The history of the Krainerhütte

In 1884, Ignaz and Rosa Mössl purchased the small house owner Leopold Enzmann's hut on the right bank of the Schwechatbach. Mössl had the wooden hut demolished and a hotel built, which he called the “Hotel Alte Krainerhütte”. In 1899 Josef Dietmann, who was already successful in gastronomy and retail together with his first wife Anna, leased the already popular "Alte Krainerhütte" and bought the property a year later from Ignaz Mössl in order to avert his bankruptcy. An extensive expansion followed a stately new hotel building.

After the sudden death of his first wife in 1900, he married his second wife Albine in 1902, who also died after just two months of marriage. Despite these strokes of fate, the worldly expert, who had already traveled to England and France, succeeded in bringing the inn to prosperity in just a few years, making it a popular destination for Baden and Viennese patrician families. He was supported by his third wife Ludmilla Maria.

Around the turn of the century and in the “Golden Twenties”, up to 150 horse-drawn carriages were parked outside the hotel on fine Sundays, and the coachmen had their own “Salettl” in the garden with separate service. Celebrities such as Leo Slezak, Franz Lehár, Richard Tauber, Mayor and Finance Minister Josef Kollmann and Oswald Dirmoser, the designer of the 42-cm siege howitzer, the largest Austrian gun used in the First World War, were friends and guests of Kommerzialrat Josef Dietmann. The nearby Mayerling hunting lodge and the excellent hunting in the surrounding area often prompted Crown Prince Rudolf to take a break at the Krainerhütte, which was always popular in hunting circles.

In 1828, Georg Hutterer had a new inn built opposite the Krainer Hütten on the left bank of the Schwechatbach under the name “the large Krainerhütte for the beautiful view” and opened it in 1829. The inn quickly became very popular, as the later Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria visited this as the young King of Hungary with his wife Maria-Anna of Savoy. The inn remained in the family for a long time, but after several changes of ownership it was finally acquired and leased by the municipality of Baden.

After the death of Kommerzialrat Josef Dietmann in 1945, Josef Leopold Dietmann inherited the hotel. As he only returned from captivity as a prisoner of war in 1946, his wife Maria Dietmann ran the “Neue Krainerhütte” in the meantime, while the “Alte Krainerhütte” had been occupied by the Russians. After his return, Josef Leopold Dietmann ran the hotel together with his wife until his accidental death in Baden in January 1953.

In January 1952, his son Franz Josef Dietmann married Magdalena Dietmann, who had also worked as a cook at the “Hotel Alte Krainerhütte”. At this time, they were tenants of the Hotel-Pension zur “Cholerakapelle” and their daughter Traude was born. When his father Josef Leopold Dietmann died in an accident in April 1953, he inherited the “Alte - und die Neue Krainerhütte” with a certificate of inheritance from 1954.

In 1955, Franz Josef Dietmann had parts of the old “Neue Krainerhütte” building demolished and built his new hotel-café-restaurant on the site, which he renamed “Hotel Krainerhütte”. The “Alte Krainerhütte” was probably leased to the War Victims' Association in 1955, the year of the State Treaty, and sold to them in 1959 under a purchase agreement and continued to be run as a rest home for war victims under the name “Franz Schulz-Heim”. The sale of the “Alte Krainerhütte” was used to finance the Dietmann-Eck in Soos, which was taken over by Magdalena Dietmann and passed on to her daughter Traude after her death, who had already worked there since her youth.

In 1960 he married his second wife Annemarie. With her he built a large new hotel in 1970, which included around 50 rooms. The “Hotel Krainerhütte” became a renowned excursion restaurant and top hotel with modern seminar rooms and a swimming pool.

It hosted numerous prominent guests, such as Mohammad Reza Pahlewi, the Shah of Persia, with his wife Farah Diba and family as well as Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein in the early 1970s.