Hotel Bristol was a luxury

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

Unter den Linden Unter den Linden (, "under the Tilia, linden trees") is a boulevard in the central Mitte (locality), Mitte district of Berlin, Germany. Running from the Berlin Palace to the Brandenburg Gate, it is named after the Tilia, linden trees (known ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It was designed by architect Gustav Georg Carl Gause and opened in 1891.

History

The Hotel Bristol was built in an era of economic boom and ever increasing travel and business. It was constructed between 1890 and 1891. It was designed by architect Gustav Georg Carl Gause for owner Conrad Uhl. The hotel opened fifteen years after the opening of the then leading luxury Kaiserhof Hotel. It also competed with the nearby Central-Hotel that opened 1881. The hotel initially had the address Unter den Linden 5–6, but after the numbering of the buildings on the street changed in 1936/37, it became Number 65. In 1904, following the hotel's bankruptcy, the Hotelbetriebs-Aktiengesellschaft (now Kempinski) acquired the hotel. The company paid over 10 million marks for the property, it also took over the nearby Behrenstraße property for 1.2 million marks. The hotel restaurant was frequented by

French Embassy The French Republic has one of the world's largest diplomatic networks, and is a member of more multilateral organisations than any other country. France's permanent representation abroad began in the reign of Francis I, when in 1522 he sent a d ...

staff until the

July Crisis The July Crisis was a series of interrelated diplomatic and military escalations among the Great power, major powers of Europe in mid-1914, Causes of World War I, which led to the outbreak of World War I. It began on 28 June 1914 when the Serbs ...

starting

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in 1914, when the German government ordered French Ambassador

Jules Cambon Jules-Martin Cambon (5 April 1845 – 19 September 1935) was a French diplomat and brother of Paul Cambon. As the ambassador to Germany (1907–1914), he worked hard to secure a friendly détente. He was frustrated by French leaders such as Ray ...

against dining there to ensure their safety until they could be evacuated. On February 15, 1944, an Allied air raid on Berlin destroyed the Hotel Bristol. After the War, the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

built its

embassy A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a Sovereign state, state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase ...

East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...

on the site of the former hotel. The Hotel Bristol was one of the most distinguished luxury hotels in Berlin. In 1904 it had 350 rooms and a garden. A hotel expert described it in a travel guide published in 1905 as the "most international" of Berlin hotels. Later, the total number of living rooms, salons, bedrooms, and bathrooms, was 515. The hotel's bar was popular with wealthy young naval officers during World War I.

Events

On September 30, 1897, the first

International Motor Show Germany The International Motor Show Germany or International Mobility Show Germany, in German known as the ''Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung'' (''IAA'' – International Automobile Exhibition), is one of the world's largest mobility trade fairs. I ...

was held at the hotel, with a total of eight motor vehicles on display.

Notable guests

* In April 1904

Ferdinand Sauerbruch Ernst Ferdinand Sauerbruch (; 3 July 1875 – 2 July 1951) was a German surgeon. His major work was on the use of negative-pressure chambers for surgery. Biography Sauerbruch was born in Barmen (now a district of Wuppertal), Germany. He st ...

stayed at the hotel. He later listed it as one of his favorite restaurants and hotels. In the 1930s, Sauerbruch stayed at the hotel when he participated with colleague Johann von Mikulicz in an international conference for surgeons. * On February 27, 1940, German artist and architect

Peter Behrens Peter Behrens (14 April 1868 – 27 February 1940) was a leading Germany, German architect, graphic and industrial designer, best known for his early pioneering AEG turbine factory, AEG Turbine Hall in Berlin in 1909. He had a long career, desi ...

died of heart failure in the Hotel Bristol. * Other notable guests have included

George Bernard Shaw George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...

and

Friedrich Alfred Krupp Friedrich Alfred Krupp (; 17February 185422November 1902) was a German steel manufacturer and head of the company Krupp. He was the son of Alfred Krupp and inherited the family business when his father died in 1887. Whereas his father had largely ...

Literature

Novelist

Vicki Baum Hedwig "Vicki" Baum (; ; January 24, 1888 – August 29, 1960) was an Austrian writer. She is known for the novel ''Menschen im Hotel'' ('People at a Hotel', 1929 — published in English as '' Grand Hotel''), one of her first international ...

worked at the hotel as a chambermaid in order to get experience and inspiration to write

Grand Hotel A grand hotel is a large and luxurious hotel, especially one housed in a building with traditional architectural style. It began to flourish in the 1800s in Europe and North America. Grand Hotel may refer to: Hotels Africa * Grande Hotel Beir ...

, her most well-known work.{{cite book , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nJ9h50sMkOMC , title=The Wolf at the Door: Stanley Kubrick, History, & the Holocaust , publisher=Peter Lang , date=2004 , isbn=9780820471150 , page=183 , last=Cocks , first=Geoffrey Hotel Bristol is one of the locations in

Theodor Fontane Theodor Fontane (; 30 December 1819 – 20 September 1898) was a German novelist and poet, regarded by many as the most important 19th-century German-language Literary realism, realist author. He published the first of his novels, for which he i ...

's novel, '' Der Stechlin''. Fontane's aging aristocrat Stechlin stays in the hotel and wonders why so many first-class hotels are called

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

. "Bristol is at the end only a place of the second rank, but Hotel Bristol is always fine", he says.

References

Hotels in Berlin Berlin Hotel Bristol Berlin Hotel Bristol Berlin Hotel Bristol Berlin Hotel Bristol Berlin Hotel Bristol Buildings and structures in Berlin destroyed during World War II Buildings and structures in Mitte Demolished hotels