SHARKHUNTERS Salutes Veterans

INGRID SCHARFENBERG  (3308-1993)

Owner, HOTEL zum TÜRKEN

INGRID  SCHARFENBERG was quite a lady. Her grandfather bought the Hotel zum Türken at the beginning of the 20th Century. The hotel was already a century or more old, and it was a beautiful, quaint Gasthaus on the Obersalzberg. On his death, his son (INGRID‘s father) became the owner and it was still a beautiful resort hotel. Then as the Third Reich grew, Adolf Hitler rented the house next to the hotel, Haus Wachenfeld. He liked it so much that he bought the house, added on to it until it eventually became the seat of the Third Reich Government when he was in Bavaria – which was often because he liked the beauty of Bavaria much more than Berlin, a huge bustling city. The Party Secretary, Martin Bormann, decided to turn the entire mountain into a Reich Sicherheits Zone; a secure area for the leaders of the Reich – so after attempts to buy the Hotel zum Türken were turned down by INGRID‘s father, Bormann more or less seized the place, put her father into a concentration camp leaving INGRID, her sister and mother to fend for themselves during the war.  Her father was released after a short time but with a broken spirit and no will to live, he soon died.

After the war, INGRID and her sister petitioned to have the hotel returned to them …or what was left of the hotel after the April 1945 bombing raid on the Obersalzberg.  Photo left below shows the hotel in its heyday with gala umbrellas for tourists. With Hitler’s personal home only 100 meters away, his personal guard used the hotel as their headquarters as well as the telephone switchboard for this Reich Sicherheits Zone. If someone called Hitler on the telephone, the call went through the switchboard at the Hotel. The same if someone telephoned to Martin Bormann or Hermann Göring whose homes were within a couple hundred meters of the hotel.

Photo above was taken from the driveway to Adolf Hitler’s home

Both photos above were taken at the beginning of the 21st Century and shows the beauty and charm of the hotel. Our Sharkhunters groups always stayed here and it is an incredibly beautiful area – peaceful and relaxing with the clanking of cowbells in the pasture across the road or the occasional bugling of an elk in the woods. Sharkhunters Founder and President HARRY COOPER (1-LIFE-1983) always took room #7, a Spartan room with only a washstand, closet and single bed but it had a balcony overlooking this beautiful area – and INGRID always made sure there were fresh apples on the table.  With the death of INGRID on Sunday, 17 February 2013, the fate of this beautiful hotel has passed to her daughter and we pray that she is as successful as her mother.