Fuhrer's Nest

Fuehrer's Nest

When Andre Franc,ois-Poncet, former French Ambassador to Germany and now to Italy, went to the Bavarian Alps last October to take leave of Fuehrer Adolf Hitler, he thought he was expected at the familiar Berghof, the Fuehrer's well-known mountain chalet near Berchtesgaden. Not far from the Berghof, however, the driver took a different road, the car began to ascend a highway winding five miles up a steep mountain. Soon the highway became a mere shelf on the side of the mountain. Suddenly the road ended before two big bronze doors built in the mountainside.

As M. Franc,ois-Poncet's car approached, the doors were swung open by electricity and the Ambassador drove into a 350 footlong, marble-walled underground chamber, brilliantly lighted by bronze lamps. From this chamber the Ambassador was directed through a short, narrow tunnel into a huge, copper-lined elevator outfitted with ten comfortable leather seats. The elevator ascended a shaft bored through the heart of the mountain for 400 feet. At the top M. Franc,ois-Poncet emerged to behold the new eyrie of Germany's strange, solitary master.

In the German press no hint of the Fuehrer's astounding new retreat has been printed, but by last week many authentic details of the Adlerhorst (Eagle's Nest) had seeped through to the U. S. Perched on the pinnacle of Kehlstein Mountain, the house itself is comparatively small, consists mainly of one large circular room lined, except for a spot near the fireplace, with large windows. There are also a guard room, an electrically operated kitchen, and a balcony lookout. It is 6,000 feet above sea level, commands superb views of Bavaria and old Austria by night and day. The winds howl around it continually, white clouds float by.

The Fuehrer's Eagle's Nest can be approached only by the heavily guarded road and tunnel. Not even all the Nazi ministers have been invited to this retreat. For M. Franc,ois-Poncet, one of the few

Frenchmen Herr Hitler likes, it was a distinct compliment to get a look at it. It took 3,000 workmen months to dig the road, bore the tunnel and shaft and build the Fuehrer's mountain eyrie. The cost ran into millions of marks.

Above all, here the lonely Fuehrer can become even more lonely than Nazi lore has pictured him to be. Rumor has it that he built the Adlerhorst as a mausoleum. Other theories have it that here he intends to write a new, great German philosophy or finish the sequel to Mein Kampf. To a psychoanalyst Hitler's shaft would be an obvious symbol of impotence; to psychiatrists the desire to be so completely alone would stamp him as a schizoid (split) personality. The ordinary schizoid who cannot build a lonely house occasionally withdraws into his own shell and refuses to speak or deal with other people. Perhaps more to the point is British Samuel Johnson's diagnosis of the craving for solitude:

"Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue. . . . Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad."

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