Hans Herbert Blatzheim

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Hans Herbert Blatzheim , also called HHB, (born November 27, 1905 in Cologne , † May 1, 1968 in Vico Morcote ) was a major German restaurateur and entrepreneur . He was married to the actress Magda Schneider and was the stepfather of their daughter Romy Schneider .

Career

Hans Herbert Blatzheim was born in 1905 as the son of the wholesale merchant Ludwig Blatzheim (born August 10, 1877 in Cologne, † September 17, 1961 there) in Cologne. He first attended a municipal high school . After an apprenticeship in banking, he became head of the cashier at banker Sternberg in Metropol-Betriebe AG in Berlin in 1926. In 1927 he returned to Cologne and persuaded his father to open a restaurant with him. Father Ludwig then sold his shares in Café Schwerthof , which had been taken over in 1923, and together they opened the Charlott in the Brückenstraße next to the Disch-Haus as a place for evening entertainment in September . This was followed by the Café Wien on Hohenzollernring , completed by Ernst Sagebiel in May 1929, and the Rheinterrassen garden bar in Cologne-Rodenkirchen in May 1930 , which was the largest dance hall in Cologne of its time with standing room for 3,000 people. It fell victim to the construction of the Cologne-Rodenkirchen bridge over the Rhine in 1938 . In January 1932, father and son got involved as operators of the Großvarieté Groß-Köln , in 1933 the Volksvarieté Burghof, which had existed since 1900, followed on Hohe Straße and the zoo terraces in Riehler Straße. The elegant evening restaurant Atelier was added in 1934 and was located right next to Café Wien. In 1935 the Blatzheim empire consisted of 15 companies in Cologne and the surrounding area, making it the largest entertainment group in West Germany.

The bastion
The Gürzenich in Cologne

When the Kaiserhof opened on February 23, 1889 in Salomonsgasse, it was initially a beer bar and the first Cologne restaurant with electric lighting. In 1918 the Kaiserhof cabaret began. After the war, Blatzheim reopened the Kaiserhof on Hohenzollernring in March 1953, with the Kaiserhof theater next door. The expansion continued. Since it reopened on October 2, 1955, catering for the Gürzenich has been part of the Blatzheim Group, and the Hotel Bellevue in Cologne-Rodenkirchen enriched the Group from 1956 to 1969. With the construction of the Capitol Cinema , he also started operating as a cinema operator in September 1954. The Bastei , formerly Cologne's "Temple of Gourmets" and awarded a Michelin star , has been in operation since 1958.

Since the reopening on September 8, 1959, Blatzheim has also acted as the caterer for the Bonn Beethoven Hall . She provided him with the gastronomic management of the federal government's state receptions. In March 1963 he received a management contract from the Egyptian government for four state luxury hotels in Cairo , Luxor , Aswan and Marsa Matruh . The Blatzheim group finally focused on local chains such as the night bar chain tabu Existentialistenkeller at Hohenzollernring 97, which opened in Cologne on December 30, 1949 and then expanded outside of Cologne. Under the name tabu , he then founded bars in many cities such as Bonn in the form of a cellar bar with an artist ambience. Chains like Crazy Club, Eve-Bars and Black Horse followed.

Economic situation

As early as 1956, the Blatzheim empire ranked second among German catering companies after the Steigenberger Hotel Group . Between 1958 and 1965, the group was able to achieve a high dividend of 17.7% on average . In October 1958, Blatzheim acquired its first foreign restaurant, the Brussels top-class Rotisserie Ardennaise. From 1966 the group, which now consists of 71 restaurants and hotels, no longer made any profits and with a turnover of 41 million  DM , there was a loss of 44,000 DM for the first time. Local chains such as Edelweiß, tabu, Black Horse, Eve and Habanera therefore had to close by 1967. The group converted supplier debts into a promissory note loan in the amount of DM 1.729 million so that it could relieve its liquidity . By 1972 the loss had accumulated - with sales falling to 32 million DM - to 750,000 DM.

Personal life and relationship with Romy Schneider

Hans Herbert Blatzheim's first marriage was to Florence Vroome from Paris , whose marriage resulted in three children. After his father's death in 1961, Blatzheim lived until January 1966 in his father's villa on Pferdmengesstraße, which is part of the Cologne-Marienburg villa colony . Due to the media-effective civil marriage between Blatzheim and Magda Schneider on December 11, 1953, he took on the role of the stepfather of Romy Schneider , who was still underage , and whose career he made intensive efforts. He managed their income, turned down unfavorable role offers and reserved the right to object to the script and the choice of director. So he suggested leading roles to Romy Schneider in The Congress Dances and The Three from the Gas Station . He also turned down an offer for a film by the Spanish-Mexican director Luis Buñuel . Blatzheim saw a product in the young actress and planned her life for his own purposes in an advertising-effective manner. Schneider called him "Daddy Blatzheim" and kept a critical distance from him; their relationship remained strained. He took on the role of their manager and expected her to blend into his catering establishments with her popularity. So she performed in the studio and participated in opening ceremonies.

He had meanwhile acquired the Villa Ri-Rita in the village of Vico Morcote on Lake Lugano near Lugano for 750,000 Swiss francs , built by the Swiss Martin Othmar Winterhalter. He had to leave his villa in January 1949, was declared underage and taken to a psychiatric clinic. Blatzheim called her Villa Maro, an abbreviation from Magda and Romy. Now Blatzheim was able to conclude a legal, tax-reducing flat-rate contract with the Ticino tax authorities. In the villa he arranged the engagement party for Schneider and Alain Delon on March 22, 1959 - staged with media coverage. Blatzheim's connections to the Cologne milieu made Dummse Tünn at times Schneider's bodyguard. In April 1965 he opened ten restaurants in the recently completed Europa Center in Berlin .

Death and afterlife

After Blatzheim had recovered well from two strokes in previous years , he suddenly died of a heart attack on May 1, 1968 at the age of 62 in his villa in Ticino . Blatzheim, known as the “Gastronomy Tsar”, left behind around 80 restaurants all over Western Europe. Romy Schneider's contact with him had become rare since the broken engagement to Delon; she was unable to come to his funeral because of the filming of Unlucky Otley . After his death, it turned out that Blatzheim had embezzled around 1.2 million Swiss francs from Romy Schneider's assets in order to save his company from bankruptcy.

Succession

Jochen Blatzheim (* 1942), his son from his first marriage, ran Blatzheim-Gaststättenbetriebe GmbH until 2017, to which the restaurants of Gürzenich and Bastei also belonged for more than 50 years. Another son, Dieter, was killed in a car accident in 1966.

literature

  • Hans Herbert Blatzheim: What is taboo anyway? Strange things, worth seeing, strange things and recipes from a great journey through life or also: The first part of the memoir . Berlin 1966

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrich S. Soénius , Jürgen Wilhelm (Ed.): Kölner Personen-Lexikon. Greven, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 , p. 61.
  2. ^ Hans Herbert Blatzheim . In: Der Spiegel . No. 2 , 1958 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Jürgen Trimborn: Romy and her family . 2008, p. 156.
  4. ↑ Jürgen Müller, Willkommen-Bienvenue-Welcome: Politische Revue-Kabarett-Varieté in Cologne 1928-1938 , 2008, p. 300
  5. ↑ Cologne Museum Bulletin . Museums of the City of Cologne, 2008, p. 75.
  6. ↑ Music and Society , Volume 9. Henschel-Verlag, 1959, p. 63.
  7. ^ Hans-Herbert Blatzheim . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1963, pp. 120 ( online ).
  8. ^ BGH decision Tabu I (May 14, 1957)
  9. ^ The subsidiary company . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1956, pp. 37 ( online ).
  10. ↑ Personal details . In: Der Spiegel . No. 40 , 1958, pp. 73 ( online ).
  11. ↑ Save and block . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 1967, p. 54 ( online ).
  12. ↑ Daddy's Heirs . In: Der Spiegel . No. 34 , 1973, pp. 39 ( online ).
  13. ^ The subsidiary company . In: Der Spiegel . No. 10 , 1956, pp. 40 ( online ).
  14. ^ Wilfried Rott : The island: a history of West Berlin 1948–1990 . 2009, p. 212.
  15. ↑ Ernst Probst: Romy Schneider - She didn't want to be “Sissi” forever . 2012, p. 35.
personal data
SURNAME Blatzheim, Hans Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German restaurateur
DATE OF BIRTH November 27, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH May 1, 1968
Place of death Vico Morcote