Central Hotel

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The Central-Hotel was directly south of the Berlin Central-Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse

The Central Hotel was the end of the 19th century and a luxury in the first half of the 20th century Berlin Grand hotel immediately adjacent to the Friedrichstrasse station . The hotel was destroyed in World War II.

Berlin's second grand hotel

View of Berlin's Friedrichstrasse to the south. Right: the long street front of the Central Hotel.
Photo: around 1905
View of the southeast corner of the Central Hotel at the Friedrichstrasse / Dorotheenstrasse intersection

The Central Hotel was created in an era of increasing travel and business traffic and was - after the Hotel Kaiserhof (built 1873–1875) - the second large luxury hotel to be rebuilt in the up-and-coming Berlin of the imperial era in 1880/1881. The hotel got its name from a parallel to the neighboring Friedrichstrasse station, which at that time was often referred to as Berlin's “Central Station”. Like the Kaiserhof, the Central Hotel was also built by the architects von der Hude & Hennicke . The building owner was the Eisenbahn-Hotel-Gesellschaft, whose majority shareholder was the Hotelbetriebs AG . While the Hotel Kaiserhof was south of the street Unter den Linden on Wilhelmplatz and thus near the Potsdam and Anhalter train stations , the Central Hotel was built north of the street Unter den Linden, at Friedrichstraße 143-149.

Berlin's most characteristic and largest hotel

The Central-Hotel had a street front almost 100 meters long and had corner locations on Dorotheen and Georgenstrasse . The development was made possible by the demolition of older houses, behind which there were originally larger gardens. The site on the Georgenstrasse side had remained largely undeveloped until then.

A hotel expert described the Central Hotel in a travel guide from 1905 as “the most characteristic and largest hotel for Berlin”, “technically up to date” and “in the midst of the metropolitan bustle”. In 1887 it had 600 rooms (1904: 500 rooms) “for the most varied of demands”, had three elevators, its own post and telegraph office, and a tourist office that sold train tickets and round-trip tickets, as well as a café-restaurant. Concerts were often held in the hotel, especially in the winter garden in the evenings . The majority of the guests were traveling merchants who certainly appreciated the American bar and the in-house wine tasting room.

The touristic character of the house was emphasized by the associated restaurants, which followed a regional concept. Guests of the Central hotels were a Black Forest office , a Bavarian Bierhof , a Heidelberg student hall , a Hansa room , a Silesian Baude , an East Frisian Fischerstube , a Rhineland hall , a Germany hall and a Heidelberg basement available, where according to local food in Offer stood. The Central Hotel also housed the Central Restaurant with the Diana Bar , the Central Café and (after the traditional location Unter den Linden / Friedrichstrasse had been abandoned) the Bauer Café .

In competition with the Hotel Kaiserhof

In terms of its capacity, the Central Hotel was larger than the competing Kaiserhof, to which it formed a counterweight from the start. Ultimately, the Central-Hotel could not compete with the Kaiserhof as the first hotel in Berlin in the early days of the Wilhelmine Empire, despite its at least equivalent facilities and its actually better transport connections. While the Kaiserhof was a hotel for an elegant regular audience of diplomats, nobles and politicians, the Central Hotel developed into a hotel for passers-by, which attracted more travelers who wanted or had to stay near the train station. The position in the slightly disreputable area of ​​the train station was stigmatized - despite its central traffic function - but the posh residential and government district on Wilhelmplatz was not. Added to this was the narrow width of Friedrichstrasse, which proved to be a disadvantage for the representative effect of the Central Hotel building.

From 1907 the Hotel Adlon on Pariser Platz developed into the most prestigious hotel in Berlin, displacing the Kaiserhof and the Central Hotel from the top spots. The Central Hotel, however, had a trump card that the other hotels did not have to the same extent. It housed magnificent ballrooms, which - after being converted into a stage hall - achieved legendary fame as a winter garden in the world of variety , revue and operetta.

Economic background

Hotelbetriebs-AG share over 500  Reichsmarks on April 28, 1927

Until 1926, the Central Hotel was owned by the Hotelbetriebs-AG, which also owned the luxury hotels Bristol and Bellevue . At that time, the stock corporation was the leading hotel company in Berlin. The portfolio of renowned hostels expanded in the following year to include the Kaiserhof and Baltic hotels, which became the property of the Hotelbetriebs-AG through the transfer of the Berlin hotel company.

In 1926 the Aschinger -Aktien-Gesellschaft, which already operated 50 hotels and restaurants, including 25 beer springs, 15 pastry shops and cafés, acquired around 80 percent of the share capital of the Hotelbetriebs-AG and thus became its main shareholder. Aschinger thus gained influence on the prestigious and well-known hotels Bristol, Bellevue and the Central Hotel as well as the facilities in the latter, including the Zum Heidelberger restaurant and the Wintergarten Theater .

Aschinger-AG thus owned all of Berlin's grand hotels with the exception of the Adlon, Continental , Eden , Esplanade and Excelsior hotels and rose to become the largest hotel and restaurant group in Europe. The acquisitions allowed the group to offset the profits and losses of individual hotels against each other and thus achieve a balanced balance sheet.

Destruction in World War II

The Central-Hotel (center right) was destroyed in the Second World War. In the background on the right: Friedrichstrasse station.
Location of the former Central Hotel (northeast corner), 2014

During the Second World War, the Central Hotel was destroyed by air raids by the Allies . After the rubble had been removed , the GDR had the Interhotel Metropol built one block away between Dorotheen- and Mittelstrasse . The Hotel Maritim pro arte emerged from this in the late 1990s through further renovations and extensions .

literature

  • Anonymous: Berlin and the Berliners. People, things, customs, hints. J. Bielefeld Publishing House, Karlsruhe 1905.
  • Karl Baedeker : Berlin and surroundings. Guide for travelers. Verlag Karl Baedeker, 5th edition, Leipzig 1887.
  • Karl Baedeker: Berlin and the surrounding area. Guide for travelers. Verlag Karl Baedeker, 13th ed. Leipzig 1904.
  • Karl Baedeker: Berlin and the surrounding area. Guide for travelers. Verlag Karl Baedeker, 18th ed. Leipzig 1914.
  • Bodo-Michael Baumunk: Grand Hotel. In: The trip to Berlin. Ed. i. A. of the Berlin Senate for the exhibition of the same name, Berlin 1987. P. 192 ff.
  • Renate Düttmann: Berlin inns of the 18th and 19th centuries. In: The trip to Berlin. Ed. i. A. of the Berlin Senate for the exhibition of the same name, Berlin 1987. pp. 181–191.
  • von der Hude and Hennicke: Central Hotel in Berlin . In: Journal of Construction . Vol. 31 (1881), col. 175-188, plates 38-42. Digitized in the holdings of the Central and State Library Berlin .
  • Michael Klein: Aschinger Group - Aschingers Aktien-Gesellschaft, Hotelbetriebs-AG, M. Kempinski & Co. Weinhaus und Handelsgesellschaft mbH. (Introduction, overview and summary). In: Landesarchiv Berlin: Find aids. Bd. 34. Stock group A Rep. 225. Berlin 34.2005 (online PDF, extensive lit.-indexed; 1.5 MB). [1]
  • Hasso Noorden: German big city hotels. In: Velhagen & Klasings Monatshefte , Vol. 24, Issue 1, p. 4255.
  • Volker Wagner: The Dorotheenstadt in the 19th century: from the suburban residential area of ​​baroque style to part of the modern Berlin city. Verlag De Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1998. Publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin, Vol. 94. ISBN 3-11-015709-8 .

Web links

Commons : Hotel Central (Berlin)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Anonymous: Berlin and the Berliners. People, things, customs, hints. Verlag J. Bielefeld, Karlsruhe 1905. p. 427.
  2. ↑ cf. Baedeker: Berlin and surroundings. 1887. p. 12; and: Baedeker: Berlin and the surrounding area. 1904. p. 2.
  3. ↑ cf. the remarks by Volker Wagner: The Dorotheenstadt in the 19th century. Publishing house De Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1998. p. 654 and Bodo-Michael Baumunk: Grand-Hotel. In: The trip to Berlin . Ed. i. A. of the Berlin Senate for the exhibition of the same name, Berlin 1987. p. 192.
  4. ↑ Bodo-Michael Baumunk: Grand Hotel. In: The trip to Berlin. Ed. i. A. of the Berlin Senate for the exhibition of the same name, Berlin 1987, p. 192.
  5. ^ Michael Klein: Aschinger Group - Aschinger's Aktien-Gesellschaft, Hotelbetriebs-AG, M. Kempinski & Co. Weinhaus und Handelsgesellschaft mbH. In: Landesarchiv Berlin: Find aids. Bd. 34. Stock group A Rep. 225. Berlin 34.2005, p. XII.
  6. ^ Michael Klein: Aschinger Group - Aschinger's Aktien-Gesellschaft, Hotelbetriebs-AG, M. Kempinski & Co. Weinhaus und Handelsgesellschaft mbH. In: Landesarchiv Berlin: Find aids. Bd. 34. Stock group A Rep. 225. Berlin 34.2005, p. VI.
  7. ^ Michael Klein: Aschinger Group - Aschinger's Aktien-Gesellschaft, Hotelbetriebs-AG, M. Kempinski & Co. Weinhaus und Handelsgesellschaft mbH. In: Landesarchiv Berlin: Find aids. Bd. 34. Stock group A Rep. 225. Berlin 34.2005, S. IX.
  8. ↑ Hotel Maritim pro arte website ; Friedrichstrasse 151

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 ′ 9 ″  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 16 ″  E