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The former Hotel Lux in Moscow Hotel Lux (Люксъ) was a hotel in
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
during the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
, housing many leading exiled and visiting Communists. During the
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
era, exiles from all over Europe went there, particularly from Germany. A number of them became leading figures in German politics in the postwar era. Initial reports of the hotel were very good, although its problem with rats was mentioned as early as 1921. Communists from more than 50 countries came for congresses, for training or to work. By the 1930s,
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
had come to regard the international character of the hotel with suspicion and its occupants as potential spies. His purges created an atmosphere of fear among the occupants, who were faced with mistrust, denunciations, and nightly arrests. The purges at the hotel peaked between 1936 and 1938. Germans who had fled
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, seeking safety in the Soviet Union, were interrogated, arrested, tortured, and sent to
forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
camps. Most of the 178 leading German communists who were killed in Stalin's purges were residents of Hotel Lux.


Early history

Originally named ''Hotel Frantsiya'', the hotel was built as a luxury hotel in 1911Peter Dittmar
"Der steinerne Zeuge des stalinistischen Terrors"
''Die Welt'' (October 30, 2007). Retrieved November 11, 2011
by the son of Ivan Filippov, a well-known Moscow baker, whose baked goods were delivered widely, even to the
tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...
's residence.Johannes Voswinkel
"Frühstück mit Genossen"
''Die Zeit'' (March 19, 2008). Retrieved November 14, 2011
Located at
Tverskaya Street Tverskaya Street ( rus, Тверская улица, p=tvʲɪrˈskajə ˈulʲɪt͡sə), known between 1935 and 1990 as Gorky Street (russian: улица Горького), is the main radial street in Moscow. The street runs Northwest from th ...
36, it had four stories and housed the Filippov Café. The hotel was taken over by the
Bolshevik The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
s after the
October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mom ...
and renamed Люксъ, i.e. ''Hotel de luxe.'' It came to be used by the
Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
(Comintern) as lodging for communist revolutionaries from other countries.Alexander Cammann
"Müde Kalauer im roten Bunker"
''
Die Zeit ''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History Th ...
'' (October 23, 2011). Retrieved November 13, 2011
Guests were lodged according to hierarchy, more important individuals received better rooms.Weber (October 2006), p. 56 Some rooms were also used for meetings. In June and July 1921, 600 delegates who came to the Third World Congress of the Communist International from 52 countries were housed at Hotel Lux. With the sudden influx of so many international revolutionaries, the hotel began to be known as the "headquarters of the world revolution". Germany alone sent 41 delegates. The
Hamburg Uprising The Hamburg Uprising (german: Hamburger Aufstand) was an insurrection during the Weimar Republic in Germany as part of the so-called German October communist revolution attempt. It was started on 23 October 1923 by one of the most militant sect ...
was discussed at the hotel, both before and after the events. After the Comintern was founded, many of the Party's leading functionaries lived at the hotel, including
Ernst Reuter Ernst Rudolf Johannes Reuter (29 July 1889 – 29 September 1953) was the mayor of West Berlin from 1948 to 1953, during the time of the Cold War. Biography Early years Reuter was born in Apenrade (Aabenraa), Province of Schleswig-Holstei ...
Weber (October 2006), p. 57 and the hotel became the best known of the Comintern's buildings, although its offices were elsewhere.


1933 through World War II

In 1933, two stories were added, giving the hotel 300 rooms. The address, meanwhile, was changed to Gorky Street 10. 1933 was also the year
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
gained power with the
Machtergreifung Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...
and soon began to arrest and imprison his political opponents, arresting communists and socialists by the thousands. German communists began to flee to the Soviet Union and the Hotel Lux began to fill with German exiles.Weber (October 2006), p. 58 In addition to party functionaries, there were advisors, translators and writers who came with their families. Employees were brought to the Comintern
Central Committee Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the ...
's offices by bus.„Emigranten: Hotel Lux“
''Geo Epoche'', No. 38 (August 2009). Retrieved November 12, 2011
The hotel became overcrowded and conditions were difficult. The hotel was continually plagued by rats; the earliest reports of them were in 1921. There was hot water only twice a week, forcing people to shower in groups, as many as four people at a time. Communal kitchens for the use of residents cooked food next to boiling pots of diapers being sterilized. In spite of the conditions, initially, there was camaraderie among the residents. Children played in the halls and attended a German-language school, the
Karl Liebknecht School The Karl Liebknecht School (German: ''Karl-Liebknecht-Schule''), named after Karl Liebknecht, was a German-language elementary school in Moscow. It was established for the children of German refugees to the Soviet Union. It opened in 1924 and was cl ...
, set up for the children of exiles. There were a number of English speaking residents in the thirties, living in the Lux. These were not refugees but dedicated Communists from Great Britain, Australia and the United States who went to "help build Socialism." In at least one case an American born young man who lived with his parents in the Lux volunteered with the Red Army and was killed in combat in the War.


Stalin's purges

In 1934, after the murder of Sergei Kirov,
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
began a campaign of political repression and persecution to cleanse the Party of "enemies of the people"."Nachts kamen Stalins Häscher"
''Der Spiegel'' (October 16, 1978), p. 102. Note: The HTML file is an OCR scan of a bad photocopy and has many typos. There is a link at the URL to a PDF version, but it's not much easier to read. Retrieved November 15, 2011
Stalin viewed the foreign occupants of Hotel Lux as potential spies, or as a Moscow newspaper assumed of Germans (and Japanese) in 1937, they were working actively on behalf of their own country. By 1936, his
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...
began to include the hotel's residents. The hotel then gained a second name, that of "the golden cage of the Comintern" because many would like to have left, but could not while being investigated. Between 1936 and 1938, many residents of the hotel were arrested and interrogated by the
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
(People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs). Suspicion and betrayal created an atmosphere of fear. Arrests came in the middle of the night, so that some residents slept in their clothes, others paced the floor, or played games of concentration to mask the stress. An investigation or arrest was prompted more by the atmosphere of terror than by charges of wrongdoing, which were often baseless. Walter Laqueur later wrote of the period, "There was no rhyme or reason as to who was arrested and who was not, the security organs were given a plan to fulfill, a certain number of people were to be arrested in a certain region, and from this stage on it was more or less a matter of accident at whose door the NKVD (the secret police) emissaries would knock in the early hours of the morning." The procedure was for the NKVD to knock, the accused was told to pack a small suitcase with a few things, get dressed and wait outside the door to be picked up and taken away. Then the NKVD returned to collect the accused and seal the door. One night, the NKVD knocked on the Langs' door and Franz Lang was told to get ready. Dutifully waiting outside his door to be picked up, the security police returned. "What are you doing standing around out here?", asked the NKVD. Lang replied that he'd been ordered to do so. "What's your room number?", asked the security officer. "Number 13." "We're only taking away the even numbers tonight!" Astonished, Lang went back to bed. Nor did the NKVD ever knock on his door again. In the morning, the doors of those arrested were sealed;Weber (October 2006), p. 60 the wives and children had to move to other quarters and were ostracized as "enemies of the state". The children of parents under investigation were placed in orphanages, where some died from illness and others rejected both their parents and their own German identity. Some of the adults arrested were sent to a
gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...
or were executed. Those who came back were regarded with suspicion, as was the case with Herbert Wehner, who was taken away and returned twice. Such people were assumed to have betrayed others under torture or to save themselves. In Wehner's case, that was what happened. By 1938, in order to get upstairs in the hotel, a ''propusk'' was needed, a document that said one was authorized to get past the armed guard, standing in front of the elegant
Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...
elevator."Nachts kamen Stalins Häscher", p. 98 Even high-level members of the Comintern could not get past the guard without a propusk. The atmosphere affected the children. Rolf Schälike, who was a child at Hotel Lux, later wrote, "I grew up in Moscow, in the center of power, and state and non-state criminality, Gorky Street, Hotel Lux. It was the years 1938–1946. Around us too, there was juvenile violence. We played ' partisan and German fascists' in our Hotel Lux, and one kid in our group was hanged—for fun. He couldn't be revived again. There were frequent battles with iron bands with the kids from the neighboring building." Of the 1400 leading German communists, a total of 178 were killed in Stalin's purges, nearly all of them residents of Hotel Lux.Weber (October 2006), p. 59 By comparison, the Nazis killed 222 of those 1400 leading German communists. Within the top leadership itself, there were 59 Politburo members between 1918 and 1945, six of whom were killed by Nazis and seven by the Stalinist purges. The saying among the German communists was, "What the
Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...
left of the Communist Party of Germany, the
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
picked up." When
Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
was killed in August 1940, the purges at Hotel Lux stopped, bringing a brief respite to the exiles.


Evacuation and return

Ten months later, in June 1941,
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
began, Nazi Germany's assault on the Soviet Union."Nachts kamen Stalins Häscher", p. 106 In 1941, the hotel was evacuated. The first residents returned in February 1942. At the end of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, the Ulbricht Group left Hotel Lux for the airport to return to Germany on 30 April 1945 to become the new leaders of the
German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **G ...
. The purpose of the trip and whether or not the assignment was temporary or a permanent return to Germany was not known to the whole group until they arrived in Berlin. The youngest of the group was 24-year-old Wolfgang Leonhard.Stefan Aust and Frank Schirrmacher
''Du gehst in das Institut Nummer 99''
''
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung'' (; ''FAZ''; "''Frankfurt General Newspaper''") is a centre-right conservative-liberal and liberal-conservativeHans Magnus Enzensberger: Alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen' (in German). ''Deutschland Radio'', ...
'' (May 14, 2005). Retrieved November 14, 2011
Weber (October 2006), p. 61 The last political residents left the hotel in 1954, either willingly or by eviction, and the hotel returned to normal, operating under the name "Hotel Tsentralnaya".


Post-Soviet era

After the collapse of communism, the hotel housed offices, small travel agencies, liquidation companies and other small businesses on the lower floors, the upper floors remained hotel rooms. The building, still called Hotel Tsentralnaya, was bought by the
holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...
Unikor in 2007. Unikor and its majority shareholder, Boris Ivanishvili bought the hotel to renovate it and re-open it as a luxury hotel. There were mostly offices in the building at the time of its sale. The structure was demolished, with only the historic facade retained. In 2007, it was announced that the Mandarin Oriental Moscow, a luxury hotel, would be built behind the restored historic facade. The project was cancelled soon after. In 2019, it was again announced that a luxury hotel would be built, retaining the historic facade, this time the Corinthia Moscow Hotel. The street name has been restored to Tverskaya; the building remains number 10.


Legacy

Numerous guests and residents of Hotel Lux have written about the hotel, initially in reports and articles, later in books and memoirs. Early reports from before the purges were often positive, though mentions of rats appear from the beginning. Accommodations were described in favorable terms and the atmosphere as full of camaraderie. In
East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...
in the 1950s and 1960s, the Socialist Unity Party commissioned memoirs (''Erinnerungsberichte'') from former exiles who had lived there. These were carefully written official reports that sanitized and supported the official version of events.
Franziska Reubens Franziska may refer to: People * Franziska (given name) * Patrick Franziska (born 1992), German table tennis player Characters * Franziska von Karma, character in the ''Ace Attorney'' series Other uses * ''Franziska'' (play), a 1912 play ...
, who lived there with her husband and children, wrote in guarded language, "It is not easy to write about the memories from that time, to write about them honestly." Other people turned away from the Communist Party, some as a result of their exile in the Soviet Union, and wrote more bluntly and critically about the hotel, such as Ruth von Mayenburg, who in one passage, used cannibalism as a metaphor to describe the period."Köstliche Entdeckung"
'' Der Spiegel'' (November 3, 1969). Retrieved November 14, 2011
In 1978, von Mayenburg published the first history ever written about Hotel Lux."Nachts kamen Stalins Häscher", p. 94


Notable residents from 1921–1954


Film

* '' (2) Hotel Lux'',
Heinrich Breloer Heinrich Breloer (, born 17 February 1942 in Gelsenkirchen) is a German author and film director. He has mainly worked on docudramas related to modern German history and has received many awards. Breloer's 2005 docudrama ''Speer und Er'' was descr ...
, documentary. Germany (1993) * '' Hotel Lux'', written and directed by
Leander Haußmann Leander Haußmann (sometimes Haussmann) (; born 26 June 1959, Quedlinburg) is a German theatre and film director. The son of actor Ezard Haußmann and costume designer Doris Haußmann, he attended the Ernst Busch theatre school in Berlin. Hau ...
. With
Michael Herbig Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian and ...
. Germany (2011)


See also

*
Hitler Youth Conspiracy The Hitler Youth conspiracy was a case investigated by the Soviet secret police during the Great Purge in the late 1930s. It resulted in the arrest of numerous adolescent Germans, some in their twenties and beyond. They were accused of having bee ...
, NKVD case pursued in 1938 (later found to be baseless), resulting in some 70 arrests, 40 executions


Sources

* Bert Hoppe, ''Zimmerservice für die Revolution. Ein Besuch im Moskauer Hotel Lux, das bald zugrunde saniert wird'' '' Süddeutsche Zeitung'', (October 26, 2007) * Ruth von Mayenburg, ''Hotel Lux. Mit Dimitroff, Ernst Fischer, Ho Tschi Minh, Pieck, Rakosi, Slansky, Dr. Sorge, Tito, Togliatti, Tschou En-lai, Ulbricht und Wehner im Moskauer Quartier der Kommunistischen Internationale''. Bertelsmann Verlag. Munich (1978) * Ruth von Mayenburg, ''Hotel Lux. Das Absteigequartier der Weltrevolution.'' 1979. Piper Verlag GmbH (1991) * Ruth von Mayenburg, ''Hotel Lux – die Menschenfalle.'' Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag GmbH (2011) * Reinhard Müller, ''Herbert Wehner – Moskau 1937'' Hamburger Edition, 2004, * Reinhard Müller, ''Menschenfalle Moskau. Exil und stalinistische Verfolgung''. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg (2001) * Waltraut Schälike, ''Ich wollte keine Deutsche sein. Berlin-Wedding – Hotel Lux'' Dietz Verlag (2006) * Arkadi Vaksberg, ''Hôtel Lux. Les Partis frères au service de l'Internationale communiste.'' Fayard (1993) * Hermann Weber
''Hotel Lux – Die deutsche kommunistische Emigration in Moskau''
(PDF)
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung The Konrad Adenauer Foundation (german: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, KAS) is a German political party foundation associated with but independent of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The foundation's headquarters are located in Sank ...
No. 443 (October 2006). Retrieved November 12, 2011 * Herbert Wehner: ''Zeugnis – Persönliche Notizen 1929–1942''. Bastei-Lübbe (1982)


Footnotes


References


External links


Corinthia Moscow Hotel official website


(Video) Soviet Memories. {{in lang, it

Yale University. (Translated from the original Russian.) Memo labeled "Top Secret" sent to Georgi Dimitrov,
Dmitry Manuilsky Dmitriy Manuilsky, or Dmytro Zakharovych Manuilsky ( Russian: Дми́трий Заха́рович Мануи́льский; Ukrainian: Дмитро Захарович Мануїльський; October 1883 in Sviatets near Kremenets – 22 ...
and Mikhail Trilisser-Moskvin from Moisei Borisovich Chernomordik, Cadres Department (1936). Retrieved December 7, 2011 Hotels in Moscow Stalinism Great Purge Defunct hotels in Russia Companies nationalised by the Soviet Union Lux Lux Buildings and structures demolished in 2007