Whoever asked after Wieland, Herder or Goethe at the city gates was sent there. It was here that Schiller, Bach and Liszt chatted, Wagner and Schumann composed and Bauhaus artists went in and out.

At the same time as the establishment of the Weimar republic the city experienced a renewed upswing through the founder of the state Bauhaus, Walter Gropius. The painters Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger and Wassily Kandinsky came to Weimar, as did the author Thomas Mann, who created a literary monument to the Elephant hotel with his novel “Lotte in Weimar”.

In 1937 the hotel was in a state of disrepair and had to be demolished down to its historical vaulted cellar. One year later it was rebuilt under the management of the architect Hermann Giesler. At its opening, the Elephant was deemed one of the most modern hotels in Europe, among other things due to its car lift to the parking garage.

Thomas Mann immortalised the house in his novel “Lotte in Weimar” in that he had Goethe’s lover from his youth stay overnight in the hotel. He was also the first to put his entry in the visitors’ book after its re-opening in 1955.

At the German re-unification the hotel underwent substantial restoration work in the Bauhaus and Art-Deco style and regained its former status as the meeting place for politicians, statesmen and prominent people from all over the world. The Thai royal family stayed at the “Elephant” on their visit to Germany. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and ex Federal chancellor Gerhard Schröder strengthened their bonds here. The former US-president George Bush sen. praised the excellent kitchen, film stars such as Jennifer Lopez and Maximilian Schell enjoyed the unobtrusive service and the two Nobel Prize winners ImreKertèsz and Günter Grass perceived the history of the house.