[The following is taken from a memoir of Irmgard A. Hunt, who grew up in the mountains under Hitler’s Eagles Nest during the Second World War.]
Once the decision had been made to eliminate the old settlements and forge a completely insular and secured Führergebiet for Hitler, Bormann had evicted the inhabitants with great speed. The homes were destroyed and burned to make room for the Nazi leadership. Eighteen ancient farms, three inns, six bed-and-breakfasts, a large children’s sanatorium, several hotels, and at least thirty-five private homes, villas, shops, and small artisan businesses were forcefully acquired most often for laughably small amounts of money. Families who had farmed and lived on the old Obersalzberg for generations had, even in the middle of winter, their roofs removed or their roads closed off if they balked at leaving or dared ask for greater compensation than the pittance Bormann offered.
Years later I learned that the uncle of my grade-school classmate Trauderl Koller was sent to the Dachau concentration camp for two years merely for handing Hitler a letter requesting that he might continue his photo business on the mountain. Neiher Trauderl nor Dorothea Lochner, another classmate whose family lost their ancestral home up on Obersalzberg, ever talked about it, not even after the Third Reich had collapsed.
At the time a decree by Nazi authorities in the local newspaper announced that anyone who spread gossip about an Obersalzberg affair would be declared an enemy of the state and sent to a concentration camp.
Source:
Hunt, Irmgard A. “Meeting Hitler.” On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005. 75-77. Print.
Further Reading:
That sentence alone tempts me to x-post this to Voat, just to observe the mental dissonance Hitler's stance on free speech would cause.