Hilbert's Park Hotel

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Hilbert's Parkhotel, 1982

The Hilberts Parkhotel in Bad Nauheim was the first hotel address in the spa town for many years and enjoyed an excellent reputation far beyond that. It owes its name to its long-time owner Carl Hilbert and the proximity to the spa park on the other side of Parkstrasse .

history

The nucleus of the later hotel at Kurstrasse 2 was formed by the Gasthaus Deutscher Hof , opened around 1850 , which Jakob Ferdinand Sprengel, who was born in Bad Nauheim, acquired in 1881 and initially opened with 6 guest rooms. In the course of the next few years the inn was expanded to a bed capacity of 200 through the purchase and structural connection of neighboring houses and already achieved luxury status under his aegis. After Sprengel died in 1908 at the age of 49, the heirs sold the hotel the following year to the Wiesbaden-born Carl Hilbert (1873–1957), who continued the modernization of the hotel and included a 200-person dining and dining room Had a ballroom built.

When the need increased during the Second World War , the hotel was closed and the hotel was used as a hospital. After the Americans marched into Bad Nauheim on March 29, 1945, the building came under the control of the occupying forces , which initially used it as a hostel; The most famous guest at that time was the English-American writer James Stern , who had been hired by the Americans as a translator because of his good knowledge of German . After the arrival of the new city commandant Colonel Paul Rutherford Knight (who among other things is responsible for the Bad Nauheim ice rink ), the hotel was converted into an office building for the US Army in August 1945 .

The former luxury hotel had suffered noticeably during the time it was used for other purposes and was therefore in a rather desolate condition when it was returned to its previous owner in 1951. Because Carl Hilbert was already 78 years old and had no living descendants, he bequeathed the hotel to the State of Hesse , which from then on was responsible for the hotel and reopened it after renovation in May 1952.

The gradual decline of the hotel, which ceased operations in September 1982, began with the increase in the number of cash-financed cures and the resulting decline in wealthy private spa guests. After seven years of vacancy, the city of Bad Nauheim acquired the building and had it demolished in July 1989.

Prominent guests

In addition to the aforementioned writer James Stern, a large number of other well-known personalities made guest appearances in the house. The most famous guest was Elvis Presley , who resided at Hilberts from October 6th to 11th, 1958 when he started his military service in Germany. The fact that the "King of Rock 'n' Roll " had to move to the Hotel Grunewald after a few days (Presley later moved into the house at Goethestrasse 14 ) was due to the fact that the Saudi King Ibn Saud had to do the whole thing due to his upcoming spa stay in Bad Nauheim Hotel booked.

The other guests of the house included the American comedian Harold Lloyd and the Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmüller as well as the Swedish singer Zarah Leander and the Russian national ice hockey team as well as numerous politicians (including Ludwig Erhard , Hans-Dietrich Genscher , Theodor Heuss and Franz-Josef Strauss ) and the German Empress Auguste Viktoria .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ American Traces in Bad Nauheim, Part 3 , written by Brigitte Faatz (City Archives Bad Nauheim) and published by the community foundation “A Heart for Bad Nauheim”, 2018, p. 19f
  2. ↑ American traces in Bad Nauheim, part 3 , p. 23ff
  3. ↑ American traces in Bad Nauheim, part 3 , p. 33
  4. ↑ American traces in Bad Nauheim, part 3 , p. 37
  5. ↑ American traces in Bad Nauheim, part 3 , p. 34
  6. ^ Andreas Schröer, Michael Knorr, Oskar Hentschel: A Date with Elvis (Begula New Media GmbH, Herten, 1st edition 2004), p. 165, ISBN 3-938152-00-1
  7. ↑ American traces in Bad Nauheim, part 3 , p. 36
  8. ↑ After 30 years: reunion at the "crime scene" (article from October 31, 2011)

Web links

Coordinates: 50 ° 21 '51.2 "  N , 8 ° 44' 28.9"  E