Death
After the war, Lorenz Adlon remained reluctant about acknowledging the dethronement of the monarchs. For instance, he refused driving through the Brandenburg Gate by the central line, which had once been reserved for the German nobility; by this obstinacy, Adlon had suffered a severe street accident in 1918, at that spot. In 1921—again at the same place—Lorenz Adlon suffered a second accident, fatal one this time, being hit by a car.
His son Louis continued managing the hotel until it was burned down by Soviet troops in 1945. His wife Hedda Adlon relates in her autobiography that Louis himself was taken by the Soviets and shot, after they mistook him for a General because a servant called him by his title of "Generaldirektor". Great-grandson Percy 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.
Read more about this topic: Lorenz Adlon
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“I want Death to find me planting my cabbages, neither worrying about it nor the unfinished gardening.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and mocking at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be feared, and kill with looks.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)