End of an Eyrie

Three thousand workers toiled three years to build Adolf Hitler's sumptuous Bavarian "Eagle's Nest" atop a mountain at Berchtesgaden. Allied bombers in a few seconds blasted a group of chalets below it (including one of Hitler's and several for smaller Nazis), but left unharmed Hitler's high-perched eyrie, with its wide view of the white-tipped Austrian Alps. Since then verboten territory to Germans, the Berchtesgaden villas have been a red-hot G.I. tourist attraction. Souvenir hawkers have stripped them, selling tiles from Hitler's bathroom to G.I.s at 5 marks ($1.20) apiece. Before handing back the mountainside to the Germans, the Army wanted to be sure that it would not become a neo-Nazi shrine. Last week the Bavarian state government agreed, decided to blow up the remains of the lower-altitude chalets, turn over the Eagle's Nest either to an Alpine club, youth hostel or research organization. Said Social Democratic Leader Waldemar von Knoeringen: "Hitler's real monuments are the ruined cities of Germany, and no other monuments should be allowed to remain."

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