A German History

In 1933, Johannes Müller transferred his theological ideal of freedom from the self to the political demand for “subordination of the self to the metaphysical "we" of a ‘national community’. As a complete surprise for his many Jewish guests, he henceforth wanted to see in Hitler, whom he had totally rejected until then and whose inexplicable seizure of power he could only explain as God's will, the leader of a “national revolution of the common good over self-interestl” expressed in the nationalistic slogan “You are nothing; your people is everything”. This revolution in his view, could only succeed with the help of the “messianic instinct” of the Jews as the “better Germans” and “noblest representatives of the spiritual nobility”.

His veneration of German Jews and public criticism of anti-Semitism, which he described as a “disgrace to Germany” and which also prevented him and his children from becoming members of the party, led to a smear campaign against the “friend of the Jews” in the Bavarian provincial press, but not to his immediate arrest. The Bavarian State Chancellery was able to convince Goebbels that Johannes Müller's public support for the German Jews morally enhanced his commitment to Hitler and therefore did more good than harm to the National Socialists. 

From April 33, he was only allowed to publish his memoirs entitled “Gegen den Strom” (Against the Current) and was no longer allowed to comment on events from 1933 onwards. This was followed by constant interrogations by the Gestapo and finally the ban on his lecture tours, but this did not shake his faith in Hitler and did not prevent Jews from continuing to visit Schloss Elmau, as it was not considered anti-Semitic and was not a preferred hotel of National Socialist elites. This was possibly also due to the fact that the Hitler salute was forbidden at Schloss Elmau.

Johannes Mueller also explicitly distanced himself from the German Christians who wanted to appropriate him.  Their ideal of the Aryanization of Christianity was not at all compatible with his universalistic ideal of childlike self-forgetfulness as the only prerequisite for self realisation through the direct experience of divine reality.

In 1935, the University of Leipzig wanted to revoke his doctorate, which was prevented only due to the intervention of the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, who was one of his supporters.

In 1942, Johannes Müller leased Schloss Elmau to the Wehrmacht in order to prevent the confiscation by the SS, which Himmler was seeking.

In 1951, the Bavarian state government leased Schloss Elmau to Bernhard Müller-Elmau and his sister Sieglinde Mesirca out of concern about claims for damages following a successful appeal against the judgment. Together with Dr. Odoardo Mesirca, who had been appointed hotel manager in Johannes Müller's will, they opened Schloss Elmau at Whitsun 1951 with a music week.

In 1957, the conductor Hans Oppenheim, who had returned from exile in London, and the world-famous Amadeus Quartet founded the German-British Chamber Music Week, in which Jewish artists performed for the first time after the Holocaust together with German artists, some of the most famous of whom, such as Elly Ney and Wilhelm Kempff, had been ardent Nazis during the Third Reich. The music week, which has continued uninterrupted ever since, has made Schloss Elmau a unique and internationally renowned cultural institution and a Mecca for chamber music. In addition to Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, Yehudi Menuhin, Emil Giles, George Malcom, Julian Bream, Alfred Brendel, Wilhelm Kempff, Ludwig Hoelscher, Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, Friedrich Gulda and Thomas Quasthoff, many of the great artists of their time, started to regularly perform concerts outside of the Chamber Music Week. After the Holocaust, classical music in Schloss Elmau no longer served merely to edify, but above all as a medium of reconciliation between Jews and Germans.

In 1961, the court case against Johannes Müller was dropped due to a lack of legal basis and his children Bernhard and Sieglinde became owners of Schloss Elmau in equal shares.

In 2006, the legal disputes between the families of Bernhard Mueller-Elmau and his sister Sieglinde Mesirca were finally resolved when I bought their shares and took over the majority of shares of the company which allowed me reconstruct Schloss Elmau in my way. The new architecture was a compromise between my intention to create something completely new and the intention of my cousin, friend and architect Christoph Sattler, who wanted to restore everything as faithfully as possible out of respect for his grandfather Carlo Sattler, my grandfather's architect.

In 2007, the new Schloss Elmau was rebuilt as a Luxury Spa & Cultural Hideaway and Member of the Leading Hotels of the World and has since received numerous awards as one of the best hotels in the world. The opening took place on June 21, 2007 with a “Tarbut” for the Jewish communities in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, a Transatlantic Forum of the German Marshall Fund of the United States with politicians from the USA and Europe, and a Schloss Elmau Symposium on “Islam Through Jewish Eyes, Judaism Through Muslim Eyes” in cooperation with the LMU Munich and University of California in Berkeley and with leading scholars from the Arab world and Israel. 

In 2015, after two years of construction, the luxurious retreat was opened as the second hotel in Schloss Elmau just in time for the G7 summit in June 2015. The retreat served as the residence of the heads of state and government of Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Great Britain, Japan and the presidents of the European Council and the EU Commission. The American President resided in the Westwing of the Hideaway.

In a press statement, German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel justified her decision to hold the Summit at Schloss Elmau not only with its beautiful and secluded location, but also with its unique cultural tradition and my political engagement for the deepening of Transatlantic and German-Jewish Relations.