history of the building
The building’s first lease of life was as the exclusive Silvana Hotel, which opened its doors in 1907. Ownership of the hotel changed a number of times during the 1920s. In mid-1933, the Nazi Party’s (NSDAP) Hesse-Nassau branch occupied the building and, on the occasion of the ground-breaking ceremony for the first autobahn construction project, it was named Gauhaus, which was the seat of the district headquarters, and dedicated to Adolf Hitler.