The Berghotel Schatzalp in Switzerland is the setting of Thomas Mann’s great novel The Magic Mountain. The Art Nouveau building opened its doors in 1900, starting as a luxury sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, because it received far more sunlight than the town below, and air was considered to be fresh and pure. In 1953 the building was converted to a mountain hotel (it is 1860m above sea level). It’s 4 minutes away, by Schatzalp train, from the town of Davos.
Today the Berghotel Schatzalp caters for wealthy guests and global and political leaders during the annual World Economic Forum. Near to the hotel is the Alpinum Botanic Garden.
Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel tells the story of young engineer Hans Castorp who visits his sick cousin at the hotel and ends up staying for seven years, convinced that he too has tuberculosis. Mann (who won the 1929 Nobel Prize for Literature) describes the place as “the highest of the sanatoriums”, built so high up the mountain that when a patient dies, the body has to be brought down on a bobsled for burial. Mann’s wife Katia (who was Jewish) suffered from tuberculosis and in 1912 she spent time in a Swiss treatment centre. He visited her at the Waldhotel Davos and the visit inspired his novel. In 1933 he fled from Germany to Switzerland, as the Nazis disapproved of his writings and his life was at risk. They took over his Munich home and withdrew the honorary doctorate he had been given. Thomas Mann died in Switzerland.
Today the hotel uses its connection with the famous novel for promotional purposes. The X-Ray bar is where x-rays were once taken of diseased lungs. The 2.6km Thomas Mann Way is a path leading tourists along places connected with the novel and the hotel, with ‘Literary Stations’ providing information.
Have you ever stayed in this hotel? Tell me your experience by leaving a comment here.
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Diana Dillon
It was interesting to read about the Berghotel and its connection with Thomas Mann. I read The Magic Mountain at uni as part of my degree in German and French. Buddenbrooks is my favourite book by TM. On a visit to Germany we stood in front of the Buddenbrooks house in Luebeck.
Susannah Fullerton
I also read Buddenbrooks and The Magic Mountain at university, but have not read them since. I must see if Buddenbrooks is available on audio as it would be a good book to listen to. Lucky you, getting to Lubeck and seeing the house.