Hotel Adlon

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Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin, 2004

Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin, 2007

Hotel Adlon is a hotel on Unter den Linden, a main boulevard in the Berlin city centre, directly opposite the Brandenburg Gate.

The first Hotel Adlon was built in 1907 on the site of the Palais Redern, which had been designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The builder, Lorenz Adlon, was a successful Berlin wine merchant and restaurateur. The Adlon was one of the most famous hotels in Europe between the two World Wars and hosted celebrities including Louise Brooks, Charlie Chaplin, Herbert Hoover, Josephine Baker and Marlene Dietrich.

It was also a favourite hangout of journalists, being located in the heart of the government quarter next to the British Embassy, on the same square as the French and American Embassies and only blocks from the Chancellery and other government ministries.

The hotel continued to operate throughout World War II, although parts were converted to a military field hospital during the final days of the Battle for Berlin. The hotel survived the war without any major damage, having avoided the bombs that had levelled the city. However, on the night of 2 May 1945 a fire started by carousing Soviet soldiers in the building's wine cellar left the main building of the hotel in ruins.

Following the war, the East German government reopened the surviving service wing under the Hotel Adlon name. The main building on Pariser Platz was demolished along with all the other buildings on the square, which was now in the no-man's-land between East and West Berlin.

In 1964, the building was renovated and the facade was redone. However, in the 1970s what remained of the original Hotel Adlon closed to guests and was converted to a lodging house for East German apprentices. Finally, in 1984 the building was demolished.

With the reunification of Germany, the land was bought by a West German investment firm. A building inspired by the original was designed and on 23 August 1997 the president of the Federal Republic of Germany opened the new Hotel Adlon, rebuilt on the same location as the original hotel. It currently operates as Hotel Adlon Kempinski Berlin, part of the Kempinski chain. Due to the hotel's success, it has been expanded twice, with new wings along the rear on Behrenstrasse. They are known as the Adlon Palais and the Adlon Residenz.