Hero Image Decoration

Family holiday in 1888

A royal visit to the Oberhof hunting lodge.

Container

At the end of the 19th century, a family "incident" was a decisive impulse for the development of the village of Oberhof.

Berlin in 1888 - the year of the three emperors. Turbulent state funerals and coronation ceremonies alternated in quick succession in Berlin's Hohenzollern Palace. Empress Auguste Victoria was also expecting her 5th son. Her 4 other sons Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst (6 years), Wilhelm Eitel Friedrich Christian Karl (5 years), Adalbert Ferdinand Berengar Viktor (4 years) and August Wilhelm Heinrich Günther Viktor (1 year) disrupted the daily routine enormously at this time.

The relatives were supposed to fix it.

Without further ado, the princes became visitors of the ducal house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which was not very amused by the relatives from Berlin. So the princes were accommodated in the empty hunting lodge in Oberhof. The then Prince Alfred of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha only used the castle for extended hunting excursions in the autumn.

A stroke of luck for Oberhof

All the newspapers in Germany now reported in detail on the Prince's visit to Oberhof day after day in their court reports. For the first time, readers also learned about the beauty and charm of idyllically situated Oberhof and its surroundings characterised by forest splendour. A fantastic advertisement for the Thuringian Forest, but above all for the town! In the following week, thousands of onlookers flocked to the Oberhof heights to catch a glimpse of the princes. Oberhof was completely unprepared for this onslaught, so the press recommended taking food and drink up to the heights.