Otto Hüglin

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Otto Hüglin (born November 11, 1857 in Königschaffhausen ; † January 9, 1943 in Freiburg im Breisgau ) was a businessman and hotel owner from Baden.

Otto Hüglin (1907)

Life

Hüglin came from a wealthy winemaking family from Königschaffhausen am Kaiserstuhl. In 1882, at the age of 24, he acquired the monastery inn in St. Blasien , which he expanded into a sophisticated hotel. In 1882 he had the Kurhaus built in St. Blasien, which went into operation in 1883 and, under the medical direction of Hermann Determann, quickly experienced an upswing into an internationally renowned spa and bathing facility. The company traded under the name Hotel und Kurhaus St. Blasien and was converted into a stock corporation in 1887. Gradually, the spa business was expanded to include existing and newly constructed buildings by Hüglin (Friedrich-Luisen-Ruhe, Luisenheim, Black Forest House, Hotel Krone), which, according to the company, had "all the modern comforts". With a resolution of the St. Blasien town council on September 20, 1907, Hüglin was made an honorary citizen of the city on the 25th anniversary of the St. Blasien Kurhaus, “for the services it rendered to the health resort, especially for its active promotion of the interests of the health resort”.

Otto Hüglin, (3rd from left) at the reception of Prince Max von Baden (in uniform coat) 1909
Kurhaus St. Blasien around 1900
The old Wehrawaldklinik from 1901

In 1882, Hüglin married Jeanne Marie Baud from a Geneva family of artists. The only son Albert, born in 1883, came from the marriage. In 1898, Hüglin acquired the Hotel Bären in Titisee-Neustadt and in 1901 built the Wehrawald Lung Sanatorium in Todtmoos , today's Wehrawaldklinik , an then exclusive ambience in an exposed altitude, often used by patients from the Tsarist Russia was visited. In 1910, Hüglin suffered a stroke, which forced his son Albert to join the company management.

Based on the by the industrialist Hugo Stinnes pursued project of Schwarzwald-private company that from Freiburg on the Schauinsland to Feldberg and then one hand over the valley of Menzenschwand to St. Blaise, on the other hand through the meadow valley as far as Basel should lead , Hüglin strove for the systematic further tourist development of the region around 1911/1912. With the company Hüglin and Comrades , he tried to gain supremacy on the Feldberg, where the construction of a luxury hotel complex, golf courses and toboggan runs were planned. Despite excellent connections in the economic and financial world, his project failed due to the bitter resistance of the operators of the already existing, well-established Feldberger Hof, and the private railway planned by Hugo Stinnes was never to be built because the project was not approved at the political level .

In 1912 Otto Hüglin was appointed to the council of commerce . In the same year he reoriented himself with investments in the Mediterranean and acquired the Grand Hotel Bellevue in Sanremo . This was expanded into a prestigious hotel complex, reopened in 1913 and incorporated into the Hotel- und Kurhaus St. Blasien AG . From then on, Hüglin only lived in St. Blasien during the summer, and the spa only ran here in the summer half-year. During the winter months he took care of things in Sanremo and lived there.

In 1920, Hüglin and the Baden-Baden bank director Max Siegel acquired the Bühlerhöhe, which was built by Hertha Isenbart and planned as an officer's convalescent home . With the inclusion of the neighboring sanatorium, the property was expanded into a luxury hotel complex and also placed under the management of the Hotel und Kurhaus St. Blasien AG . In doing so, Hüglin copied the successful St. Blasier spa concept on the Bühlerhöhe, which envisaged the coexistence of healthy people and those in need of relaxation in a luxurious setting, located in the seclusion of an "enchanted" Black Forest landscape.

After St. Blasien experienced far-reaching change and an increasing focus as a lung health resort , the Hotel und Kurhaus St. Blasien AG was dissolved in 1925. The St. Blasier real estate and properties were sold, while the Bühlerhöhe was converted into the Kurhaus und Sanatorium GmbH and soon personalities from business, politics and culture were among its guests. In 1925, Hüglin also invested in Bad Homburg, where he acquired the sanatorium at the spa park .

Otto Hüglin sometimes used to pull the strings from the background. He often preferred to stay in his own Kurhaus St. Blasien as a “private citizen from Freiburg”. His excellent network to the aristocratic, economic and financial world of that time, which went in and out of St. Blasien, including the Grand Duke of Baden, Friedrich I , the last Chancellor of the German Empire, Prince Max von Baden and the industrialist Hugo Stinnes , however, this reluctance did not diminish.

After giving up the St. Blasien spa facility, Hüglin moved to Höchenschwand and lived the life of a rich man. He died in Freiburg in 1943.

literature

  • Thomas O. Hüglin (Hueglin): We All Giggled - A Bourgeois Family Memoir. Wilfrid Laurier Press, Waterloo, Ontario / Canada 2011.
  • Barbara Baur: Last year in St. Blasien. The history of a health resort and its prominent guests. Münster 2014.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Barbara Baur: Last year in St. Blasien. The history of a health resort and its prominent guests. Münster 2014.
  2. a b c Bernhard Steinert : St. Blasier Land. Reports and poems about a landscape and its history. St. Blasien 1987.
  3. A health resort for people of money and world. In: Badische Zeitung , July 13, 2013.