Waldhotel National

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Waldhotel National Arosa

The Waldhotel National is an upscale four-star hotel steeped in tradition and a former sanatorium in the Swiss sports and holiday resort of Arosa .

history

The Waldhotel National was opened on October 10, 1910 as the Arosa Forest Sanatorium , a sanatorium for lung patients. This was after the Chur architect Gottfried Braun had acquired 3,652 square meters of alpine soil in the Scheitenbodawald above the Obersee from the Chur community in 1902 "for the purpose of creating a hotel building" . According to the purchase conditions, Braun had to develop the property at its own expense with an access road at least three meters wide. The realization of this feeder took some time, because at that time the Prätschlistrasse only led to today's Hotel Belvédère-Tanneck and the Hohe Promenade also did not yet exist.

Only after this preliminary infrastructural work and the purchase of additional land could the new building finally be realized. The leading doctor was the German medical officer Dr. W. Römisch, who, together with the Austrian engineer Raoul Richter from Ostrau, built the new building for the AG Waldsanatorium and also played a decisive role in shaping the further development of the health resort Arosa. Richter himself headed the clinic as director until his death in 1918. The Arosa Forest Sanatorium offered comprehensive winter and summer cures and at that time was the second largest health resort in Arosa with 100 beds after the Arosa Sanatorium (later Berghilf Sanatorium, today Tschuggen Grand Hotel) .

In 1932 the forest sanatorium was converted into an actual hotel for the first time, with the name Neues Waldhotel . In 1947 it was again converted into a Federal Military Sanatorium ; The Swiss Confederation had acquired the property for 1.8 million Swiss francs and invested a further 690,000 francs in the renovation in order to be able to provide more comprehensive care for the approximately 650 tuberculosis patients who were then covered by the national military insurance . In 1959, the sanatorium was supposed to be given courses by the Magglingen sports school on a trial basis, but this was rejected in Arosa because there were fears of a decline in the number of overnight stays. The year 1961 finally saw the definitive conversion to the Waldhotel National under the management of Willy Huber. In 1962 the Waldhotel was run as a profit center for the first time. In 1967 a modern swimming pool was installed. In 1982 the company was converted into a public limited company. Since 1992 it has been majority owned by the local hotelier Andy Abplanalp. In 2010 and 2015/16, various quality-enhancing renovation measures were taken.

The Waldhotel and Thomas Mann

Bronze plaque at the hotel entrance

The writer Christian Morgenstern and his wife were among the first prominent guests of the Arosa Forest Sanatorium in April 1911 . Katia Mann , Thomas Mann's wife , received follow-up treatment here in 1912 after a stay of several months in the Davos Forest Sanatorium for a lung disease. Her letters from Davos and Arosa, where she visited Thomas Mann in the spring of 1912, inspired him to write his novel The Magic Mountain , which he began to write in 1913 and which he completed in 1924. The fictional sanatorium described in it was located in Davos, where he based the description of the dining room on a photo of the Arosa forest sanatorium.

Altogether, the man stayed at least eight times for longer holidays in Arosa, mostly accompanied by his wife and some of his children, and with the exception of the last visit in January 1955 when he stayed at the Hotel Excelsior, he always stayed in the forest sanatorium / forest hotel. The stay in February / March 1933, shortly after Hitler came to power in Germany, led Mann to decide to go into exile . A year later he wrote the third part of his Joseph novel here . Today a bronze plaque at the hotel entrance commemorates the famous guest.

Todays situation

As of December 2018, Jens P. Fischer will replace Christian Zinn as director. Jens P. Fischer had already been working as F&B Manager and Vice Director at Waldhotel National since June 2018.

In a representative hotel rating, the house was once again included in the 30 best Swiss holiday hotels in 2012. In addition to the Thomas Mann Restaurant & Zauberberg, it is characterized in particular by the Kachelofa-Stübli, which has been awarded 16 GaultMillau points and a red note in the Michelin Guide . In addition, the Waldhotel National is one of the official partner hotels of the Arosa ClassicCar automobile racing event and the Arosa Humor Festival .

literature

  • Ueli Haldimann (Ed.): Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann and others in Arosa - texts and images from two centuries. AS Verlag und Buchkonzept, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-905111-67-5 , p. 67, 136-159.
  • Hans Danuser : Arosa - as it was back then (1962–1978). Vol. 5, self-published by Danuser, Arosa 2001, p. 86.
  • Hans Danuser: Arosa - as it was back then (1947–1961). Vol. 4, self-published by Danuser, Arosa 2000, pp. 21, 185, 216.
  • Hans Danuser: Arosa - as it was back then (1907–1928). Vol. 2, self-published by Danuser, Arosa 1998, pp. 21, 29, 30, 35, 206.
  • Hans Danuser: Arosa - as it was back then (1850–1907). Vol. 1, self-published by Danuser, Arosa 1997, pp. 54, 158, 183 ff., 199.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ TKS Swiss renovates Waldhotel National Arosa. In: www.motorzeitung.de. April 28, 2016, Retrieved May 1, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Haldimann, p. 67.
  3. ↑ Haldimann, p. 147.
  4. ↑ Sunday newspaper of May 27, 2012, p. 87.
  5. ↑ TV portrait of the Kachelofa-Stübli at “Mini Beiz, dini Beiz”. In: www.srf.ch. April 28, 2016, Retrieved May 1, 2016 .

Web links

Commons : Waldhotel National  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 46 ° 46 '53.7 "  N , 9 ° 40' 38.7"  E ; CH1903:  seven hundred and seventy thousand nine hundred forty-four  /  183594