Changes in Bonn Hotel Rheinland an der Berliner Freiheit receives new name

Bonn · A new concept for the Hotel Rheinland brings the embassies back to Bonn. It will be called "Hotel mit Botschaft“, which works as a pun in German , „Botschaft“ means both „message" and "embassy“. It has 31 rooms, each to be designed in the look of a different country.

 "Nixon is watching you." Johannes Jungwirth (l.) and Thomas Lenz in the hotel room, the newly furnished „American embassy“ on the top floor of the hotel.

"Nixon is watching you." Johannes Jungwirth (l.) and Thomas Lenz in the hotel room, the newly furnished „American embassy“ on the top floor of the hotel.

Foto: Stefan Knopp

For example, it has a comfortable double bed with a Stars and Stripes-style bedspread, a street map of Washington on the wall and, of course, a picture of Richard Nixon by ones side when at his desk doing important business. All this can be found in the Hotel Rheinland an der Berliner Freiheit, which will soon be given a new name.

Americans and Soviets join hands

"Hotel mit Botschaft" is the name. It has 31 rooms, each to be designed in the look of a different country. Johannes Jungwirth, who has been running the hotel since the beginning of 2018, started with the US room, the embassy of the Soviet Union will be the next - right next door on the top floor, Americans and Soviets will be able to shake hands over the metal balustrade. Jungwirth and press spokesman Thomas Lenz do not reveal which embassies will follow. The seven double rooms are transformed into main embassies, the single rooms into consulates.

The conversion is gradually being carried out during ongoing operations. Jungwirth works with a great deal of attention to detail, from the old tube television, in which a flat screen is still being installed, to the ochre-coloured marble curtain in front of the window, to the American dial plate insert on the red telephone.

The desk, too, is an antique that the hotelier has prepared himself. On the walls hang pictures of presidential visits to Bonn, also a picture of John F. Kennedy on the market square and one of Nixon with the then Lord Mayor Hans Daniels. The photographs come from the Bonn City Archive, Jungwirth bought the licenses for them.

With the ambiguous future name of the hotel, the hotelier and his press spokesman Thomas Lenz - known for example for running BaseCamp Bonn - want to remember the time of the capital. "But we don't want to look back with melancholy, but with pride and a little humour.“

The owner comes from Bonn and studied archaeology here and in Seville, but then he also studied tourism. The two are not so far apart, he says: "Without discoveries and excavations some countries would not be so popular, Egypt for example. According to his own statement, he has achieved a 24 percent increase in bookings since he took over the Hotel Rheinland compared to 2017. With the new concept, he hopes to further increase this figure. Original text: Stefan Knopp Translation: Mareike Graepel

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