Dachau & the Eagle's Nest

Spend the day visiting two reminders of Nazi history on this tour to the Dachau concentration camp and the Eagle’s Nest, a repurposed Nazi government property on a mountaintop.

You’ll begin your day with a visit to Dachau, the first of the official concentration camps to open in 1933. You’ll learn about the brutal efficiency its original commandant put into practice and the way Dachau served as the model for the rest of the camps. You’ll also see what remains of the site, and learn more about the specific history of Dachau.

In the afternoon, you’ll head up the mountain road to the Eagle’s Nest, a teahouse originally built for Adolf Hitler and used by Nazi party officials. The mountaintop retreat is the only remaining property that belonged to Hitler, and it now offers both historical tours of the entire mountain site and a restaurant and beer garden inside the property itself.

In the morning, your guide and driver will pick you up at your Munich hotel for your half-day visit to Dachau concentration camp. You’ll learn about the site's historical context and see the building and grounds where tens of thousands were held, tortured and killed in accordance with the Nazi plan.

Dachau was one of the first camps to be opened in 1933 by Heinrich Himmler, and remained open for nearly the entire 12 years of Nazi rule, ending with its liberation by US forces in 1945. Dachau’s practices were to serve as the model for later camps, and so it was here that the horrors that would follow throughout Europe were first tested and implemented.

As you approach, you’ll see the iron gate at its entrance with its slogan, ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’, or ‘Work makes us free’. Beyond the gate is the vast roll-call square and a replica of the accommodation barracks, where prisoners were packed in horribly overcrowded conditions. A line of trees, originally planted by the prisoners, marks the route to the barracks.

The museum, housed in the room the Nazis used to strip and sort prisoners on arrival, contains historical records and confiscated belongings like still-intact address books. You can also see the bunker where prisoners were sent as punishment. Beyond the barbed wire fences stand the disinfecting room, gas chamber and crematorium, which the SS used to hide the evidence of their murders.

In the afternoon, you’ll go from Dachau to another relic of Nazi history, the Eagle’s Nest, or Kehlsteinhaus. This mountain outpost, originally built as a teahouse for Hitler, is the only property left standing that belonged to him. It was a common government and social meeting place for Nazi party officials.

Your guide will bring you to the highest point reachable by car, after which a shuttle will carry visitors the rest of the way up the winding road. At the top, you can walk the paths around the site for great mountain views and visit the restaurant and beer garden now established in the building itself.

Back down the mountain, you’ll head to the documentation museum, which details the Nazi history of the area and shows you the original underground bunkers beneath the property.