Ischl, that most enchanting of spas, and Linz would take too long to describe.

On board the Danube steamer we had our first glimpse of Austrian society.

They seem a good-natured, kindly race, but are rather effeminate and fond of luxury, though somewhat more refined in manners than their northern rivals.

I'm making this recording from ZLMC, Austria.

But earlier today I was in Berchtesgaden.

I was in the Obersalzburg, the German version of Palm Beach.

The men and women of Palm Beach have wrecked prosperity in America.

Hitler had made his vision for his people a reality, and he planned to force that vision far beyond Germany's borders.

And I remember when I was a guest with my mother at the Berchtesgaden, you could see on a clear day, you could see Salzburg.

And he pointed out to me, he said, you see that there, boy? That Salzburg, that is in my homeland of Austria.

And one of these days I'm going to see to it that that will join with Germany.