.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{box-sizing:border-box;width:100%;padding:5px;border:none;font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .hidden-title{font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .hidden-content{text-align:left}You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (September 2011) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Hotel Kaiserhof (Berlin)]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template ((Translated|de|Hotel Kaiserhof (Berlin))) to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.
Hotel Kaiserhof
Hotel Kaiserhof (Berlin) is located in Central Berlin
Hotel Kaiserhof (Berlin)
Location in Berlin
General information
LocationWilhelmplatz, Berlin, Germany
Coordinates52°30′41″N 13°23′7″E / 52.51139°N 13.38528°E / 52.51139; 13.38528
Opening1875
Closed1943

Hotel Kaiserhof was a luxury hotel in Wilhelmplatz, Berlin, Germany. It stood opposite the Reich Chancellery in what was then Berlin's government district. It opened in October 1875 and was destroyed by several bomb attacks on November 23, 1943.

History

Berlin's first grand hotel was built by the company Berlin Hotel AG (later Berliner Hotelgesellschaft), founded in 1872. The Berlin architectural firm von der Hude & Hennicke carried out the commission from 1873 to 1875. Just a few days after the opening ceremony on October 1, 1875, a major fire destroyed the building. It reopened in 1876.

The Kaiserhof offered more than 260 rooms which were fitted out in a modern and luxurious manner. It was the first Berlin hotel in which every room had an electricity supply, its own bathroom and its own telephone. All of the furnishings originally came from the Hotel Britannia[1] and the Hotel Donau,[2] in Vienna, which went bankrupt after the World's Fair in 1873.[3] The hotel also featured steam heating and pneumatic elevators/lifts, and the kitchens used, for the time, state-of-the-art gas stoves. Electric power came from Berlin's second power station, recently built in Mauerstraße by Siemens & Halske. Attached to the hotel was a Romanesque café called Café Bauer, run by the Viennese restaurateur Mathias Bauer.[4] The hotel also operated a so-called city kitchen, a catering service that delivered individual dishes as well as entire menus for larger parties away from home.

British PM Benjamin Disraeli stayed here in 1878.

Joseph Goebbels, Ernst Röhm, and other Nazi officials met in the Kaiserhof as Hitler was being sworn in as Chancellor. They were not aware if Hitler had indeed been appointed Chancellor until he had returned to the hotel to inform them.[5]

In November 1939, Georg Elser's family was imprisoned in the hotel for interrogation in the objective to find out if they contributed towards the assassination attempt on Hitler's life on November 8 in the Bürgerbräukeller, Munich[citation needed]. Even though they were imprisoned, it was like a holiday to Berlin in the Kaiserhof. However, they were monitored everywhere by the Gestapo[citation needed].

Dr. Ludwig Roselius had a luxury suite in the Hotel and Barbara Goette cared for him for many months until he died there on 15 May 1943.[6]

On 22 November 1943 the hotel was badly damaged by British bombers during an air-raid on Berlin. The ruins ended up in East Berlin after the division of the city and were later completely torn down. The present-day Mohrenstraße station on the U2 line of the Berlin U-Bahn was named "Kaiserhof" from its opening in 1908 until 1950. The station underwent several name changes before acquiring its current name in 1991.

In 1974 the North Korean embassy to East Germany was constructed on the site. East Germany ceased to be a state in 1990 and the embassy closed. However, in 2001 its successor state, the Federal Republic of Germany, re-established diplomatic relations with North Korea and the North Korean embassy returned to the building. From 2004 until its closure in 2020,[7] the annex on the south half of the site was leased to Cityhostel Berlin, which paid the North Korean government an estimated €38,000 per month.[8]

References

  1. ^ "Hotel Britannia". Vienna History Wiki. 8 November 2022. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  2. ^ "Hotel Donau". Vienna History Wiki. 24 April 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  3. ^ Hensel, Sebastian (1908). Sebastian Hensel: Ein Lebensbild Aus Deutschlands Lehrjahren (in German). Berlin: B. Behr’s Verlag. p. 35.
  4. ^ "Evening at Café Bauer – Berlin". Historical Cafés Routes. 4 April 2022. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  5. ^ William L. Shirer (1960). The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany.
  6. ^ Leidig, Ludwig. Bombshell. sbpra, 2013, ISBN 978-1-62516-346-2
  7. ^ "North Korean embassy hostel in Berlin shuts – DW – 05/29/2020". dw.com. Retrieved 9 July 2023.
  8. ^ Stollowsky, Christoph; Hackenbruch, Felix (10 May 2017). "Bundesregierung will Cityhostel in Nordkoreas Botschaft schließen" [Federal government wants to close Cityhostel in North Korean embassy]. Der Tagesspiegel (in German). Berlin. Retrieved 11 May 2017.
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