Obersalzberg

Obersalzberg is a mountainside retreat situated above the market town of Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, Germany. Located about 120km southeast of Munich, close to the border with Austria, it is best known as the site of Adolf Hitler's former mountain residence, the Berghof and of the mountaintop Kehlsteinhaus, popularly known in the English-speaking world as the "Eagle's Nest". All of the Nazi buildings were demolished in the 1950s but the relevant past of the area is subject of the Dokumentationszentrum Obersalzberg museum which opened in 1999.HistoryThe name of the settlement area derives from the rock salt deposits in the former Prince-Provostry of Berchtesgaden. Salt mining at Pherg is documented since the 12th century and the current salt mine opened in 1517; The area was part of the provostry's eight localities (so-called Gnotschaften) mentioned in the first land register of 1456 and was ruled by the Augustinian abbey. From 1517 the Petersberg gallery was built, the first of the Berchtesgaden salt mine which became the economic base of the Prince-provostry. The area was annexed by Austria in 1805 and then ruled by France in 1809-1810. With Berchtesgaden it was secularised in 1803 and passed to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1810.