Hotel Geiger

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Hotel Geiger, Logierhaus (2012)

The Hotel Geiger was a traditional, listed hotel in the Upper Bavarian municipality of Bischofswiesen at the entrance to Berchtesgaden . It was opened as a guest house in 1866 and expanded into a hotel complex with a representative group of buildings in the local style by 1924 . After the Second World War, more buildings were added. The historic buildings of the hotel were listed.

In its heyday, the European luxury class hotel was one of the top addresses in the region and was visited by numerous members of high finance and the European nobility . In 1997 it had to be closed due to bankruptcy and has been empty since then, but was still owned by the Geiger family. There were various re-use concepts, none of which were implemented.

In July 2017, the Berchtesgaden laboratory entrepreneur and Green politician Bartl Wimmer bought the site. The demolition work of the hotel began in 2018, and the last building was demolished in January 2019.

location

The hotel complex was located in Stanggaß , a Gnotschaft of the Bischofswiesen community on federal road 20 at the entrance to the neighboring market in Berchtesgaden . The group of buildings, set back from the federal road 20 and raised a few meters above street level, extended over a spacious, park-like sloping property with south orientation and u. a. Look at the Watzmann .

history

Hotel operations

On August 17, 1865, the retired royal Bavarian customs inspector Hugo Geiger (1828–1874) bought the Hienleitlehen, a farmhouse from the 18th century, in parts from the 15th century, which he converted into a guesthouse the following year . As early as 1874, the great demand for accommodation led to an extension of the house with an additional wing with guest rooms on its southeastern side.

After Hugo Geiger's death, his widow (1833 or 1834-1894) took over the management of the already “noble pension” and from 1884 had the central rooms of the hotel decorated in a representative and sophisticated way. Under her leadership, an additional guest house, the then so-called New Logierhaus (later called Dependance), was built in 1890 to the north-west of the hotel on the site of the old bathhouse located there, also based on a design by the architect Wicklein .

After the mother's death, the management of the house went to son Franz Geiger (1859–1929; Mayor of Bischofswiesen 1900–1919) and his wife Nina, née Kriß, who came from the family who owned the Berchtesgaden Hofbrauhaus . Around 1900 he built the so-called “fire-extinguishing props bar” directly on today's federal road not far from the driveway to the hotel, which for decades served as a fire - fighting equipment store for the Stanggass volunteer fire brigade, which he co-founded . In 1924, a hotel's own gas station with a wash house was built for guests on the street not far from the driveway, which was probably the first gas station in Bischofwiesen. In the same year, the adjoining so-called tailor's house , a craftsman's house built in the second half of the 19th century, was expanded. In 1933, a flat kitchen wing was added to the rear of the main house; the only old area that had already been partially basement.

In 1969 an outdoor pool with its own changing room and sauna hut was built on the southern area in front of the restaurant. In 1972 the hotel, which is now “luxury class throughout Europe”, received its own indoor swimming pool. In addition, another ward block with two floors was built in 1976, which was the last major construction project to be extended by another floor in 1982.

Numerous prominent guests from the German and European nobility stayed in the hotel, including Prince Friedrich von Anhalt (1881), Prince Max von Baden (1911), Prince Oskar of Prussia (1926) and the Dutch queen mother Emma zu Waldeck and Pyrmont (1929) ). In addition, there were also people from the arts and sciences, such as the writers Ernst von Wildenbruch (1887), Paul Heyse (1890), Thomas Mann (1904) and the medicine professor Ferdinand Sauerbruch (1921). During the Second World War it served as a rest home for Air Force officers , after the end of the war it was used by the US Army as an officer's home. During this time the young officer John F. Kennedy also stayed at the Geiger house once. Other prominent guests of the hotel in the post-war period included Prince Philip of Hesse (1950) and the Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1975). Also greats of the show business like Elvis Presley, Donna Summer and Robin Gibb from the Bee Gees u. a. m. stayed at the Hotel Geiger.

After the hotel closes

On November 1, 1997, after 132 years of family history, the hotel had to be closed or "the house (...) had to be closed due to bankruptcy ", but the property and building remained in the possession of the Geiger family until July 4, 2017. Guarded and heated until the summer of 1998, the property served from 1996 to 1998 as a backdrop for films such as The Winter Sleeper and Wild Chicken as well as for episodes of various television series such as Tierarzt Dr. Quirin Angels and White-Blue Tales . Since then, the buildings in particular have been "abandoned to decay and vandalism". Of several subsequent use concepts, none was implemented.

For one of the planned projects, the district office of Berchtesgadener Land, as the building supervisory authority, even approved the demolition of the hotel complex against the will of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation . However, the investor withdrew from his project a short time later, and so the demolition did not take place.

Most recently, in July 2015, plans were announced that a central building with four chalet buildings should be built on the hotel grounds. It was questionable “whether the existing buildings will be renovated or demolished”, whereby it was assumed that “at most individual parts of the houses could be preserved”. But this project was not realized either.

At the beginning of May 2016, the Schneiderhäusl was brought down in a controlled manner by order of the Berchtesgadener Land district office. According to the owner, the district office, in its function as the lower monument protection authority, demanded this demolition after safety measures against crumbling building parts had already become necessary and “the risk of an uncontrolled collapse was too great”.

On October 20, 2016, a fire broke out on the ground floor of the ward building, which was built in 1976, and spread over the wooden balcony to the roof structure, which destroyed the upper two of the three floors of the building. Since the electricity has been switched off since 1997, the only possible cause of the fire is negligence or arson, according to the police.

In July 2017, the property was foreclosed by the Sparkasse Berchtesgadener Land for 2.4 million euros, the highest bidder was the doctor and politician Bartl Wimmer from Berchtesgaden.

In January 2018, the demolition of individual newer parts of the building began, and by March the main building was also demolished. Only the lodging house remained at first. In January 2019, the demolition of the last part of the building began. Although the lodging house as part of the former Hotel Geiger is under monument protection, according to the owner, Dr. Bartl Wimmer, "the building can no longer be maintained after more than 20 years of vacancy", since "the building fabric [...] has suffered considerably". A “Fest- und Kulturgasthof Stanggaß” with beer garden and a ballroom for up to 280 people is to be built on the property by 2021. 80 beds in 22 hotel rooms are also planned.

architecture

The historical inventory of the hotel comprised the main building with its side wing, the new lodging house ("Dependance") built in 1890 and the group of houses built directly on Berchtesgadener Straße consisting of a gas station, laundry and fire department. Until 2016, this also included the Schneiderhäusl , located next to the gas station and wash house . The buildings erected between 1960 and 1982 in the area facing away from the street included a residential and garage building, an outdoor pool, an indoor pool and another ward block.

Single building

Main house

The main house, also known as the "Old House", was a three-storey gable roof building with arbors and mid-level houses . The side wing adjoining it in the southeast was also three-story with a gable roof. The main house and side wings were built in the local style. The flat gable roofs typical of the region were originally covered with red pans, but after the Second World War they were covered with zinc sheet, just as typical of the region, and painted green. The simple facades were structured by uniformly arranged rows of windows all around. The facade was presented with large, two- or three-storey wooden balcony porches with protruding gable roofs. Their appearance was determined by handrails made from fretwork with historicizing motifs.

New lodging house

The New Logierhaus was built in 1890 as a bed house and was kept in the same style as the main building. It had two storeys with a crooked roof as well as dwelling houses, dormers , balconies and ornamental frameworks . To the west, the New Logierhaus also had a two-story transept with a crooked roof, balcony and gable.

Modern ward block

The ward block, built in 1976 and expanded by another floor in 1982, was a three-storey gable roof building. Each floor had a continuous balcony at the front. The top two floors were destroyed by fire in 2016.

Hotel Geiger 2012, on the left the tailor's house, which was demolished in 2016

Craftsman House

The former craftsman's house, which was brought down in a controlled manner in 2016, was also known as the Schneiderhäusel . It was on today's federal road, directly to the left of the hotel entrance. The tailor's house was a two-story plastered building with a flat gable roof covered with leg shingles. On the street there was one from a side porch covered wooden balcony.

Gas station with wash house

The building, formerly used as a gas station with a wash house, was on the street to the left of the former tailor's house. It was a plastered building with two storeys and a flat gable roof and had a one-storey covered workshop extension.

Fire station

The fire brigade equipment house, also known as the “fire extinguishing props bar”, is located on the street to the left of the former petrol station location. It is a one-story wooden frame construction with a protruding gable roof, on which a hose tower used to be placed. It is the only remaining building in the ensemble.

Architectural-historical significance

According to the monument protection information (4/2006) published by the German National Committee for Monument Protection , the Hotel Geiger was an “outstanding testimony to early tourism in the Berchtesgaden region in the second half of the 19th century”. While otherwise mainly villas and guest houses were built for tourists, the Hotel Geiger was one of the few larger hotels from this time. The hotel complex has "a special position in the history of Berchtesgaden and also has a nationally significant monument quality", the furnishing of the large representative rooms with "high quality wall and ceiling paneling" has an outstanding testimony value in connection with the representative facade design in the style of historicism for the high quality tourism culture of the late 19th century ”. The architecture of this building ensemble was based on “typical regional building” and endeavors to integrate it into the landscape. According to the monument protection information, the overall appearance of the hotel complex was completely preserved at the time, despite inevitable renovation work and extensions to the rear area with its landscape-related construction.

Monument protection

The historic individual buildings belonging to the hotel complex were registered as architectural monuments in the list of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation under D-1-72-117-57 . This included in particular the main building, the new lodging house, the petrol station with wash house and the craftsman's house next to it. The former fire-fighting equipment house is still listed as an independent monument under D-1-72-117-98 .

gallery

  • State 2012

  • Accommodation and main house

  • Side wing of the main house

  • Rear view of the lodging house

  • Side view of the lodging house

literature

  • Simone Wolfrum: The former Hotel Geiger in Stanggaß before demolition. In: Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (Hrsg.): Monument preservation information . No. 137, July 2007.
  • Hellmut Schöner (Ed.), A. Helm : The Berchtesgadener Land in the course of time . Reprint from 1929. Association for local history of the Berchtesgadener Land. Verlag Berchtesgadener Anzeiger and Karl M. Lipp Verlag, Munich 1973, pp. 101-102.

Web links

Commons : Hotel Geiger  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d architectural monuments Bischofswiesen : D-1-72-117-57, D-1-72-117-98 , list from October 22, 2016, online as a PDF file at geodaten.bayern.de
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Immediate demolition of the traditional geiger in the Berchtesgadener Land approved by the district administration ( Memento from August 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). In: Monument protection information. Edition December 04/2006, published by the German National Committee for Monument Protection , PDF file p. 41–43.
  3. ↑ a b Bischofswieser Hotel Geiger auctioned for 2.4 million euros , bgland24.de, July 5, 2017.
  4. ↑ According to the current owner, a study using the radiocarbon method , commissioned by his family in 1957, revealed the year of construction 1432 for the outer walls of the farmhouse in the south-western part of a previous building.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f A. Helm: The Berchtesgadener Land through the ages. P. 101.
  6. ↑ This family also came from her father Rudolf Kriss .
  7. ↑ a b A. Helm: The Berchtesgadener Land through the ages. P. 102.
  8. ↑ Hellmut Schöner (ed.): Berchtesgaden in the course of time. Supplementary volume I, Verein für Heimatkunde des Berchtesgadener Land, Verlag Berchtesgadener Anzeiger and Karl M. Lipp Verlag, Munich 1982, pp. 428, 434.
  9. ^ Information from the local SPD association in Bischofswiesen on the "Hotel Geiger" area ( memento of August 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Xaver Eichstädter: Great Hotel plans for "Geiger" and health clinic
  11. ↑ On the decay of the Hotel Geiger, see the photo series Look behind the scenes of the Hotel "Geiger" , online since August 27, 2015 at bgland24.de
  12. ↑ Kilian Pfeiffer: "Schneiderhäusl" is demolished in a controlled manner. In: Berchtesgadener Anzeiger . May 3, 2016, online at berchtesgadener-anzeiger.de
  13. ↑ Former Hotel Geiger: Fire under control , report from October 20, 2016, online at bgland24.de
  14. ↑ a b Kilian Pfeiffer: Fire kindled by human hands. In: Berchtesgadener Anzeiger. October 27, 2016, online at berchtesgadener-anzeiger.de
  15. ↑ Kilian Pfeiffer: Demolition of the Hotel "Geiger" in full swing. In: Berchtesgadener Anzeiger. February 1, 2018, online at berchtesgadener-anzeiger.de
  16. ↑ Kilian Pfeiffer: Demolition completed: Hotel "Geiger" no longer stands. In: BGLand24.de. March 12, 2018, accessed February 4, 2019 .
  17. ^ Kilian Pfeiffer: Complete demolition despite monument protection in Passauer Neue Presse (Berchtesgadener Land) from January 23, 2019

Coordinates: 47 ° 37 ′ 39.8 ″  N , 12 ° 59 ′ 21.8 ″  E