Summary

Section Four, The Void: Chapters 38-50

Chapter 37: Salt

The salt mines in Altaussee had been worked for hundreds of years by small families who were isolated from the rest of the world by the mountains of the area. In the 1940s their world was invaded by the modern world when Hitler decided to have all the art intended for his cultural center in Linz to be stored in the mines at Altaussee.

Many military leaders thought that Hitler might run to the Alps because it was well known that there were supplies stockpiled in the area, an area near the Austrian border that Hitler considered his home territory because of its nearness to his adopted hometown of Linz. For this reason, and the fact that the Russians were likely to reach Berlin first, Eisenhower ordered his troops south toward...