Modern Life

Anyone wanting to travel to track down writers and books will find a small but fine selection of literature hotels in Germany. They are more than just pretty buildings in pretty landscapes.

“Without literature, we would just be a pretty building in a pretty forest.” Andrea Reichart’s comment about the Franzosenhohl literature hotel in Iserlohn in the Sauerland describes perfectly the status books, writers and texts enjoy at her hotel. This status is the defining feature of a literature hotel. Hoteliers specialising in this concept are all well aware of that and they diligently cultivate it.

The legacy of Goethe and Schiller

While the specialist debate rages on about the good old printed book being replaced by modern e-books, the Franzosenhohl and other hotels cultivate Germany’s literary tradition. The spirit of literary classicism and the legacy of Goethe and Schiller live on. One of the ways they continue to find expression in the 21st century is in the idea of the literature hotel.“Our unique selling proposition is based entirely on our status as a book hotel” says Conny Weiss of Gutshotel Gross Breesen in Mecklenburg.” You cannot use that as “one marketing focus of many” but have to concentrate completely on that one.

Weiss and her partner Torsten Brock took that to heart when they set up their idyllically located hotel in Mecklenburg’s most beautiful countryside back in 1998 – Germany’s first book hotel. Conny Weiss underlines the importance of calling it a book hotel. Not only is literature celebrated here, but there are also more books here than in some large libraries. An incredible 300,000 books are waiting to be discovered by hotel guests in Gross Breesen and the number is increasing. That is due to one of Conny Weiss’s good ideas - guests bringing two books to the hotel are allowed to take another one home.

Books are the link

Benefiting from one another is also what led Hamburg’s Hotel Wedina to cooperate with the Hanseatic city’s Literaturhaus. All the authors who present their books there stay at the Wedina. They bring an autographed copy of their book with them and donate it to the hotel library, which has accumulated quite an outstanding collection over the years. The hotel consists of four buildings, each of which is named after a different colour: red, blue, yellow and green. For literature enthusiasts, the Blue house is of particular interest as each of its rooms is devoted to a different writer. Thus, anyone staying here and taking one of the autographed books to read in their room can submerge themselves in the world of books.

That is something guests can also do at the Franzosenhohl. Andrea Reichart, who set up the hotel in 2008 with Helmut Holzhauer, has endless ideas for events, most of which draw on her time as a book-seller in Essen. But she never wanted to have an in-house bookshop: “We do order books for our overnight guests, but not for external guests. We give them a friendly send-off to the shops, saying “Support your local bookstore””, says Reichart with a smile. She built the Franzosenhohl concept on four pillars: “Literature, business, wellness and medical wellness for people suffering from burnout and stress.” However, she is convinced that books and literature are a common link for all the guests, and that they play a major role in all areas.” For example, the hotel has an adventure space for business guests where readings are held and people suffering from stress can attend writing workshops to get things off their chest by writing about them.

We do not know whether Christa Moog has ever had to get anything off her chest by writing about it. But writing is part of the Berlin hotelier’s life and she has published a number of books. That may have been her motivation for establishing a literature hotel in the Berlin district of Friedenau, which can very well be referred to as a literary district. A library, reading corners all over the building, the Uwe Johnson literary salon – these are some of the things that attract book enthusiasts to stay at Christa Moog’s hotel in Friedenau.

A niche rather than a trend

Conny Weiss also organises literary excursions from Gross Breesen, for example to trace Uwe Johnson in Güstrow. These are announced in the Gutshotel-Geflüster (Hotel Whisper), a charming name for the hotel’s newsletter. All the literature hotel managers agree that they are not trend-setters, but have a very special niche position. That will not change, says Andrea Reichart, “as long as people would rather spend their money on cars than on books and culture.” But everyone can cope with the situation quite well. They love what they are doing, whether they are in Gross Breesen, Iserlohn, Hamburg, Berlin or on the island of Lindau in Lake Constance, where there is another literature hotel, featuring a small library in each room.

People who do not really like going on holiday because they have to leave their library behind will feel at home in these hotels because they are all not just pretty buildings in pretty forests or pretty landscapes.