User:Hinleit-Geiger/Translating Hotel Geiger

This is the translation of the german article of the Hotel Geiger--Hinleit-Geiger (talk) 16:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

The Hotel Geiger is a traditional hotel complex located in Bischofswiesen, Upper Bavaria, roughly 50 km (35 miles) south of Salzburg. It was opened by Hugo Geiger (1828–1874), a retired customs inspector, as a guest house in 1866 and then progressively extended. By 1924 there were two traditionally styled substantial hotel buildings. During its heyday in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Geiger was a leading hotel, with many financiers and aristocrats among the guests.

In 1997 insolvency forced the closure of the Geiger. It has subsequently been used on a couple of occasions as a film set. Discussions have taken place about selling the site and restoring or replacing the hotel, notably in 2007, but these appear to have come to nothing, and in 2015 the site is unsold. The buildings have stood empty for more than a decade.

Location
The hotel is positioned at the southern edge of the village, on rising land, set in its own grounds approximately 50 meters from the former Bundesstraße (national road) 20 (now superseded by a bye-pass on the western side of the village), leading up a steep road to Berchtesgaden. There is a large annex ("Dependance") constructed to the south of the main building ("Haupthaus") and at an angle to it. Closer to the road, to the north west of the main building is a grouping of buildings including a former laundry, a former gas station and a former home of the hotelier (the "Schneiderhäusl"). On the grounds behind the hotel on its east side are some smaller buildings constructed during the 1960s and 70s including a garage for hotel guests, indoor and outdoor swimming pools. There is also a third accommodation block dating from this period, linked to the main hotel by tunnel, and featuring more luxurious rooms than the older main hotel building and annex.

History
Industrialisation during the nineteenth century led to the rapid growth of an urban middle class in Germany with sufficient time and money to take holidays. The German word for Nightmare is "Alptraum", but by 1849 romantic artists such as Ludwig Richter and Caspar David Friedrich had nevertheless shown people how to appreciate the beauty of the Alps. An early convert was King Maximilian of Bavaria who had his summer holiday palace built at Berchtesgaden. The opening in 1860 of the railway between Rosenheim and Salzburg made the region far more accessible than hitherto. A rail-link to Bad Reichenhall was added in 1866, which by 1888 had been extended all the way to Berchtesgaden.

Hugo Geiger (1828 - 1874) retired from the Royal Bavarian Customs Service when he was only 37, in 1865, and purchased a small farm house located between Stanggaß (Bischofswiesen) and Berchtesgaden, intending to adapt it as a retirement home where he could live with his wife. Geiger was suffering from ill health, and his wife, who was much younger than he was, and had grown up as the daughter of a guest house owner in northern Bavaria, now took the lead in converting their fifteenth century farm house into a nineteenth century guest house. The project was accompanied by a name change, and the "Hienleitlehen farmhouse" was relaunched in 1866 as the "Haus Geiger" (guesthouse). Growth in guest numbers was sustained by German unification and the new rail connections which made its easier to market the Bavarian Alps as a tourist destination, attracting visitors from Germany's burgeoning industrial regions far beyond Munich. The tourism boom persuaded the Geigers to invest in a major extension of the building in 1874, constructing an extra wing on its south-eastern side.

Hugo Geiger died in 1874 and the guest house was taken over by his son, Franz Geiger and his wife, Nina (born Nina Kriß) who was a member of the local brewing family. During the next two decades the hotel underwent major expansion and moved upmarket. In 1884 rooms in the Main Building were redesigned and elegantly furnished. The architect Wicklein was employed to design a two storey annex (later known as the "Dependance") to the north of the main building, and this opened in 1890. By 1924 Rudolf Geiger, grandson of the hotel founder, had taken over, and that year he opened a gas/petrol station beside the hotel for the convenience of guests. It was the first gas/petrol station in the locality.

Nummerous prominent guest from the german and european high nobility put up at the hotel, such as Prince ''Friedrich II. von Anhalt (1881), Princess Marie von Sachsen-Meiningen (1887), the russian Princess Soltykoff (1899), Prince Maximilian von Baden (also known as Max von Baden / 1911), Prince Oskar von Preußen (1926) and the dutch queen mother Emma von Waldeck-Pyrmont'' (1929). Those rubbing sholdres with celebrities from arts and science such as the poet Paul Heyse (1890), the author Thomas Mann (1904) and the famous professor of medicine Ferdinand Sauerbruch (1921). During World War Two the house served as a recreational home for german officers of the Luftwaffe, and right after the war it was again used as an officers home by the US-Armee. During that time a young american officer named John F. Kennedy lodged at the house Geiger. The guestbooks of the Hotel Geiger proof many celebrities beeing amongst the guest of the house. For examples Elvis Presley, The Bee Gees, or the canadian Primeministre Pierre Trudeau, the egyptian President Anwar as-Sadat, former german President Walter Scheel or the dukes of Monaco Renée and his son Albert II.

The latest bigger constructions and changes where made end of the 1970s and begining of the 1990s by the fourth generation, another Hugo Geiger. In 1972 an indoor pool was added to the complex. And to reincrease the capacity 1976 a new two-storie-lodge was built, and expanded by adding another floor in 1982.

Run only by members of the Geiger family, the house had to close due to an insolvency November 1st, 1997. After closing the hotel business the premises where used for movies shootings such as Der Winterschläfer and Wilde Hühner. TV-specials and soaps used the house and grounds to shoot episodes for german primetime-series like Tierarzt Dr. Quirin Engel and Weißblaue Geschichten. Up until summer 1998 the premises where guarded, heated and upkept by the family Stefan Geiger. But after the banks foreclosure on the original antique furniture the house rests unused ever since. In the passed years various investors have showed interest. None has stept forward. In 2006 the county administration, notably the Bauaufsichtsbehörde, has agreed to the abridgement of the entire complex, against the will of the Bavarian Monument Protection Service. Due to the inexplicable withdrawl of the investor the abridgement was dismissed.

Main House
The so-called Haupthaus, the main house of the complex, consists of the main building and a sidewing added 1874 in a right angle towards the southeast. The core of the main building was found on the original farmhouse from the 15th century. 1957 Hugo Geiger, the fourth generation, ordered a radiocarbon dating that proofed 1432 as the year of construction of the old Hienleitlehen. In the southwestern part of the main building the original walls are still standing. Both of the two parts of the Haupthaus are covered with a low-pitched roof, typical for the region. Originally the roofs where tiled with red roof tiles, but after the second world war changed to sheet zinc and painted green - also typical for the valley. The artless facades are structured by standardized framing rows of windows. Especially at the sidewing the four-winged Kämpferfenster and the two-winged balcony doors from the time of the construction are fully mantained in almost perfect condition. Standing before the facade are two- and three-stories high wooden balconies, also covered with bulky but low-pitched roofs. Their appearance is affected by the fretwork in the balustrades with historicized themes.

The house is kept in the style of historism, with a representative facade. The representing rooms are endowed with wooden paneling of higher value on the walls and ceilings. Not only does the architectural composition tie up to typical regional construction but also the arrangement of the complex considers the surrounding landscape.

Historic-Architectual Impact
The Hotel Geiger is one of the origins and an outstanding witness of early tourism in Berchtesgaden. For its remarkable size, which it had from the beginning, it takes a case sui generis in the northern alps. While in other areas in upper Bavaria – such as lake Starnberger See or lake Tegernsee – mainly mansions and lodges offered little accomodations to the upcoming tourism at the end of the 19th century, the Hotel Geiger proofed to be a complex of incommensurable magnitude.

With its prominent and unique stand-alone location at one of the important main roads in the valley, directly at the entrance to Berchtesgaden, facing the mountain Watzmann the complex has a great impact on the overall appearance of the locality. This impact is emphasized by the gentle embedding of the single buildings into this prealpine landscape.

The representativ facade, referring with its historicized elements precisely to te local architecture, in combination with the highclass interior decoration and furniture of the large halls are major witnesses to the tourism in upper Bavaria in the late 19th century. Despite the numerous renovations and additions made over the last 140 years the nearly total conservation of the original is almost unique and unprecedented in the entire southern bavarian area.

Literature / Sources

 * Simone Wolfrum: Das ehemalige Hotel Geiger in Stanggaß vor dem Abriss. in: Bayerisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (Hrsg.): Denkmalpflege Informationen. Nr. 137, Juli 2007 [en: The former Hotel Geiger in Stanggaß before the abridgement. in: Bavarian State Monument Protection Service Office (Ed.): Monument Protection Information. No. 137, July 2007]
 * Stefan Geiger: Besitzer und Eigentümer, Stand November 2011 [Holder and Owner, status quo November 2011]

Weblinks

 * Informationen des SPD-Ortsvereins Bischofswiesen zum "Hotel Geiger"-Areal