The Eden Hotel also known as ''El Eden'' and ''The Eden'' is a former hotel and historic site located in

La Falda La Falda is a town in the province of Córdoba, Argentina, located from Córdoba and 800 km from Buenos Aires. It had about 15,000 inhabitants at the . La Falda lies at the foot of two small mountains (Cerro El Cuadrado and Cerro La Bande ...

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

, in 45 km from Cabildo de Córdoba, one of the oldest colonial buildings still standing in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

History

The hotel was built in 1897 by German army officer Roberto Bahlcke. Its main shareholders were Ernesto Tornquist, Juan Kurth, Roberto Bahlcke and María Herbert de Kraeutner. Over the years, the results were not as expected, and in 1905 the shareholders unanimously decided the dissolution and liquidation of the company. It subsequently passed into the hands of Walter and Ida Eichorn, Germans with strong ties to the German expatriate community in Argentina and supporters of

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

and the

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party ( or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported the ideology of Nazism. Its precursor ...

. The Argentine government seized the hotel following the nation's March 1945 declaration of war against Germany. The government cited the hotel as representing enemy property. Successive efforts to operate and revitalize the hotel continued through the 1960s, at which point the property finally ceased to house guests. In subsequent years the vacant property was repeatedly vandalized. The hotel closed in 1965 and never again received guests. Plans to turn it into a casino eventually collided with the historical and architectural importance of the building, and it was declared Historical Monument in 1988. In recent years the hotel has been partially restored and reopened by the local municipal authority as a tourist destination.

Notable guests

Notable guests that frequented the hotel include families of the Argentine aristocracy such as the Martinez de Hoz, Tornquist, Bianchi, Roca, Bunge, Anchorena, Blaquier, and Peralta Ramos. Other famous guests include: * Nicaraguan poet

Rubén Darío Félix Rubén García Sarmiento (18 January 1867 – 6 February 1916), known as Rubén Darío ( , ), was a Nicaraguan poet who initiated the Spanish-language literary movement known as '' modernismo'' (modernism) that flourished at the end of ...

* scientist

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

Berta Singerman Berta Singerman Begun (; 9 September 1901 – 10 December 1998), better known as Berta Singerman, was an Argentine singer and actress. Biography Singerman was born in Minsk, then part of the Russian Empire into a Jewish family. She emigrated t ...

* Hugo del Carril *

Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orche ...

Italian conductor

In popular culture

A conspiracy theory, promulgated by the

History Channel History (formerly and commonly known as the History Channel) is an American pay television television broadcaster, network and the flagship channel of A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney General Entertainme ...

in its series ''

Hunting Hitler ''Hunting Hitler'' is a History Channel television series based on the fringe theory that Adolf Hitler escaped from Berlin at the end of World War II in Europe, ostensibly by faking his death instead of committing suicide in Berlin in ...

'', is that

visited La Falda and stayed at the home of the owners of the Eden Hotel for a short time during his time in South America after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

References

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