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 50th birthday in 1939. Even though a feared "national redoubt" last stand of the Nazi Regime in the Alps failed to materialize late in World War II, the Allies launched a devastating air raid on the Berchtesgaden area in the spring of 1945. Concentrated on the Obersalzberg, the April 25 bombing did little damage to the town. On May 4, forward elements of the 7th Infantry Regiment of the 3rd Infantry Division arrived and received the town's surrender. After the war, Obersalzberg became a military zone and most of its buildings were requisitioned by the U.S. Army. "Hotel Platterhof" was