Hotel Excelsior
Encyclopedia
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
district of Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg, a part of the combined Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte since 2001, is one of the best-known areas of Berlin...
. It was once one of the largest and most luxurious hotels in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
but its destruction during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
resigned it to the German capital’s list of lost historical landmarks.
Early years
Otto Rehnig - the architect responsible for the similarly fated Hotel Esplanade BerlinHotel Esplanade Berlin
thumb|right|360px|Hotel EsplanadeHotel “Esplanade” once stood on Berlin’s busy transport and nightlife hub Potsdamer Platz. During its colourful and turbulent history it went from being one of the German capital’s most luxurious and celebrated hotels to a bombed-out ruin lost in the wastelands...
- was commissioned to design a hotel to accommodate the floods of passengers arriving in at the Anhalter Bahnhof
Anhalter Bahnhof
The Anhalter Bahnhof is a former railway terminus in Berlin, Germany, approximately 600 metres southeast of Potsdamer Platz. Although the station was closed in 1952, the name lives on in the Berlin S-Bahn station of the same name.- Early days :...
across the street. When the Excelsior first opened on 2 April 1908 after over two years of construction work it accommodated a modest 200 rooms but when an additional section was built on Anhalter Strasse 6 in 1912/13 the hotel had already almost doubled in size.
The untimely re-opening of the hotel on the eve of the World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
meant that the building spent its early existence comparatively empty. As the war progressed the hotel’s fortunes dwindled. The saviour of the Excelsior appeared in 1919 in the form of a 43-year old hotel expert with a keen eye for business, Curt Elschner (1876-1963).
Thüringer-born Elschner was a self-made success. After starting out waiting tables in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
before moving on to being head waiter in a variety of cities. In 1903 he took out a lease on the Hotel Metropol in Erfurt
Erfurt
Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian...
, before taking over the Hotel Esplanade in Hamburg and then a number of other hotels and restaurants across Germany. After his war service Elschner spent a short time in 1919 working as an advisor and frontman to the politician and industrialist Hugo Stinnes
Hugo Stinnes
-Life and career:Stinnes was born in Mülheim, in the Ruhr Valley, North German Confederation. His father was also named Hugo, and his grandfather Matthias Stinnes had founded a modest enterprise in Mülheim....
, when the latter was elected into parliament in Berlin, before Elschner finally took the reins of the Excelsior.
Excelsior expansion in the golden twenties
In Berlin’s golden twenties the Hotel Excelsior and Curt Elschner made one another legendary. Under Elschner’s management the decade witnessed the Excelsior’s transformation from a low-key and ailing enterprise into an extravagant, successful and super modern 7500 m² hotel complex.Using contemporary deluxe US hotels as inspiration, Elschner set about completely modernising and expanding his new property. New power and water systems and gas heating were established and the coal-powered bakery and kitchens were introduced to electricity. Between 1925 and 1926 the hotel’s guest room capacity was expanded under the guidance of architects Heidenreich und Michel. In 1927/28, under the direction of architect Johann Emil Schaudt (1871–1957), an 1800 m² area of the hotel cellars was transformed into a spa
Spa
The term spa is associated with water treatment which is also known as balneotherapy. Spa towns or spa resorts typically offer various health treatments. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters goes back to prehistoric times. Such practices have been popular worldwide, but are...
.
When the dramatic renovation was complete the Hotel Excelsior accommodated 600 rooms, 750 beds, 250 bathrooms, 9 restaurants, a library, as well as such everyday amenities as a tailors, cobblers, butchers and bakers. It also provided guests with a choice of 200 daily newspapers from around the world. The interior decoration was equally lavish with marble covered walls and adornment by the Berlin-born artist Carl Langhammer (1868–1956).
The Excelsior may not have been as distinguished as Berlin’s Adlon, Kaiserhof or Esplanade but it was the largest, and at the end of the twenties it firmly established itself as the largest not only in Berlin, but across the whole continent.
Excelsior in Hitler’s thirties
At the start of the 1930s NSDAP leadership in MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
earmarked the Excelsior as Hitler’s base in Berlin until he secured leadership. The proposal was rejected by Elschner however and the Führer was forced to opt for the Hotel Kaiserhof in Wilhelmplatz. The NSDAP did not take the snub with good grace and promptly imposed a party ban on the hotel. Nevertheless this did not stop them sparking further controversy within its walls. Its grand hall, known as "Saal des freien Denkens" (The Hall of Free Thought), featured numerous stain-glass windows featuring popes, religious founders and various Greek and Jewish philosophers. The NSDAP objected to the images of Jews and after a violent debate they were packed away in crates and replaced by portraits of the new leadership. They also objected to many of the titles in the hotel library and so these were taken away and burnt.
WWII and the demise of the Excelsior
At the beginning of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Elschner fled Germany and in 1942 the NSV (Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt), a welfare subsidiary of the NSDAP, took over ownership of the Excelsior. It was during the wartime period that the hotel became known as the "Fehling-Bunker". The title honoured Jürgen Fehling, the then director at the theatre in Königgrätzer Straße (today known as the Hebbel Theater). A sign hung over the main entrance saying “Wehrmacht-Betreuungsstelle (Armed-Forces Care Point) Gepäckaufbewahrung (Left Luggage)”.
At the end of April 1945, as the war was coming to an end, Allied bombers reduced the Excelsior to a burning ruin. The attack left many dead and the hotel largely destroyed. Any riches that survived the assault were swiftly plundered. In 1954 it was demolished completely, six years before the remains of the Anhalter Bahnhof were pulled down. Whether or not the underpass that connected them still exists is unclear.
Aftermath
A hotel with the traditional name "Hotel Excelsior" is located today in the Hardenbergstraße in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf is the fourth borough of Berlin, formed in the 2001 administrative reform by merging the former boroughs of Charlottenburg and Wilmersdorf.-Overview:Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf covers the western centre of the City of Berlin...
and is managed by the hotel management company “Grand City Hotels & Resort”.
Trivia
The Excelsior was the inspiration for the novel “Menschen im HotelMenschen im Hotel
Menschen im Hotel is a 1959 German drama film directed by Gottfried Reinhardt, and produced by Artur Brauner. The screenplay was written by Ladislas Fodor and Hans Jacoby, based on novel by Vicki Baum. It is a remake of the 1932 classic Grand Hotel....
” (1929) by the Austrian writer Vicki Baum
Vicki Baum
Hedwig Baum was an Austrian writer. She is known for Menschen im Hotel , one of her first international successes....
(1888-1960). The book in turn inspired the Academy Award winning Hollywood film, Grand Hotel
Grand Hotel (film)
Grand Hotel is a 1932 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding. The screenplay by William A. Drake and Béla Balázs is based on the 1930 play of the same title by Drake, who had adapted it from the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum...
.
It is believed that it was here, on the 11 November 1918, that Karl Liebknecht
Karl Liebknecht
was a German socialist and a co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany. He is best known for his opposition to World War I in the Reichstag and his role in the Spartacist uprising of 1919...
and Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...
’s leftist revolutionary group renamed themselves the Spartakusbund (The Spartacus League).