An enormous fire all but destroyed an infamous Nazi-era guesthouse known as the Eagle’s Nest in southern Germany, according to the police, who said on Saturday that a man had been arrested in connection with the blaze.
The fire started on Friday night, the authorities said, and firefighters worked overnight to try to save the historic structure, which sits at an altitude of about 6,000 feet, just below a peak in southern Bavaria. No one was hurt, the authorities said.
The police said on Saturday morning that the building, formally known as the Kehlsteinhaus, was probably not salvageable. They gave no details about the man who had been arrested, saying that their investigation into the fire and whether it had been deliberately set was continuing.
The Kehlsteinhaus — completed in 1938, well into Hitler’s regime — was built as a guesthouse for high-ranking Nazi officials and their visitors. It was about three miles from Hitler’s alpine residence.
After Germany’s defeat in World War II, the Bavarian state government wanted to tear it down, but local officials fought successfully to keep it, seeing it as a historical site that could attract visitors.
The house is surrounded by rough mountainous terrain near the Austrian border. Tourists took buses through a series of tunnels to reach the base of the last knoll, then took an elevator to the guesthouse, which had panoramic views of the German Alps.
On Friday, the house and its accompanied restaurant were closed, which is one reason the police were confident that no one had been hurt. A fire alarm sounded in the nearby town of Berchtesgaden at 9:15 p.m., officials said.
By 9:52 p.m., when the first fire trucks reached the site, the guesthouse was engulfed in flames, according to the authorities.
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