The story of this place
At 2,962 metres, the Zugspitze is the highest mountain in Germany, straddling the border with Austria in the Wetterstein range. It was first summited in 1820 by the surveyor Josef Naus and his team, mapping the Bavarian kingdom. A cog railway and cable cars, engineered from the 1920s onward through extraordinary Alpine terrain, now carry visitors to the summit and to Germany's highest ski area on the glacier below. During the Cold War the mountaintop held military and communications installations, and the Bavarian-Austrian frontier runs across the peak. On clear days the summit gives a 360-degree panorama over four countries and hundreds of Alpine peaks. A golden summit cross, replaced several times, marks the very top.