History

Gustav Franke knew what he was doing when he settled centrally, in front of Carlsplatz, at the medieval Nikolaitor, and opened the "Kaiserhof" there on December 19, 1897.

The difficult task of harmoniously integrating a new modern hotel building into the magnificent ensemble of the city gate and the Romanesque Nikolai Church was masterfully solved by the well-known architect Otto March.

The ingenious master builder refrained from looking for ways to adapt to the old, existing buildings in an early medieval style - instead, he boldly created a Renaissance building that blended in exceptionally well with the image of the gate.

In the immediate vicinity of the Kaiserhof, Gustav Franke had a smaller and simpler-looking counterpart, the Hotel zum Landgrafen, built. It was completed and leased on April 3, 1898.

The owner of the Kaiserhof also recognized the development potential of the time and purchased the former vinegar factory in 1908 in order to use it for his hotel as a service building and space for a vehicle fleet.

In the following years, neighboring properties adjacent to the Kaiserhof continued to be acquired in order to gain a free hand to develop the area into a large block as a triangle from Bahnhofstrasse - Karthäuserstrasse to Karlsplatz.

In 1918 the Turmschänke became the property of the "Kaiserhof". Hotelier Franke was able to transform the medieval defense tower, built in 1070, and the later "civil custody" into a cosy tower dungeon, a "jolly prison" and a tasteful wine tavern on the first and second floor. On the first floor, the Nikolaiklause was established as a bourgeois wine tavern with an open wine bar.

What the Ratskeller is in Bremen, the Batzenhäusl in Bolzano and Auerbach's Keller in Leipzig, the "Turmschänke" is in Eisenach. In the evenings, locals and locals from Eisenach feast on exquisite culinary delights and also enjoy musical performances.

Famous personalities often stayed here as guests. Paul Lindau, for example, once sat here and, taking a thoughtful drag on a cigar, put "Memories" down on paper. Max Reger also liked to reside here and drop his humorous, punchy word jokes into the art-loving chatter of his surroundings. Furthermore, among the intellectual paladins of the "Turmschänke" was the subtle poet Wilhelm von Scholz, who belonged to the officer corps of the Eisenach garrison in the years 1914/16. In memory of happy hours he dedicated atmospheric poems to the "Turmschänke", the original of which still adorns the restaurant today.

In 1926, on the ground floor of the Kaiserhof, the bourgeois beer and food restaurant "Der Zwinger" was established, where historic murals, collections of stamps, banknotes and old documents remind of the difficult war and inflation period. In the following year, the adjacent "Kaiserkeller" was renovated and turned into one of the most beautiful and comfortable beer restaurants in Eisenach. Thus, the Kaiserhof restaurants were able to meet all the demands of their guests and their budgets. When the heating system was renewed in 1927, a modern well system was also created, which with its water vein supplied all the establishments with the best mountain water.

The wish of Mr. Gustav Franke to crown his work with an extension between the "Kaiserhof" and the "Turmschänke" remained denied to him during his lifetime. Despite repeated building applications in the years 1921-1923, as well as 1925-1926 and drafts of well-known architects arranged by him, an agreement with the municipal building authorities about the kind and height, as well as about the economic use of the new building could not be reached. Thus the hotelier Franke had to give up with a heavy heart to be able to present the city of Eisenach with an entrance gate in front of the Nikolaitor, as it is probably offered only by very few cities in Germany. What the planned building was to look like after its completion is shown in the picture below.

On April 6, 1945, the city was handed over to the Americans. On the same day, the first talks between Eisenach's mayor Rudolf Lotz and American officers took place at the Kaiserhof. After the Red Army replaced the Americans as the occupying power on July 2, 1945, the hotel briefly served as accommodation for the Russian command and was renamed the "Parkhotel" in 1945 on the instructions of the Soviet occupying power. In August 1949, Alfred Franke was arrested by the Soviets. His family did not learn until a year later that he had been imprisoned first in Waldheim and later in Bautzen. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for alleged high treason and his property was expropriated. An official certificate from 1945 about his political "harmlessness" testifies to the arbitrariness of the new rulers against him as a capitalist entrepreneur and thus a supposed "enemy" of the working class. Alfred Franke died of heart failure on March 16, 1957, at the age of only 61, 7 months after his release from the Bauzen prison. The long imprisonment had broken the physical power of resistance of the man who until the end was optimistic for a future in freedom. He found his final resting place in the family grave of the Franke family in Eisenach, next to his parents Olga and Gustav and his brothers Kurt and Paul Franke who had died in the war. In 1993/94 Alfred Franke was fully rehabilitated by the Russian Prosecutor General... Until the GDR wall was built in 1961, the hotel still experienced luxurious times, as many Americans and West German businessmen stayed here. Later, the "socialist planned economy" and the accompanying need to procure building materials caused structural decay.

In 1991, the Treuhandanstalt sold the hotel to the private investor, Mr. Nicholas Miller, who started the renovation of the building in 1992 and reopened it on July 14, 1993 under the original name Kaiserhof.

In the same year, the hotel was extended with an annex that closed the gap between the building and the Nikolaitor. In the course of the fundamental renovation of the hotel, the Paulaner-Thomasbräu AG converted the premises of the Zwinger back into a good middle-class restaurant with food service for Paulaner beers. The tenant, Mr. Winfried Günther, ran the traditional restaurant faithfully according to old principles, "excellent quality of food and beverages at middle-class prices" and with "courteous and obliging service".

The historical wine restaurant "Turmschänke" was also renovated and since then has been pleasing its guests with exclusive cuisine in a historical ambience. It also offers a guest room in the Nikolaitor, the only preserved city gate in southern Thuringia from the Middle Ages.