Hotel Adlon
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Shortly after the turn of the century, Lorenz Adlon agreed with the young emperor William II, who disliked his very traditional town palace, to establish a nobel hotel in the town. By 1905, Adlon had invested all what he owned, 2 million goldmarks, for the ambitious 17-million-goldmark project. Adlon managed the process, acquiring several available properties round the 1 Unter den Linden boulevard just besides the Brandenburg Gate, despite the protests of the Berliners.
The luxurious Hotel Adlon opened on October 23, 1907. Emperor William inaugurated it, and then praising that its beauty was even superior to his own Royal Palace, he patronised it regularly for his unofficial residence. At the heart of Berlin, the Adlon Hotel became the centre of the social life in the city, and it also hosted all its notable visitors. Before 1914, the aristocracy of all Europe was fond for gathering in it; then -sharing the same area with the most important embassies- the hotel hosted a series of international meetings, relevant to the historical development of the First World War. However, after the war the so supportive German monarchy was deposed, and so the magnificence of the Adlon Hotel started to dim.
Read more about this topic: Lorenz Adlon
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