If you could see the place now, Adolf

William Cook visits Berchtesgaden, a resort with a dark past and a bright future
A model of the new resort hotel at Berchtesgaden, Hitler's former retreat

High in the Bavarian Alps, between Germany and Austria, those industrious Germans are busy building a spectacular hotel. With breathtaking views, plus its own spa, ski slope and golf course, the Berchtesgaden InterContinental Resort should be the perfect Alpine retreat. Only one problem - Berchtesgaden was once the holiday home of Adolf Hitler and, since then, this beautiful mountain retreat has had a potent association with the Third Reich.

It was in 1925 that Hitler first came to the Berchtesgaden area with its pretty town where the Bavarian royal family spent hunting holidays. He had just served a nine-month sentence for trying to overthrow the local government and moved to the region, where he finished writing Mein Kampf . When he became Chancellor in 1933, he bought and rebuilt the house he had rented, which he called the Berghof.

It was a bizarre blend of the grandiose and the mundane. Its huge windows provided panoramic views of the surrounding peaks, but its kitsch architecture was suburban, and although the decor was lavish, the overall effect was more bourgeois than palatial.

Hitler's Berghof lifestyle was similarly contradictory. He received Lloyd George and Mussolini here, plus the recently abdicated Edward VIII. 'Thank you for the lovely hours that we spent with you,' Edward wrote in a letter to Hitler. A year later, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain came here to sign away Czechoslovakia.

Yet between affairs of state, Hitler's Berghof days were a monotony of tedious meals and inane movies. This dull, empty routine was captured with unwitting accuracy by Eva Braun's home movies. Guests who craved an invitation often couldn't wait to leave.

However, it was the place where Nazi VIPs could toady to Hitler like they never could in busy Berlin. They confiscated dozens of farms, hotels and private houses to clear the area, their owners forced to leave. Hermann Goering, who enjoyed the hunting, built a house just around the corner. Martin Bormann, whose sycophancy knew no bounds, built his house between Goering's and Hitler's.

For Hitler's fiftieth birthday, Bormann built the Eagle's Nest, a futuristic folly, accessible only via a lift-shaft carved out of the mountain. Below was an SS barracks and a hotel for the thousands of pilgrims who flocked here every day, hoping for a glimpse of their beloved Führer.

Berchtesgaden escaped the war until 1945, when, wrongly informed that Hitler intended to stage a last stand here, it was flattened by Allied bombers. A few weeks later, the US army arrived. The beauty of the area seduced its transatlantic invaders, who moved in, adding a ski lift and a golf course. Hitler's guest-house became a ski and golf shop and architect Albert Speer's studio became a hostel for the US army, which didn't leave the area until 1996.

Today's Berchtesgaden is visited by tourists from all over the world, interested in seeing the detritus of the Nazi regime as well as a picturesque area that has a lot more to offer. In the town, quiet streets are lined with handsome old hotels and friendly, affordable restaurants. The highlight is the 800-year-old schloss, an exquisite mix of gothic castle and romanesque palace. Confiscated by the Nazis from Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, an outspoken opponent of Hitler, it was returned to the royal family after the war and has passed on to Rupprecht's grandson. Open to the public, it houses his collection of porcelain, tapestries and paintings.

Shops sell a broad selection of books about the region, many in English, reflecting the enduring Anglo-American fascination with this site. Unfortunately, most photographs taken during the Third Reich are propaganda pictures, published by the Nazis, but these books come to bury Hitler, not to praise him. 'In a time with Neo-Nazism on the rise, we feel that we have to inform you thoroughly about the Third Reich,' warns Obersalzberg & The Third Reich . 'The Nazi regime's might and power resulted in ferocious war, which cost millions of innocent lives.'

The Eagle's Nest has survived to become a homely restaurant. Although both Goering's and Bormann's houses were destroyed, most of the houses Bormann built for his Nazi lackeys remained unscathed. The majority are now private homes. The Hotel Turken, snatched by the Nazis from its owner and later bombed by Allied planes, has been restored by the original owner's daughter. Today, the hotel's cellars open up on to a vast network of wartime bunkers.

An overgrown mound of rubble is all that is left of the Berghof, where Hitler planned his conquests of Poland and France and his ruinous invasion of the Soviet Union. And where Hitler's guest-house once stood, a museum has been built, which tells the whole story of the area.

The decision to build the museum was taken by the Free State of Bavaria when the US forces finally left. In a comprehensive and harrowing display about the Holocaust, the museum mourns the lost lives during the Nazi regime.

'I think it's very important to show the history,' says the museum's organising director, Linda Pfnur, who was born in Berchtesgaden. Like the rest of the citizens, and in stark contrast to the conventional British stereotype, she is perfectly willing to mention the war. She says most visitors to the museum are German or Austrian; among them she has seen older visitors in tears, but their painful memories make her home town's determination to confront its Nazi past even more impressive.

To provide accommodation for visitors to the museum, Bavaria decided a high-quality hotel was needed. It is this hotel, still in the process of being built and due to open in 2005, that InterContinental will manage.

It's an idea that has generated support both from historians and members of the Jewish community. Rabbi Andreas Nachama, who was involved in the creation of the museum and is a former spokesperson for the Jewish Council of Berlin, said: 'It doesn't make sense to have a documentation centre in the wilderness. If there is a hotel there, people who come to the area to do sports and to see the nice landscape will discover it also has a history and that is the way people will find out about it.'

Those tourists will want to see other things too, not least the dramatic mountain scenery in the area, offering some of the best views in the Alps. Guests at the InterContinental will have access to the only Alpine national park in Germany where they can go skiing, ice-skating, hiking and climbing. The hotel will also have a private, nine-hole golf course with breathtaking views.

As well as seeing Berchtesgaden's Nazi past in the context of this scenic backdrop, it also needs to be viewed in the context of history; the Nazi regime lasted only a dozen years in an area that was earlier fashionable with romantic painters who couldn't get enough of the beautiful landscape. In the town's charming folk museum, there's a memorial to a local peddler, Anton Adner, who lived from 1705 until 1822. Adner, not Hitler, is the true hero of Berchtesgaden. Compared with his 117-year life, Hitler's 12-year Reich looks like a brief, awful aberration.


How to get there Lufthansa (0845 773 7747) flies daily to Munich from Birmingham, Manchester, Heathrow and London City from £95.50 with tax. Ryanair (0871 246 0000) flies daily to Salzburg from Stansted with special-offer fares this week from £18.98, including tax. Munich to Berchtesgaden by train takes two-and-a-half hours and costs £35. Salzburg to Berchtesgaden takes an hour and costs £10. Contact Deutsche Bahn (0870 243 5363).

Where to stay The Berchtesgaden InterContinental is due to open in 2005. For details of where to stay before that, log on to www.berchtesgaden.de or call the German National Tourist Office on 020 7317 0908.