Hotel Prince Albrecht

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hotel Prince Albrecht
Hotel Prince Albrecht
Map of the Hotel Prinz Albrecht

The Hotel Prinz Albrecht was a well-known first-class hotel in the German capital of Berlin in the first half of the 20th century , where numerous politicians from national circles also frequented in the 1920s. During the National Socialist era, the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler and his management staff were housed in the hotel building. During the Second World War , the building on what was then Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse (previously: Extended Zimmerstrasse , today: Niederkirchnerstrasse ) was destroyed.

Origins

In 1891, the property owner, the manor H. von Westernhagen , had a commercial building built on the Prinz-Albrecht-Straße 9 plot of land in  place of the Römerbad Hotel and called it Hotel Zu den vier Jahreszeiten . Von Westernhagen sold the property after around ten years to Ernst and Franz Brandt, who redesigned the hostel and reopened it in 1902 as the Hotel Prinz Albrecht , based on the neighboring Palais des Prinzen Albrecht. In 1909, some of the hotel's interiors were refurbished in Art Nouveau style by the Berlin architect Bruno Möhring (1863–1929) .

Standard and services

The Prinz-Albrecht-Hotel was a first class, medium-sized hotel. According to the Baedeker travel guide, the hotel had 100 rooms in 1910. It also offered its customers “elegant ballrooms for weddings, family days, balls, etc.”. In 1911 the hotel received a garage extension. There were also several shops and a wine shop in the building.

In managing the hotel, the house owners worked closely with the court trainer A. Huster, who also ran the traditional and renowned English house and ran a very well-known town kitchen that sold prepared meals outside the home.

The hotel described itself in advertisements as a “first-rate house” and initially advertised its proximity to the Anhalter and Potsdamer Bahnhofs . A Berlin travel guide from 1905 describes the Hotel Prinz Albrecht as “quieter than the first-rate ones”, hotel advertising later picked up on this assessment itself, advertising as “first-rate family hotel” and as a house “in a quiet, central location near the museums , House of Representatives, Ministry of War, Potsdamer Platz ”. With direct references to the proximity of the Ethnographic Museum on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße at the corner of Königgrätzer Straße (today: Stresemannstraße ) and the neighboring arts and crafts museum , the hotel tried to attract guests interested in German and East Asian art.

The hotel in the 1920s

After the First World War , in the 1920s, the hotel served as a meeting point for national circles, including the head of the NSDAP , Adolf Hitler , for meetings with industrialists, representatives of the nobility and high officials.

From February 1932, Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and National Socialist members of the Prussian state parliament held repeated rallies and meetings in the Hotel Prinz Albrecht . In the same year the Hotelindustrie AG founded by Franz Brandt in 1922 was transformed into A. Huster AG. In March 1932 the company went bankrupt .

After 1933 the SS took over several buildings on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. The street, in the immediate vicinity of the government district on Wilhelmstrasse, thus became the "control center of the SS state".

The hotel building as an SS residence

Heinrich Himmler , from 1934 host of the former Hotel Prinz Albrecht

On November 8, 1934, various high officials of the SS moved into the Hotel Prinz Albrecht : Heinrich Himmler's personal staff (Adjutantur), the administrative headquarters of the SS, the SS main office and the SS personnel office.

The hotel's garage, built in 1911, was modified in 1935/1936 by an extension so that a direct connection was established with the former teaching facility of the Museum of Applied Arts , which now housed the Gestapo headquarters.

Between 1943 and 1945, the building complex was destroyed by Allied air raids .

The current use of the site

Exhibition house of the topography of terror on the former hotel site

Today none of these buildings exist anymore. As far as they were in ruins after 1945, they were demolished in the mid-1950s. In 1962/1963 the property was deeply cleared of rubble, and in 1966 the State of Berlin bought the corner plot of Wilhelmstrasse / Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. Since May 2010 the documentation center of the Topography of Terror Foundation has existed at the location of the former Hotel Prinz Albrecht .

literature

  • Anonymous: Berlin and the Berliners. People, things, customs, hints. J. Bielefeld Publishing House, Karlsruhe 1905.
  • Anonymous: Berlin. (= Griebens travel guide , volume 25, small edition.) Albert Goldschmidt Verlag, Berlin 1920/1921.
  • Karl Baedeker : Berlin and the surrounding area. Guide for travelers. 13th edition, Verlag Karl Baedeker, Leipzig 1904.
  • Karl Baedeker: Berlin and the surrounding area. Guide for travelers. 18th edition, Verlag Karl Baedeker, Leipzig 1914.
  • Bodo-Michael Baumunk: Grand Hotel. In: The trip to Berlin. (Ed. on behalf of the Berlin Senate for the exhibition of the same name) Berlin 1987, p. 192 ff.
  • Erika Bucholtz: The headquarters of the National Socialist SS and Police State. Building use and planning in Berlin 1933–1945. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , Volume 52, 2004, Issue 12. ( Internet article )
  • Renate Düttmann: Berlin inns of the 18th and 19th centuries. In: The trip to Berlin. (Ed. on behalf of the Berlin Senate for the exhibition of the same name) Berlin 1987, pp. 181–191.
  • Britta Guski, Ingo Schauermann: Topography of Terror. Peter Zumthor's new building on the Prinz Albrecht site in Berlin. In :: Wolfram Martini (ed.): Architecture and memory. Verlag Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-525-35420-7 , pp. 205-230.
  • Volker Wagner: The Dorotheenstadt in the 19th century. From the suburban residential area of ​​the baroque style to part of Berlin's modern city. (= Publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin , Volume 94.) Verlag de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1998, ISBN 3-11-015709-8 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 9 . In: Address book for Berlin and its suburbs , 1900, Part II, p. 487.
  2. ^ Karl Baedeker: Berlin and its environs. Leipzig 1910, p. 4.
  3. ^ Hotel Prinz Albrecht. On: luise-berlin.de
  4. ^ Hotel Prinz-Albrecht. On: potsdamer-platz.org
  5. ^ Anonymus: Berlin and the Berliners. Karlsruhe 1905, p. 428.
  6. ↑ Erika Bucholtz: The headquarters of the National Socialist SS and Police State. Building use and planning in Berlin 1933–1945. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , 52nd year 2004, issue 12.
  7. ↑ Erika Bucholtz: The headquarters of the National Socialist SS and Police State. Building use and planning in Berlin 1933–1945. In: Zeitschrift für Geschichtswwissenschaft , 52nd year 2004, issue 12.
  8. ↑ The presentation follows the explanations at Edition Luisenstadt: Hotel Prinz Albrecht. on: luise-berlin.de 2002, and at Britta Guski, Ingo Schauermann: Topographie des Terrors. Peter Zumthor's new building on the Prinz Albrecht site in Berlin. In: Wolfram Martini (ed.): Architecture and memory. Verlag Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2000, p. 206 f.
  9. ^ Andreas Nachama: Topography of Terror opens new documentation center. on: berlin.de , December 2010.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 25 ″  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 5 ″  E