1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites

Talking Germany

August 27, 2012

Talking Germany's host Peter Craven talks with Dietmar Müller-Elmau about honors, headhunting and autogenic training.

https://p.dw.com/p/15tsp

Features on these issues provide subjects for discussion and enhance the conversation on Talking Germany. The two discuss the moving story of Schloss Elmau and his being honoured as hotelier of the year 2012. Another topic is the competition between Austria and Switzerland to headhunt skilled professionals in the restaurant and hotel trade. In addition, the enthusiastic globetrotter talks about his fascination with India and an Indian yoga school in the Black Forest.

Short Biography

Dietmar Müller-Elmau is anything but a typical hotel director. And just that is presumably his recipe for success. Born in 1954 in room number 54 of the Schloss Elmau, he soon felt constrained by the rigid conventions of the traditional hostelry. He lived for a time in India and Israel, studied business administration, philosophy and theology and got a masters degree in computer science in New York. Back in Germany he founded a software company and earned millions with it. Not until his family put him under pressure did he commit himself to the ageing hotel. After a major fire in 2005, he used the opportunity to make a completely new start. He has turned the slightly down-at-heel protestant hostelry into a luxury spa. As an exclusive program of events he organises classical music and jazz concerts for hotel guests, as well as readings and lectures on philosophy. ((Dietmar Müller-Elmau)) is married to his second wife and has six children.