Hotel Esplanade / Kugel & Altbaum

The Hotel Esplanade was built in 1896 as ‚Schloss Dorothea‘ and renamed ‚Schloss Bruck‘ in 1910.

In 1912, a Jewish couple acquired the building. They converted the ‚castle‘ into a hotel and added a restaurant and bistro. The hotel was given the name ‚Esplanade‘. With its kosher kitchen and its own Shabbat services, the hotel owner couple primarily targeted Jewish residents. From 1937 onwards, Jews and Jewish women in German seaside resorts had to reckon with numerous restrictions, regulations and harassment until they were completely banned from resorts in 1938/39. The Jewish couple was expropriated by the National Socialists. The hotel building was used by the Nazi regime as a children's country deportation home for ‚recreational purposes‘ for children and young people from cities at risk of air warfare and as a military hospital for the Wehrmacht air force.