Hotel Reichshof (Berlin)

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Advertisement of the Berlin hotel Der Reichshof from 1904.
The Hotel Der Reichshof in Wilhelmstrasse 70a in Berlin. Photo from 1899.
The Hotel Der Reichshof was close to the Unter den Linden boulevard.
View into the dining room of the Hotel Der Reichshof . Photo from 1898.

In the Wilhelmine era, the “Der Reichshof” hotel was a medium-sized, upper-class hotel in Wilhelmstrasse 70a, in what was then Berlin's government district. It was opened in 1892/93 and merged with the newly built Hotel Adlon in 1907 .

location

The Hotel Reichshof was directly south of the British embassy (Wilhelmstrasse 70), which was housed in the former Palais Strousberg . The hotel was thus very close to the Berlin boulevard Unter den Linden , but was somewhat removed from the flow of traffic. At the same time, it was not far from the then important train stations Friedrichstrasse in the north, Potsdamer Bahnhof and Anhalter Bahnhof in the south. The hotel itself called this an elegant quiet location in a newspaper ad . A contemporary expert described the Hotel Reichshof in 1905 as a quiet hotel that was particularly popular with families or single women who want to rent for a while . Its rear face looked out over the Royal Gardens.

Standard and services

In 1904 the hotel had 65 rooms. It had an elevator, bathrooms, electric light (not a matter of course at the time), central heating and its own restaurant. As a special service, the hotel offered concerts every evening at 7.30 p.m.

sale

The owner of the hotel was Leopold Schwarz in 1904. A little later he sold the hotel to the ambitious businessman Lorenz Adlon , who already owned several bars and coffee houses in Berlin. With the benevolent support of Kaiser Wilhelm II , he built a new, large luxury hotel, the Hotel Adlon, on the neighboring Pariser Platz , to the northwest of the Palais Strousberg. The building of the Hotel Reichshof was also integrated into the overall system. The British Embassy in the former Palais Strousberg was surrounded on two sides by tall hotel buildings and severely narrowed.

Destruction in World War II

During the Second World War , along with the Hotel Adlon and the Reich Ministry of Agriculture, which had taken over the premises of the Palais Strousberg, those parts of the Hotel Adlon that had previously belonged to the Hotel Reichshof were badly damaged and demolished after the war.

Today the former site at Wilhelmstrasse 70a is part of the British Embassy area, which has built a new embassy building on the entire site.

literature

  • Anonymous: Berlin and the Berliners. J. Bielefelds Verlag, Karlsruhe 1905.
  • Karl Baedeker : Berlin and the surrounding area. Guide for travelers. Verlag Karl Baedeker, 13th ed. Leipzig 1904.
  • Laurenz Demps: Berlin - Wilhelmstrasse. Berlin 1994.
  • Volker Wagner: The Dorotheenstadt in the 19th century: from the suburban residential area of ​​baroque style to part of the modern Berlin city. Verlag De Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1998. Publications of the Historical Commission in Berlin, Vol. 94. ISBN 3-11-015709-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Hotel Der Reichshof is recorded for the first time in 1893 and for the last time in 1907 in the hotel list of the Berlin address book. In 1893, the house and real estate company became the owner . In 1907 Lorenz Adlon is the owner of the building.
  2. ↑ cf. the advert of the hotel shown in the magazine Berliner Leben , issue 04 (1904).
  3. ↑ cf. Anonymous: Berlin and the Berliners. J. Bielefelds Verlag, Karlsruhe 1905. p. 428.
  4. ↑ cf. Karl Baedeker: Berlin and the surrounding area. Guide for travelers . Verlag Karl Baedeker, 13th ed. Leipzig 1904. p. 3.

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 56 "  N , 13 ° 22 ′ 52"  E