By Sylvia Jost
Felix Adlon (55) has been waiting for this day all his life! On Thursday, a trial will take place before the Berlin administrative court that could change German history: It is about the claim of the Adlon heirs, who have been expropriated several times, to the world-famous hotel at the Brandenburg Gate.
The lawsuit is pure dynamite: If it sets a precedent, the federal government would have to reverse further expropriations – and return billions!
But first to the facts, which will be discussed on December 8, 2022 at 12 p.m. in plenary hall 0416.
The plaintiff is Felix Adlon, great-great-grandson of the hotel founder, US filmmaker and author (“Adlon: A hotel, six generations – the story of my family“). The Berlin Senate Department for Finance has been summoned – and the Federal Republic of Germany. Because the Adlon heir is planning a historic attack on the so-called “List 3”, which was previously considered unchallengeable.
Today’s Hotel Adlon on Pariser Platz Photo: picture alliance/dpa
In 1949, the victorious Soviet power had counted on and expropriated war criminals and National Socialists. This also applies to the hotelier couple Hedda and Louis Adlon, since they had (forced) joined the NSDAP in 1941. Objection to the expropriation at the time – unsuccessful!
At the turn of the century, Hedda’s heirs demanded that the property be reassigned. In 1994 the property was sold. In 1997, the State Office for the Settlement of Unresolved Property Questions rejected the retransfer. Reason: excluded because of “expropriation on a sovereign basis”.
Reopened after 28 years
Almost 20 years later, however, Felix Adlon found documents that may have been kept under lock and key in the 90s and which prove: “Hedda and Louis Adlon were not Nazis. On the contrary, they were in the resistance. And: The Stauffenberg assassination attempt on Hitler in 1944 was planned in the Adlon!”
The problem, however, was that the objection period had long since expired, and the case was time-barred. In 2019, however, a Düsseldorf lawyer found a clever way to request that the proceedings be resumed. The Adlon heirs now want to use new evidence to show that their ancestors were not only mistakenly included in “List 3” as Nazis, but rather were themselves victims of Nazi persecution.
Hedda and Louis Adlon shortly after their marriage in 1922 Photo: Erik Flemming
In March 2020, Felix Adlon filed a lawsuit. “We want to prove that Hedda and Louis were actually expropriated before 1949 – by the Nazis,” Adlon lawyer Wolfgang Peters explains his strategy to BZ.
With letters, newspaper reports, and affidavits, one could prove that the National Socialists occupied the famous and strategically important hotel more and more at the end of the 1930s. “Dark SS men in black uniforms shouted orders through the hall. They were now the real masters of the luxury hotel,” wrote Hedda herself in her book “Hotel Adlon”.
“Righting a Wrong”
Her descendant Felix Adlon has set out to retell the story. “The Adlons have been treated as if they were war criminals for decades,” he says. “I owe it to my great-grandfather, my father and my children to right this wrong.”
However, this is no longer about transferring the hotel back to the heirs, explains Adlon lawyer Dr. Wolfgang Peters. A few weeks ago, an application was made for a so-called “proceeds return” – i.e. for compensation.
What amount is it? “When the property was sold in 1994, a purchase price of 70 million Deutschmarks was achieved – but the actual market value at the time was 100 million,” says Peters.
Converted into euros and with the interest from 28 years, it is now about 120 million euros!
Now the judge has to decide whether to allow the procedure – and whether the Adlon family has a right to compensation.