Hotel de l'Europe (Salzburg)
The Hotel de l'Europe (also referred to as the Grand Hotel de l'Europe by the hotel itself , briefly known as the Hotel Europäische Hof ) was a luxury hotel in the Austrian capital of Salzburg that operated from 1865 to 1938 . The prestigious house served as accommodation for the German armed forces during the time of Austria under National Socialism . The hotel was badly damaged towards the end of World War II and subsequently demolished. In its place in the Elisabeth-Vorstadt diagonally across from the Salzburg main station stands the simpler Hotel Europa .
history
After the Vienna – Salzburg – Munich rail link went into operation in 1860, the city of Salzburg experienced a strong influx of visitors. Among other things, the construction of several hotels, some of them representative, was the result, including that of the Austrian Court (today's Hotel Sacher Salzburg ) and the Grand Hotel de l'Europe.
Ownership
The construction of the hotel began towards the end of 1863 at the instigation of the restaurateur Louis Jung (1823-1894), who came from Truchtersheim near Strasbourg and who had bought the Gasthof Zu den Drei Allied in Getreidegasse in Salzburg . He transferred the commercial license to the hotel, which opened in 1865.
Soon after it opened, Jung sold the hotel and the surrounding land for unknown reasons to his brother Georg Jung (1856–1899), who himself bequeathed it to his son of the same name in 1875 due to illness. He was married to his cousin, the daughter of Louis Jung, Mirza Jung. After Georg Jung's death in 1899, the heiress Mirza handed the hotel over to her brother, who also bore the name Georg Jung (1866–1934) and owned the hotel until his death in 1934. Under him, the Hotel de l'Europe experienced its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s.
The last owner of the Hotel de l'Europe was the son of Georg Jung, who died in 1934, the painter Georg Jung (1899–1957). Jung, who felt more called to art than a hotelier, had to sell the hotel complex under pressure after Austria's annexation to Nazi Germany in November 1938 to the German Wehrmacht, which then housed the General Command XVIII and the District Administration XVIII. Jung felt compelled to sell the property at a lower price, as he was threatened by Wehrmacht generals that Heinrich Himmler, who was in Salzburg at the time, would use the property for the SS under even less favorable circumstances . ("I would never have signed this contract if I had not been in the predicament to choose between the Wehrmacht and Himmler." (Georg Jung, 1949)) At the end of 1949, Jung submitted an application for restitution , which was met on July 3, 1950 has been.
Jung, who had to pay 2 million schillings for the recovery of the bomb-damaged hotel complex , had plans to sell parts of the property. Ultimately, he sold the entire area for 11 million schillings to the city of Salzburg, to a housing cooperative and to Wiener Städtische Versicherung . As a result, the Hotel de l'Europe was demolished and the park area was rededicated for residential construction.
Building history
main building
The land on which the Hotel de l'Europe was built came into the possession of the immigrated restaurateur Louis Jung, who had become a resident of Salzburg. It is unclear who made the building plans for the hotel. The names Vinzenz Rauscher and Franz Kriegler are recorded on the plans themselves. The latter was an architect who played a key role in the construction of the Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Bahn , today's Westbahn , and who later also played a role in the hotel's approval process. Various sources also name an architect named Lang from Baden-Baden. Presumably it is Heinrich Lang , who was born in Neckargemünd and who had drafted the plans for three hotels in Baden-Baden. The adaptation of a "sample plan" by Lang by the people named on the plans of the Hotel de l'Europe also appears possible - which was not unusual at the time.
The construction time of the hotel took around one and a half years, the work was carried out by the Valentin Ceconi company . The Grand Hotel was opened on June 1, 1865. At that time, the Hotel de l'Europe was a rectangular, three-storey building with a basement in the style of historicism . The upper floors were accessed via a central, magnificent staircase covered with a vaulted glass construction. The first luxury hotel in the city of Salzburg was also one of the leading hotels in Europe in terms of the newer design.
The hotel underwent a major expansion in 1894, when a wing designed by Franz Drobny, a building planner employed by the Salzburg City Building Department, was added. Another wing was built in 1907/1908. Both were added to the original façade, pivoted slightly, so that an arched curve was created towards the city. In the course of the second extension, the central staircase was torn down and replaced by an atrium. The plans for this extension come from the architect Max Fabiani , a former employee of Otto Wagner . Both extensions, as well as some later work, were carried out by the company of the Salzburg architect and builder Jakob Ceconi .
Several modernizations were made in the 1920s. On February 9, 1928, a fire broke out that destroyed the roof structure, attic room and much of the third floor. The cause was a dippel tree fire that had been perceived unspecifically days before, but which had gone unnoticed . During the repair work, a container for 120,000 liters of usable water was built on the roof, which was filled using two artesian wells in the park. In addition, identified fire protection deficiencies were remedied.
After the German Wehrmacht took over the Grand Hotel in 1938, adaptations were made. Among other things, the roof structure was reinforced with an approximately 1 meter thick concrete ceiling, which was supposed to withstand bomb attacks and serve as anti-aircraft defense. The park on the entrance side to the east was removed in order to erect several functional buildings there.
Towards the end of the Second World War, the Hotel de l'Europe was badly damaged by bombs on November 11th and 17th, 1944 and February 5th, 1945. After the end of the war, the parts that were still habitable were poorly adapted to accommodate ethnic German refugees.
For a while there was uncertainty about the future of the hotel. The last owner Georg Jung was still considering a restoration in 1951, whereby the necessary funds were to be raised by selling part of the property. After the park area had been rededicated as building land, Jung ultimately decided against repairs and demolition of the hotel and the sale of the entire site. On April 21, 1952, Jung's request to tear down the hotel was granted.
In the years that followed, residential buildings were built on the site and, after some controversy, the much more modest Hotel Europa , which was discussed until recently and opened on July 27, 1957, was built. The apartment block, located on the very city side, has a curved facade as an architectural echo of the Hotel de l'Europe.
When he first considered the partial sale of the property, Georg Jung insisted on preserving the trees in the park. Today two of them, a black pine and a plane tree , stand between houses. The plane tree in the Fordhof has been protected as a natural monument in Salzburg since 1964 and the black pine in the Fordhof since 1973 .
The black pine remaining from the hotel park
The plane tree remaining from the hotel park
The curved facade of the residential buildings reflects that of the hotel
Outbuildings
Right from the start, the hotel had an outbuilding on the Elisabethstrasse side. It was the former Schnedizenihof, which the hotel founder Louis Jung had acquired and which was converted into a Swiss-style guesthouse at the beginning of the 1880s. From then on the house was called a dependance . It had around 50 rooms and was intended for guests who wanted to stay longer in the hotel. A 64-meter-long and 80 x 50-centimeter tunnel was built from the hotel kitchen in the main building to the dependance, through which a dining car powered by a 1 HP motor was sent. The branch survived the war unscathed, but in 1962 also had to make way for the residential building.
Other outbuildings of the Grand Hotel served economic purposes: a gardening shop, a laundry, a farm building and initially horse stables, which were later converted into car garages. The chauffeurs' accommodations were also located there. After the Wehrmacht took over the hotel, a large system of wooden barracks and a separate company kitchen including dining rooms for the general command were added, none of which were hit in the bombing raids.
Location, facilities and clientele
At the time of its construction, the Grand Hotel de l'Europe was still outside the city limits of Salzburg in the town of Froschheim. This had belonged to the municipality of Itzling until 1848 and after its incorporation to Gnigl to this independent municipality until 1939 and thus to the Salzburg region. The hotel was located diagonally across from the Salzburg train station (the current main train station ). In contrast to today, such a location at a large train station was considered preferred at the beginning of the railway era. The prestigious location of the hotel was additionally enhanced by its location in the midst of a 60,000 m² park area, which took up today's Südtirolerplatz and the area of the adjacent residential buildings and from the streets of today's Elisabethstraße in the north, Rainerstraße (then Westbahnstraße) in the south and the current one Saint-Julien Street was bordered to the west against the city. The area between the main train station and the Salzburg city center was still largely undeveloped.
The Hotel de l'Europe was intended for an upscale clientele from the start. Members of the nobility, high finance and other wealthy audiences who frequented the area determined the reputation and flair of the house. The guests also included high-ranking personalities from politics and culture, such as the German Kaiser Wilhelm I , the composer Richard Strauss and the writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal . From the beginning of the Salzburg Festival , visitors to the cultural festival were also among the guests. Especially in the 1930s, the hotel was fully booked during the festival. The hotel's commitment to this target audience is understandable. The hotel founder, Louis Jung, had always campaigned for the promotion of tourism in Salzburg and for the establishment of festivals in the city.
The Hotel de l'Europe stood as a luxury accommodation for rich guests from abroad in contrast to the living environment of the less well-off Salzburg residents, of whom only a few could afford the price level of the hotel. A price list from 1928 shows that the hotel had by far the highest prices in the city. In addition, “the distance between the building and the city ... is representative of the distance between hotel guests and the citizens of this city”. As a symbol of wealth, the Grand Hotel was the target of an attack during the famine period immediately after the First World War. On September 19, 1918, the building was attacked by demonstrators as part of a hunger demonstration and the full food cellar was looted. Parts of the furnishings and the valuable inventory (table silver, Persian carpets and the like) were stolen or destroyed, and pigs, chickens and ducks from the company's own livestock were killed. The damage was around 500,000 crowns .
According to the clientele of the house, the equipment of the Hotel de l'Europe was very luxurious and offered all the technical comforts of the time. Every room initially had a telegraph , and there was a mouthpiece in every corridor . Central heating was installed as part of the second expansion in 1907/1908, and in the 1920s most of the 250 rooms had running water and a telephone connection that also allowed long-distance connections. Electric light was installed as early as 1886 and a hydraulic lift was installed, which was approved for 800 kg or 10 people and provided with a bell to indicate that a door was possibly open.
In addition to the dining room and several salons, the hotel was also equipped with a dance hall, reading room and billiard room. There was also a type of entertainment salon that was largely unknown until then: an American bar that conveyed a modern lifestyle with an exclusive range of cocktails, which the last hotel owner and painter Georg Jung provided with wall illustrations. In the dining room and in the American bar there was live music from a Viennese band. In the last few years of its existence, the hotel had its own post office (Salzburg 8) with the use of special postmarks . Seasonally, a hairdressing salon and a branch of the Höllrigl bookshop were also operated in the house. There was a tennis court in the hotel garden and a garden theater from the early 1930s.
Staircase as it existed until 1907
Dining room, ca.1927
Dance hall, ca.1927
Elisabeth monument
From 1901 the Elisabeth monument stood in the park of the hotel, which was unveiled in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph on July 15th of that year. Exactly three years earlier, Empress Elisabeth (“Sisi”, wife of Franz Joseph I) had set foot on Austrian soil for the last time before her murder in Geneva. For the celebrations of the unveiling, buildings in Salzburg were festively lit and the Hotel de l'Europe was adorned with thousands of lights that formed the shape of an imperial crown.
After the fall of the monarchy, the monument was removed in 1925. Since 2002 it has been in almost the same place opposite the current Hotel Europa .
literature
- Herbert Dorn: Searching for traces in Salzburg. Disappeared buildings and forgotten art treasures from eight centuries. Second, improved edition, Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg 1997, ISBN 3-901014-49-7 ; Chapter The Grand Hotel de l'Europe , pp. 103-107.
- Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. City Association Salzburg / Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The hotel itself used different names in its correspondence over the years: Grand Hotel de l'Europe, Hotel de l'Europe, L'Europe. The spelling of the word hotel also changed between the German without and the French with circumflex (hotel), although the latter was not used much later. For a short time after the First World War , the name European Court was also used. See Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997, p. 5.
- ↑ File of the Salzburg Regional Court, restitution proceedings Georg Jung, Rk 114/48 / I, application for restitution by Georg Jung, p. 3; quoted n. Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997, p. 31.
- ^ Herbert Dorn: Search for traces in Salzburg. Disappeared buildings and forgotten art treasures from eight centuries. Second, improved edition, Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg 1997, p. 103.
- ↑ This name is mentioned in Kapeller 1997. In the brief outline of the hotel history from Dorn 1997, Jakob Ceconi and Karl Pirich can be seen as the architects of this extension.
- ^ Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. City Association Salzburg / Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997, p. 79.
- ↑ Site plan of the bomb hits on plans of the Salzburg State Police Department, shown in: Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. City Association Salzburg / Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997, p. 66/67.
- ^ A b Herbert Dorn: Searching for traces in Salzburg. Disappeared buildings and forgotten art treasures from eight centuries. Second, improved edition, Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg 1997, p. 104.
- ^ Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. City Association Salzburg / Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997, p. 43.
- ↑ According to Kapeller, 1997. Dorn 1997 mentions more than 300 rooms, possibly including the approximately 50 guest rooms in the dependance .
- ^ Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. City Association Salzburg / Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997, p. 14.
- ^ Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. Salzburg City Association / Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997, p. 67.
- ↑ See W. Fred: Salzburg. in: Cornelius Gurlitt (Ed.): The culture. Collection of illustrated individual representations , 22nd volume, Leipzig 1907, p. 43 ff .; quoted n. Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. City Association Salzburg / Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997, p. 42.
- ^ Andreas Kapeller: Hôtel de l'Europe. Salzburg's unforgettable grand hotel. City Association Salzburg / Colorama Verlag, Salzburg 1997, p. 70.
Coordinates: 47 ° 48 '44.4 " N , 13 ° 2' 35.4" E