The World of Yesterday but hated politics and shunned political engagement. His autobiography shows some reluctance to analyse Nazism as a political ideology; he tended simply to regard it as the rule of one particularly evil man, Hitler. Zweig was struck that the "Berghof", Hitler's mountain residence in Berchtesgaden, was just across the valley from his own house outside Salzburg. Berchtesgaden was an area of early Nazi activity. Zweig believed strongly in Europeanism against nationalism. Zweig also describes his passion for collecting manuscripts, mostly literary and musical. Zweig collaborated in the early 1930s with composer Richard Strauss on the opera "Die schweigsame Frau", which
Berchtesgaden Berchtesgaden Berchtesgaden () is a municipality in the Bavarian Alps of southeastern Germany. It is located in the south district of Berchtesgadener Land in Bavaria, near the border with Austria, some south of Salzburg and southeast of Munich. To the south of the city, Berchtesgaden National Park stretches along three parallel valleys. Berchtesgaden is often associated with the Watzmann, at the third-highest mountain in Germany (after Zugspitze and Hochwanner), which is renowned in the rock climbing community for its "Ostwand" (East Face), and a deep glacial lake by the name of Königssee (). Another notable peak is the Kehlstein mountain