Hotel Imperial - Vienna

The Hotel Imperial is located on Kärntner Ring in Vienna, Austria.  It began life as the Palais Württemberg, the home of Duke Philipp of Württemberg and his wife, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria.  Construction began in 1863 with the couple moving into the palace in 1866.  By the early 1870's they had sold the building and it was turned into a hotel in 1873.  One of the earliest notable guests to stay at the Imperial was composer Richard Wagner, who lived here for two months in 1875 while he was preparing for performances of Tannahuser and Lohengrin.  More notorious guests include Adolph Hitler, who made the hotel his home in Vienna following the Anschluss in 1938, and who had worked here as a youth in the early 1900's, and Benito Mussolini, who spent a night here in September 1943, after being rescued by German forces following Operation Oak.  In 1938, co-owner Samuel Schallinger, an Austrian Jew, was forced to sell his part of the hotel during Aryanization.  He and his family were sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp near Prague where they all died in 1942. Today, the Imperial has survived its past to remain one of Vienna's most reknowned five-star hotels.  There is a plaque on the outside noting Wagner's time here.     

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