Royce Higa (left) and Hideo Nakamine (right), Japanese-American soldiers with the 522nd Field Artillery battalion, pose outside the destroyed Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 07793

Overview

Caption: Royce Higa (left) and Hideo Nakamine (right), Japanese-American soldiers with the 522nd Field Artillery battalion, pose outside the destroyed Berghof, Hitler's mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps.
Date: 1945 May 05
Locale: Berchtesgaden, [Bavaria] Germany
Photo Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Eric Saul
Event History: In the 1920s Adolf Hitler established a mountain retreat for himself on the Obersalzberg, above Berchtesgaden, in the southeast corner of Bavaria. It was known as the Berghof and consisted of a large chalet and estate. Later, the Nazi hierarchy turned the Obersalzberg into a huge complex, with homes for themselves, military barracks, tunnel and bunker complexes, and the Kehlsteinhaus, or "Eagles Nest." The Berghof was captured at the beginning of May 1945 by troops with the 101st U.S. Airborne Division.

The 522nd Field Artillery operated as an independant battalion in the southern German campaign in the spring of 1945. The enlisted men of the battalion were all Japanese Americans from the west coast and Hawaii. Units of this battalion liberated prisoners on one of the death marches from Dachau near the town of Waakirchen on May 2, 1945.

Keyword: BERGHOF (BERCHTESGADEN) JAPANESE-AMERICANS RUINS/RUBBLE SIGNS/BANNERS/POSTERS SOLDIERS/MILITARY (AMERICAN)
Photo Designation: LIBERATION -- Germany: General -- Liberators