The historical buildings of the Hotel Wilder Mann date back to the Gothic and Baroque periods. Documentations exist of one of the buildings as early as 1303. The building a the corner was used as a courthouse for centuries. That is why the former Passau pillory is also located there, and is today home to the figures of holy St. Stephen and St. Nicholas.
Anton Niederleuthner, who was one of the rich toll collectors, a patrician and “Fugger of Passau”and a friend of great painters in the late-gothic Danube style, owned the “Wilder Mann” from 1480 to 1537. In 1844, he acquired the “Gasthaus Wilder Mann” and winery in Schrottgasse 4 and turned it into a renowned hotel which welcomed the great and good in the 19th century.
The history of the hotel
Elisabeth II. from the house of Wittelsbach ("Sissi"), empress of Austria, spent eight days in the “Wilder Mann” in 1862. Here, she met her parents Duke Max and Duchess Ludowika as well as her sister, Queen Marie of the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples. On 19 July 1878, the empress stayed in the hotel for a second time.
Other guests included Adalbert Stifter, Chief of Staff Count Moltke and Count Zeppelin.
In 1880, the hotel was closed. In 1979, Georg Höltl purchased the former courtroom next to Rathausplatz, then a patrician house in the Höllgasse and two additional patrician houses, including the former hotel "Wilder Mann" in Schrottgasse 2-4. Following substantial renovation work between 1983 and 1985, which featured exemplary preservation of the historical building fabric, the four buildings in the old town were joined together. The building complex “Wilder Mann am Rathausplatz” was born. 4400 sqm. are nowadays taken up by the Glass Museum Passau and 2200 sqm. by the hotel.
On 15 March 1985, the Hotel Wilder Mann was opened by Neil A. Armstrong, the first man on the moon. He stayed in the hotel for two nights with his wife Janet. The historical hotel has since played host to well-known names from the worlds of politics, business and culture: Mikhail Gorbachev, Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, Cardinals Meisner, König and Wetter, King Simeon II, the German President Dr. Richard von Weizsäcker with his wife, Prof. Dr. Roman Herzog with his wife, Dr. Johannes Rau with his wife and Dr. Horst Köhler with his wife.
