Lorenz Adlon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lorenz Adlon (29 May 1849 – 7 April 1921) was a German caterer, gastronomer and hotelier.
[edit] Biographie
Lorenz Adlon was born as Laurenz - sixth out of nine children of the shoemaker Jacob Adlon and his wife Anna Maria Elisabeth, an accoucheuse - in Mainz. He took an apprenticeship a the famous cabinetmaker's workshop Bembé. Later Lorenz Adlon managed the restaurant Raimundigarten, which was located on the northwestern front of the old part of Mainz at the bank of river Rhine.
At the end of the 1870s, Adlon moved to Berlin. There he acquired step by step several restaurants. During his management the restaurant Hiller became the most exclusive restaurant of Berlin.
Shortly after the turn of the century, he agreed with the young emperor William II, who disliked his very traditional town palace, to establish a nobel hotel in the town. According to this agreement he erected the luxurious Hotel Adlon and William patronised his place. The Adlon became the centre of the social life in Berlin.
Adlon died at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, when he was knocked over by devotees of the Spartakusbund. His son Louis kept on managing the hotel. Great-grandsonPercy Adlon, a German film and television director, created the film In der glanzvollen Welt des Hotel Adlon in 1996 about the history of the hotel.
