Hitler’s Berghof and Nazi Inner Circle

Adolf Hitler’s residence above Berchtesgaden was extensively rebuilt in the mid-1930s and became known as the Berghof. Senior Nazi officials, military commanders, foreign visitors and members of Hitler’s household gathered there, while carefully managed photographs presented the dictator as a private and cultured statesman.

Eva Braun spent substantial time at the residence, though her relationship with Hitler was concealed from the German public. The apparent domestic normality of the household existed beside a regime directing dictatorship, aggressive war and racial persecution.

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain places a fictional orphan inside the household and traces his ideological corruption through personal access to Hitler.