Hotel Adlon

The Hotel Adlon stands beside the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, opened in 1907 by the hotelier Lorenz Adlon with the encouragement and personal interest of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and it quickly became one of Europe's most prestigious luxury hotels, hosting royalty, diplomats and celebrities through the early twentieth century. The original building was gutted by fire in 1945 in the chaotic final days of the Second World War, and its surviving rear wing continued limited use before being demolished in 1984 under East German rule. The hotel was rebuilt on the same site and reopened in 1997 as the Hotel Adlon Kempinski, its new facade echoing the neoclassical lines of the original in a deliberate act of historical reconstruction.