Hotel Elephant
The Hotel Elephant is a historic luxury hotel in Weimar , whose beginnings go back to 1696. The hotel has been owned by the Hirmer Group since July 2017 .
history
17th to 19th century
It was founded in 1696 as an inn on the market square by the princely cupbearer Christian Andreas Barritig. Soon afterwards, the inn was expanded into a post office (1741) and quarters for merchants and travelers. As early as 1711, the geographer and polymath Johann Gottfried Gregorii alias Melissantes recommended in his baroque regional and travel guide The now flourishing Thuringia to stay overnight in the lodging house Elephant.
The inn attracted artists of all kinds. Anyone who asked about Christoph Martin Wieland , Johann Gottfried Herder , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe at the city gate was sent to the "Elephant". The “great classics” dined here, chatted Friedrich Schiller , later also Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner . From 1893 to 1933 the hotel was under the management of Paul Leutert.
20th century
The hotel also achieved literary fame because of New Year's Eve in 1914, when the “Council of Spiritual Warriors”, consisting of Martin Buber , Albert Ehrenstein , Walter Hasenclever , Heinrich Eduard Jacob , Rudolf Leonhard , Kurt Pinthus and Paul Zech, sought the publisher Ernst Rowohlt assembled. Bauhaus artists came and went from 1921 to 1924 .
In 1933 the Elephant Weimar eV association became the new owner of the hotel - plans for new buildings were soon circulating. In 1937 the 400-year-old historic hotel building and two neighboring houses to the east were demolished due to alleged disrepair ; the adjacent Hotel Erbprinz also had to cede parts of the property for the new building, the owner of which became a foundation.
The architect Hermann Giesler rebuilt it in 1938; The foundation stone was laid on November 3, 1937, the topping-out ceremony on April 20, 1938 and the inauguration on November 5, 1938. At that time, the new hotel with its car lift to the multi-storey car park was one of the most modern in Europe. According to Giesler, the motto for the new building was: “No caravanserai and no inflated hotel arrogance, no showmanship - but a contemporary design that corresponds to the tradition and dignity of the old 'elephant'. Simplicity, combined with solid execution, also in all details. ” The Weimar artist Hugo Gugg carried out the design with large landscape paintings .
As a repeated guest at the “Elephant” hotel, Adolf Hitler had his supporters who had flocked to call him the following verse on the balcony created for him: “Dear Führer, come out of the elephant house” . From 1940 the Weimar poets' meeting took place in the Hotel Elephant .
Closed 1945–1955
The last entry in the guest book was from May 5, 1945. After the Second World War, the US Army briefly used the building , then almost exclusively the Red Army (and at times as quarters for Marshal Georgi Konstantinovich Zhukov and his staff members) until September 1951 It then served as a boarding school for around 300 students at the Institute for Teacher Education in Weimar.
In October 1945, on the orders of the Soviet military administration in Thuringia, work began on converting the previous Gaufunkstelle in the hotel into the Weimar branch of the Berliner Rundfunk (later: Landessender Weimar ), which broadcast from December 1, 1945.
From October 1945 the Elephantenkeller restaurant was open to the public again.
On November 21, 1945, the constituent meeting of the new Thuringian Parliament took place in the room of the Hotel Elephant .
Reopened in 1955
Thomas Mann immortalized the hotel in his novel “ Lotte in Weimar ” by letting Goethe's childhood sweetheart spend the night there. Legend has it that the writer played a decisive role in turning the building into a hotel again: When he was invited to receive the Schiller Prize in 1955, he replied that a room at the Elephant should be reserved for him. It reopened on May 16, 1955 - and Thomas Mann was the first to sign in the guest book.
It was operated as an HO hotel until the mid-1960s ; From December 20, 1966, the Hotel Elephant belonged to Interhotel DDR .
From October 28th to 30th, 1974, scenes from the film Lotte were shot in the hotel in Weimar - during this time regular hotel operations were interrupted.
At the end of the 1990s the house was operated by Kempinski . In 2000, the Schörghuber Group bought the hotel; it was owned by Arabella Hospitality SE as part of the Schörghuber Group and under the management of Starwood as part of the Luxury Collection .
From 1998 the most beautiful suites in the hotel were dedicated to important personalities such as Thomas Mann, Johann Daniel Falk (writer and hymn poet), Alfred Ahner (painter), Udo Lindenberg , Lyonel Feininger (painter, graphic artist), Harry Graf Kessler and Walter Gropius . The hotel's Lilli-Palmer Suite was named in honor of the actress, who is closely associated with the Hotel Elephant with the title role in the film adaptation of Thomas Mann's “Lotte in Weimar”. In addition, there has been the “ Thomas Thieme Study Room” since October 2008 , as Thieme belonged to both the 1974 ensemble of “Lotte in Weimar” and in 2001 worked on the role of Faust in his staging of Goethe's tragedy in room 314.
21st century
The house the 2003-2018 belonged to a Michelin-starred excellent gourmet restaurant Anna Amalia led by Marcello Fabbri .
In 2003 the artist Cornel Wachter placed the logos of his worldwide art project "Have a nice round" in 15 different languages on the facade of the Hotel Elephant.
In August 2014, the Hotel Elephant received a certificate of participation in the Thuringia Sustainability Agreement (NAT): The program aims to reduce energy consumption by 30 percent and water consumption by 20 percent by 2020.
In July 2017 the hotel was sold to the Hirmer Group and has been operated by Arcona since then. In October 2018, after several months of closure and thorough renovation, it reopened, and the restaurant has been operating under the name AnnA ever since.
The gala for the annual election of the onion market queen in Weimar takes place regularly in the hotel with a prominent cast.
literature
- Andrea Dietrich: The Hotel Elephant in Weimar with the gourmet restaurant Anna Amalia and its star chef Marcello Fabbri . In it p. 67–97: A house full of tradition, hospitality and history (s) with lots of information about the hotel's history. Published by Hotel Elephant, 100 pages, format <A5. Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-043677-2 (missing in the holdings of both the German National Library and the Thuringian University and State Library ).
- Heinrich Eduard Jacob : Elegy to Weimar. Do you still remember Rowohlt? . In: Ernst and Hilda Rowohlt for the wedding . “Das Tagebuch”, vol. 1, issue 1, Berlin, April 1, 1921 (private print).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ mdr.de: Hotel "Elephant" is sold ( Memento from July 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ MELISSANTES, Thuringia , which is now flourishing. In His Most Serene and Glorious Heads , presented by M. Johann Gottfried Gregorii, Tobâ-Thuringo, Erfurt 1711, p. 71
- ↑ P. 83 in: Andrea Dietrich: The Hotel Elephant in Weimar with the gourmet restaurant Anna Amalia and his star chef Marcello Fabbri. Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-043677-2
- ↑ It was an officer of the US Army who signed up - and took the guest book with him to the USA. In 2008 he sent it back to the hotel. - p. 84 in: Andrea Dietrich: The Hotel Elephant in Weimar with the gourmet restaurant Anna Amalia and his star chef Marcello Fabbri. Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-043677-2
- ↑ P. 85 in: Andrea Dietrich: The Hotel Elephant in Weimar with the gourmet restaurant Anna Amalia and his star chef Marcello Fabbri. Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-043677-2
- ↑ P. 87 in: Andrea Dietrich: The Hotel Elephant in Weimar with the gourmet restaurant Anna Amalia and his star chef Marcello Fabbri. Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-043677-2
- ↑ P. 90 in: Andrea Dietrich: The Hotel Elephant in Weimar with the gourmet restaurant Anna Amalia and his star chef Marcello Fabbri. Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-043677-2
- ↑ p. 81 in Merian: Weimar (Jahreszeiten-Verlag / Hoffmann and Campe; Hamburg, January 1999; ISBN 3-455-29901-6 )
- ↑ S. 94 in: Andrea Dietrich: The Hotel Elephant in Weimar with the gourmet restaurant Anna Amalia and his star chef Marcello Fabbri. Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-043677-2
- ^ P. 95 in: Andrea Dietrich: The Hotel Elephant in Weimar with the gourmet restaurant Anna Amalia and his star chef Marcello Fabbri. Weimar 2013, ISBN 978-3-00-043677-2
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Sustainability Agreement.de
- ↑ Thüringische Landeszeitung, Weimar edition, p. 16, August 21, 2014
- ^ Hotel Elephant in Weimar reopened. Thüringer Tourismus GmbH, accessed on September 12, 2019 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 44 ″ N , 11 ° 19 ′ 49 ″ E