Berghof Obersalzberg

[Geoff Walden]

Here is one of the Luftschutzbunker doors beneath Hitler's apartment on Prinzregentenplatz in Munich, showing the gas seal around the door. Another door in the same bunker, made by the same company Karl Ehrmann of Nürnberg, is flat and does not have the seal, like the Berghof bunker door.

IMG_5368.JPG (21.75 KiB) Viewed 4524 times

And here are a couple more OSB tunnel entrances, with the gutters/crevices: little tunnel that runs under the end of the greenhouse, and the Hintereck tunnel (oh yes - that door was standing open when I walked by there one day!

[*NL*]

Here is one of the Luftschutzbunker doors beneath Hitler's apartment on Prinzregentenplatz in Munich, showing the gas seal around the door.

Indeed Geoff, this is one with a rubber seal, did you also notice that when there is such gas seal, there also is a viewing hole in the middle of door.
And when they lacking that seal, the view hole is not there to.

About what i suspect to be inbuild gutters on those tunnel entrances, this needs to be investigated further. A former tunnel builder would come in handy here at the forum. Lets see or we can find out more on the subject.

On a completly different subject matter, Geoff, are you also missing postings from you here in this OBS thread ?
I went over all those 340 pages, could not find several of my previous photo postings.

For instance, maybe you might remember my multiple pages posting with photos, taken in a radius of 10 km around the Obersalzberg I do remember you leaving replies. (the images showed the beauty of the Berchtesgadener Land just surrounding the OBS)

Also, i posted a 2 page photo series taken from a walk down from the Kehlstein towards the parking lot. Insted of taking the bus back down, i walked down and posted my images on 2 pages here in the OBS thread.

All image where uploaded to the database of the Axis forum, so they can not be lost on no longer existing sites elsewhere.
These where just two examples, who knows what is missing more in this thread.

Disappointing ..

[Geoff Walden]

On a completly different subject matter, Geoff, are you also missing postings from you here in this OBS thread ?
I went over all those 340 pages, could not find several of my previous photo postings.
For instance, maybe you might remember my multiple pages posting with photos, taken in a radius of 10 km around the Obersalzberg I do remember you leaving replies. (the images showed the beauty of the Berchtesgadener Land just surrounding the OBS)
Also, i posted a 2 page photo series taken from a walk down from the Kehlstein towards the parking lot. Insted of taking the bus back down, i walked down and posted my images on 2 pages here in the OBS thread. Disappointing ..

Hi Hans,
No, I did not know this! I remember both of your great photo posts that you mention - I did not know anything like this was missing! I do not know of anything of mine that is similarly missing, but I lack the motivation to go back thru all those pages and look.

[Ulrico]

Didn't you make a post about the horizontal indent in the concrete above the door? I don't see that post now. I have seen this sort of thing on some of the other OSB tunnel entrances, but have no idea what it was for. Some people have thought this had something to do with a wooden covering attached to the tunnel entrance, to "hide" the tunnel from aerial reconnaissance, and you do sometimes see such things in period photos, but I don't see how these indentations in the concrete could be for that. They are hardly uniform ... some are long, some are short, some appear also on the sides, some are angled, and the one on the Gästehaus entrance is chevron-shaped. It all has me baffled ...

[img]

[/img]

I guess these wooden covering must have been similar to this here .....

Ulrico

[Br. James]

This makes sense to me, too, as long as there was a way of attaching an awning to the indentation, like the one in the photo above -- though we don't know whether there is an indentation behind this awning or not. Such an awning would also serve to protect the bunker entranceway against rainstorms and accumulations of snow. But again, there must have been some way of attaching an awning via the indentation, perhaps with holes through to the inside of the entrance opening to support whatever attachment was being used.

I don't know whether the awning seen in the photo above has been there ever since the end of the war, but anyone visiting that location now could examine the awning and let us know how the awning was attached, as well as whether there is an indentation in the bunker entranceway wall above the door.

Br. James

[*NL*]

Ulrico, thank you for joining in here. Your image is plausible, but i am not convinced as yet.
The indent we are discussing here is still raising questions. My suggestion was that it funtioned as a gutter.
Your image shows a awning, well both will protect you from rain, but i have not seen a wartime bunker entrance
on any photo or film, showing such a wooden awning. But still anything is possible of cource.

What is bothering me with both our solutions of what that indent might have been for, is the following attached image.
The image shows a simular indent, on the inside of the Gutshofstollen.
Why would you need a gutter or a wooden awning inside a tunnel, where it is already dry ?
(image: Hitlers Berg / Florian M. Beierl / ISBN 3-929825-05-8

[*NL*]

Geoff, i believe you have this book in the English language ? I only have the German version, but am not able to translate this in correct English.
(image: Hitlers Berg / Florian M. Beierl / ISBN 3-929825-05-8, page 62)
That : V-förmigen Brettschalungen wurde eine bündige Andockung.....sounds interesting.
V shaped indent intended for connecting the next section, to avoid later cracking...

[Geoff Walden]

Hi Hans,

In the English lanuage edition this is also on page 62, where it says - "The v-shaped grooves provided a tight seal when joined with the next section and therefore also prevented cracks forming in the wall."

Although this is a description of work on the interior of the tunnels, where further sections would be added, and so might not make complete sense for the outside/end of a tunnel, I do think that perhaps the v-shaped "gutters" we've been discussing might have had something to do with preventing cracking. We certainly have no other info on these! And maybe this would make more sense for that one inside the Gutshofstollen. Just guessing here ... When I get a chance I will look through the JIOA/CIOS reports to see if there is anything about this in those reports.

Hi Ulrico, that rain guard on the entry to the water reservoir at the upper end of the Riemerfeld camp must be a post-war addition. It does not appear in photos from the U.S. low-level photo flights on 11.05.1945 (sorry this is so small - this is an extreme crop). It might have been on there before, it just doesn't show in May 1945.

U.S. National Archives, Record Group 373, Sortie 7LOC-11D, 0017

Riemerfeld0017excerpt.jpg (29.99 KiB) Viewed 4253 times

[Ulrico]

Hi Geoff,
you are absolutly right. I looked again at the picture of the entrance and saw the surface structure, made probably directly into the (wet?) cement. that was not only done to the vertical parts, but also to the slanted parts. In consequence it had nothing over that structure. You wouldn't form that decorative pattern and then covering it with anything, right?
Geoff, btw, where could that great picture be found in the National Archives? Are there any pictures from that flight showing the Buchenhoehe area too?

[Geoff Walden]

Hi Ulrico,

PM sent.

Geoff

[Project X]

I need your help. Some time ago, I met someone who showed me two chairs. Allegedly they are chairs from the dining room of the Berghof. I compared them to photos of the dining room. These chairs look different than those in the photos. Can someone give me an indication whether it could actually be chairs from the Berghof? Please understand that I can not say where these chairs are.

[ostland]

They look very new to me...

[Annelie]

Here is an photo of the dining room table and chairs.
You can make an comparison.

[CPB]

Another view of the dining room. No match.

Didn't this room take a direct hit? I doubt any of the chairs would be left in one piece.

[Br. James]

I think it is obvious that those two chairs are not from among those at either the long dining room table or the breakfast nook at the Berghof. But having said that, the Berghof was a large building...or complex of buildings...and it is certainly possible that such chairs might have come from somewhere else in that complex.

Br. James