A model of the new InterContinental hotel in Berchtesgaden, Germany.
Hans-Joerg Holubitschka's art studio in Duesseldorf is filled with massive, freshly completed, canvasses. The artwork covering them is idyllic with sulphur-yellow pastures, craggy mountain vistas, snow-covered knolls, and dark-green mountain pastures.
The peaceful images on the canvases, though, belie the brain-racking and late-night painting sessions that went into their creation. Holubitschka, 44, says it was one of the toughest commissions he has ever received. Yet it wasn't the painting itself that was so difficult. It was the assignment. How, after all, do you create artwork for a hotel to be built on the site where Nazi elites once played?
The paintings are to become part of the decoration for the InterContinental hotel chain's latest tony address -- a brand-new five-star hotel in southern Germany's Obersalzberg resort area. It's a controversial project and since the cornerstone was layed in 2001, the hotel, which opens early next year, has been a lightning rod for criticism. The site -- perched on the mountainside in Berchtesgaden near Salzburg, just across from the impressive Watzmann Peak -- was once the favorite vacation spot of top Nazi leaders. Many critics are asking whether it is appropriate to open a luxury hotel at a place where Hitler's henchman walked their German shepherds while pondering the "Final Solution." It's also the place where top lieutenants anxious to cozy up to Hitler, built their homes. Nazi airforce chief Hermann Goering, for instance, had a house here, as did Nazi architect Albert Speer. Hitler's secretary, Martin Bormann lived nearby.
In 1945, the British bombed the area and, after the war ended, the US Army sent teams in to tear down Hitler's house and most other traces of Berchtesgaden's Nazi past. The only Nazi-era building remaining today is the Kehlsteinhaus, or Eagle's Nest, which offers a spectacular birds-eye view of the area. The Nazi party gave the retreat to Hitler as a birthday present. Today, it functions as a summer restaurant for tourists.
Another Nazi-era compound was used by American soldiers as a retreat, but it, too, was dismantled after the military pulled up stakes in the 1990s. The 1990s was also a time when the state of Bavaria -- which owns the area -- decided it wanted to shed its image as a Nazi playground and promote luxury tourism in its breathtaking mountains. A subsidiary of the Bavarian state central bank financed the hotel and is now leasing the building to InterContinental.
Pricey Rooms that Come with History
For the operators of the Intercontinental, the Berchtesgaden location couldn't be more spectacular -- it's surrounded by alpine vistas and a golf course that sits on the site of Hitler's old house. As such, it won't be easy to shake off its past. "Where Hitler played, should the rich do likewise?" the New York Times recently asked in an article. After all, the paper noted, Berchtesgaden is the place "where Hitler treated blond children to strawberries and cream, portraying himself as an affectionate man of simple pleasures."
But with the price for a double room starting at €270 per night and a two-floor suite going for €1,300 or more, homespun pleasures are hardly the order of the day here. Perhaps, though, the high prices will hold back neo-Nazis, who see the area as a perverse pilgrimage site and who have been known to congregate here to commemorate Hitler's April 20 birthday.
The structure itself is benign -- built of stone and glass -- and even a bit boring. From a distance you could mistake it for a youth hostel or a rehab clinic. The building rejects the idea of Alpine construction styles -- there are no timber frames here -- and the only architectural device included that could remind someone of Nazi times is the panorama window -- Hitler had one, too. The most conspicuous references to the past, however, are the hotel's efforts to promote the Obersalzberg Documentation Center, located a few hundred yards away, which documents the area's history, including the dark National Socialist chapters that have made Berchtesgaden a site for macabre tourism.
Yet far from rejecting the site's obvious connection with Germany's World War II history, the hotel confronts it in its own way. For instance, it describes the decor of its rooms as "based on the works of the painter Otto Mueller, whose paintings were confiscated by the National Socialists as 'degenerate art.'"
For his part, artist Holubitschka hopes his work in the hotel will help recast the area's image for guests. Indeed, the art works here are not intended to upset guests or raise the specter of the past -- that's the last thing the InterContinental needs.
And like any artist attached to a controversial project, Holubitschka feels the need to justify his work. "The mountain hasn't done anything wrong," he says.
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