GÄSTEHAUS PETERSBERG
The Petersberg is one of the mountains in the Siebengebirge. It is 331 metres high and belongs to Königswinter.
Construction of a hotel in the German Renaissance style began there in 1888 and opened in 1892. Just like on the neighbouring Drachenfels, a cog railway ran up the mountain, of which only a dilapidated engine shed remains today. However, the hotel was not a commercial success and was sold to the Cologne entrepreneur Ferdinand Mülhens in a forced sale.
Mülhens had the hotel remodelled between 1912 and 1914 and made the hotel world-famous. After the Second World War and until 1952, the Petersberg was the seat of the Allied ‘High Commission’.
It was here that Chancellor Adenauer signed the ‘Petersberg Agreement’ negotiated with the High Commission in November 1949.
In 1978, the Federal Republic of Germany acquired the entire mountain from the Mülhens family and had the hotel remodelled for around DM 140 million.
Since then, countless crowned heads and probably all heads of state who maintain diplomatic contacts with the Federal Republic have stayed there.