The Kehlsteinhaus on the Obersalzberg near Berchtesgaden, which was severely damaged by a fire, on Saturday.Jason Tschepljakow/The Associated Press
The retreat known as the Eagle’s Nest built for Adolf Hitler in the Bavarian Alps was almost completely destroyed in a fire, and work to extinguish the blaze was still in progress Saturday, authorities said. A suspect was detained.
The local tourism authority said it wasn’t immediately clear whether parts of the building could be salvaged. Police later said it burned down almost completely.
A fire alarm at the building in the Berchtesgaden district in Germany’s southeastern corner went off at about 9:15 p.m. on Friday, police said in a statement. Firefighters who went to the scene could see the flames as they approached the site, on a cliff 1,834 meters (6,017 feet) above sea level.
Getting fire engines to the site proved difficult because of its location, and work was still ongoing to put out the fire on Saturday morning, police said. The building and its immediate surroundings could only be accessed with respiratory protection equipment.
Firefighters found no one in the building and authorities believe at present that no one was injured.
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A person who came into investigators’ focus shortly after the fire broke out was detained, police said, but it has yet to be determined whether they had anything to do with the fire.
The building, the Kehlsteinhaus, was completed in 1938 and is reachable by an elevator inside the rock from the end of a road that winds up the mountain, in part through a series of tunnels. The road is closed to public traffic but used by buses for visitors.
It has been operated as a cafe and restaurant since 1952 and contains an exhibition on its history. It was not open on Friday before the fire broke out.