Thank you Marion for adding the "true" story of Berchtesgaden and the Berghof.
I was there along with J3rdInf, even though we didn't know each other then. I have several pics I took that day, but the problem of posting them here is just too much for me.
One of my vivid memories is sitting on the hillside above the Berghof during the early evening of May 4 with my buddy Lt. C. K. Seifarth, (now deceased). A messinger from 7th Inf Hq. came up to us to tell me that the French were looting the town of Berchtesgaden and Col Heintges wanted an officer to go in and put a stop to it.
I said nothing, but my mind was churning. After 6 campaigns with the 7th, (Anzio to "Berchtesgaden"), the thought of going into that town and getting shot by a drunken French soldier, to die on the last day of the War, was more than I could take calmly. Seif spoke first, "I'll go," he said.
He did, and a couple of hours later, after reporting back to the Col Heintges, he returned and sat down beside me to fill me in. Soldiers of the French Armored Division, were parking their half-tracks across the roads, then looting and throwing their booty out the windows of the civilian homes. When they came out, they would sort through the loot and throw what they wanted to keep onto the half track. "Seif" was not so foolish as to try to stop them.
Russ Cloer - 3_7_I_Recon