Even Hitler had a bomb shelter, actually, many of them. But none compared to the vast network of underground facilities and tunnels beneath his favorite vacation getaway town of Obersalzberg.
This multi-roomed subterranean compound is composed of an apartment and a set of underground chambers for fellow Nazi inner circle members—over four miles of tunnels, bunkers and hidden rooms in total. Above ground, an entire village was built as an Alpine retreat for the Nazi government.
But with the war failing, the mysterious underground complex was to be the last redoubt of the Third Reich. Carpet bombed by the Royal Air Force in April of 1945, then locked up by the occupying U.S. Army, it was handed back over to Germany in 1952 with the proviso that the remnants be blown up again out of existence. But not everything was destroyed, and today, you can still visit the secret ruins of the Nazi’s planned Alpine fortress.
If you can’t get away to visit the bunker in the mountains of Bavaria, you can learn the history of the underground city and see what remains at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Luke Spencer)