The gatehouse still stands, even though the main house is gone. I walked up to it and ran my hand over the stone. Right there, carved into the wall, was Göring’s rank insignia — the eagle, the oak leaves, the Reichsmarschall’s baton. It’s still there, nine decades later, weathered but unmistakable.
You have to understand the history to appreciate what you’re looking at. Göring built Carinhall in 1934, naming it after his first wife, Carin. It started as a modest two-story hunting lodge, only 230 square meters, about an hour and twenty minutes from Berlin. But it didn’t stay modest for long.
In 1936, he expanded it to house his growing art collection — a huge library, a hunting hall, a massive train set, and a multitude of other rooms. Then in 1938, after his daughter Edda was born, he doubled the size again. The original owner, however, was the exiled Emperor Wilhelm II, living in the Netherlands, and he objected to Göring taking possession. Didn’t matter.
Göring moved in anyway. He turned Carinhall into the unofficial headquarters of the Luftwaffe. He had a personal plane kept ready at all times, with his pilots Oberst Udet and Oberstleutnant Fechner always on standby to fly him wherever he needed to go. The Allies never bombed Carinhall.
But in January 1945, as the war turned decisively against Germany, Göring left. He moved to Berchtesgaden, down the hill from his second holiday home near Hitler’s at Obersalzberg. He had trains procured and filled with art and his personal effects, all shipped to Berchtesgaden. Those trains were found abandoned at Berchtesgaden station when US forces arrived in early May 1945.
A guard detail remained at the estate after Göring’s last departure. On May 7, 1945, Göring surrendered himself to the Americans. After the war, the East German government leveled the remains of Carinhall. But if you go to the site today, it’s absolutely littered with parts of the houses — from tiny fragments to enormous multi-ton slabs, now largely covered by forest and home only to snakes and bats.
There are a number of underground rooms and bunkers still there, and treasure hunters regularly pick them over. I managed to get a little way inside a few. And people still dig all over the site, looking for the fabled treasure. Some of it ended up in local homes and remains there to this day.
But the gatehouse is different. It wasn’t destroyed when the main house was leveled. Built in 1934, its purpose was to provide secure and comfortable accommodation for important dignitaries visiting Göring at Carinhall. It sits in a scenic spot just across the lake from where Carinhall proper once stood.
In the Nazi era, the building was called the Schorfhaus, after Göring’s chief forester at Carinhall. When the war ended, the Schorfhaus fell inside East Germany. The East German leadership also enjoyed hunting, and in the 1960s, the Schorfhaus was requisitioned for use by the highest party leaders of East Germany. The entire site, including the ruins of Carinhall, was sealed off from the public and carefully guarded by the East German Army.
When East Germany ceased to exist in 1990, the Schorfhaus was sold and converted into a hotel called the Hotel Döllnsee Schorfheide. That’s where I stayed for one night a few days ago, taking a room in this East German relic. The views are very nice, and the ruins of Carinhall are easily accessible on the other side of the lake. And speaking of ruins, there are at least four other intact structures from Göring’s Carinhall that can be seen, other than the old guest house.
To the rear of them, you can see how the original brick walls were faced with high-quality granite in the past to give an expensive look. Now, after nine decades, it’s falling off. A distinctive feature of both gatehouses are the carved representations of Göring’s rank. Immediately to the front of each gatehouse is an identical cottage.
You can still stay at Carinhall if you like, which is little known more widely. And you don’t have to rough it under canvas, either. Interestingly, there is another relic of Göring on public display only 70 km south of Carinhall, at the German Military History Museum at the former RAF Gatow in West Berlin. This powder-blue Reichsmarschall’s tunic and trousers is one of only a few surviving Göring uniforms that is indisputably authentic.
It was acquired from none other than Göring’s widow, Emmy, by the museum in the early 1970s, initially on loan. And so I stood there at the gatehouse, looking at that carved rank insignia, thinking about how history has a way of leaving its marks — in stone, in ruins, in the stories people still tell. And in the treasure hunters who still dig.
