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History of Hotel Hirsch Füssen

The original building of the "Gasthof Hirsch" was located within the city walls in the "Drehergasse". Today you will find the pizzeria "La Perla" in this building. Connected to the inn was a brewery, which had its dehydrator for the hops in the "Sailerturm" (city tower next to the hotel). The brewed beer was stored in an underground passage and brought as well to the beergarden of today´s hotel through this passage.
The Hotel Hirsch was built 1904 on the ground of the "Hirschgarten" by the Shares Brewery Kempten. The hotel was built in pure Art-Nouveau style with modern equipment, steam heating and floating water.
In 1911 Josef Schneider, who had been head waiter in the famous Hotel "Waldorf Astoria" in New York until turn of the century – bought the Hotel Hirsch. Additionally he bought the side house located at the "Schulhausstraße" along with the english garden and fountain.
In 1936 the hotel was acquired by the stepson of Josef Schneider named Fritz Bletschacher and his wife Klara for 160.000 Reichsmark. During World War II the hotel was confiscated. During this time the family Bletschacher moved to the side house.
In 1950 the hotel was renovated and equipped lovely with rustic furniture.
In 1954 an intermediate building is built, which now connects the main house with the villa. Today the restaurants, the red and white room, are located in this building.
In 1986 one of the daughters – Christine Bletschacher – takes over the hotel management.

In 2000 she is running the hotel together with her daughter Eva Schwecke.

In 2004 the hotel is enlarged about 15 motif rooms, a lift tower and a new entrance hall.

In 2009 Harald Schwecke, who is a son of Christine Bletschacher, joins the hotel management.
In the years 2012 to 2016 the rooms and the bathrooms of the main house as well as the kitchen and the buffett has been renovated and modernized.
At the beginning of 2018 the hotel was enlarged about 29 rooms, an additional breakfast room and a new basement.

Aspiring tourism

In the quickly increasing tourism, which was due to the opportunity of visiting Castle Neuschwanstein after the death of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, the Shares Brewery Kempten seized the opportunity to build a new house for the upscale needs.

At this former times the averaged guest was travelling by train from Biessenhofen. He was supposed to see the gorgeous west facade of the new house with its bay windows and round towers already from the train station. – We hurried ahead history! –

The planning of the new building was done by the architect Rudolf Leinweber, who was settled from Munich to Füssen and worked as construction manager for Hohenschwangau. The project was thought not to inferior the style of the houses of Hohenschwangau.

Before start of building a part of the chestnut garden had to be removed and the wooden barn above the basement had to be dismantled. According to good tradition the barn was rebuilt at the "Ziegelberg" functioning as shooting club. The extremly deep beer cellar has been received even though a part of the new fundaments had to built diagonally across him. Until 1954 the beer cellar served as beer and wine cellar. With the "Sebastianstraße" being extended to a federal road across the river "Lech" the cellar had to be filled with gravel.

In 1904 the building with its Art Nouveau facades including bay windows, small towers and windvanes was finished. The rooms were already tempered with steam heating and each floor had a water toilet and a bathroom which was real luxury. While the guest rooms at the ground floor were belighted by gas light, all hotel rooms had electric light.

The first manager of the house – which was classified as an inn at that time – was Josef Schneider. He was experienced internationally due to working for the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Josef Schneider bought the "Hirsch" in 1911 from the Shares Brewery Kempten. In the year 1916 he married the widow Sophie Bletschacher who was connected to the renowned "Bamberger Hof" in Munich. Sophie brought her two sons Fritz and Max with her to Füssen.

Famous guests of the Hotel Hirsch

The Hotel Hirsch accomodated several famous german and international personalities from movie industry, politics and arts.

A few examples are Charles Bronson, Gina Lollobrigida, Steve McQueen, Otto von Habsburg, Theodor Heuss, Luis Trenker, Will Quadflieg, Sepp Herberger or Ruth Leuwerik.

The new building of the Hotel Hirsch

Broschüre zum Hotel Neubau

Modern comfort and bavarian ambience

The hotel, which is built in Art Nouveau style, is runned by our family since four generations. We have combinded modern comfort with bavarian ambience in an elegant way. The four floors of the new building are related to the four elements earth, water, fire and air.

The artist Achim Graf concerns himself with the four elements in his photographies and shows up how the being represents itself in various shapes in our regional landscape in the most beautiful form.

The photographies at the ground floor symbolize the element EARTH while the photographies at the first floor stand for the element WATER, the photographies at the second floor for FIRE and the third floor for AIR. According to chakra teaching of the vedic scriptures, possibly knowing from Yoga, earth is attributed to the colour red, water to colour orange, fire to colour yellow and air to colour green.

These colour mappings are taken up at the four floors of the building with having floorings and tiles in the matching colour.

You can get first impressions of the symbolic photographies which you will find in our new rooms by having a look at our new hotel brochure.

DOWNLOAD OF THE BROCHURE ABOUT THE NEW BUILDING