The 2022 G7 Summit is due to take place from 26 to 28 June 2022 at Schloss Elmau in the Bavarian Alps. Schloss Elmau is located near the village of Krün in the district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, about 100 kilometres south of Munich. It is located in a valley in the heart of the Wetterstein Mountains at an altitude of around 1,000 metres.

District of Garmisch-Partenkirchen

The district of Garmisch-Partenkirchen has a population of some 88,500. The region is a popular destination for visitors, so tourism is a key industry: approximately 1.7 million people spend their holidays here every year – in summer and winter.

Schloss Elmau – forum for international debate

Schloss Elmau was built between 1914 and 1916 by Johannes Müller as a “free space for personal and communal life”. The structure itself is a listed building. Schloss Elmau has had a prominent role to play in cultural history, having been a renowned international venue for chamber music since the 1950s, for example.

Under the leadership of its current owner, Schloss Elmau also developed into a recognised forum for international debate and interreligious dialogue. Particular importance is attached to events that contribute to German-Israeli and German-American understanding. With this open-minded orientation, the owners seek to deliberately and frankly address Schloss Elmau’s long and to some extent ambivalent history.

History of Schloss Elmau

Schloss Elmau looks back on an eventful history. Theologian and philosopher Johannes Müller originally had the building erected as a meeting place for his readers and seminar participants, but numerous prominent politicians and cultural figures of the Weimar Republic were guests there, too.

Although Müller glorified the ideology of National Socialism at times, he was considered unreliable by the Nazis. In order to pre-empt the imminent threat of confiscation by the SS, he leased Schloss Elmau to the German Armed Forces in 1942 as a “vacation resort for soldiers returning from the front.”

Elmau was requisitioned by the US Army in 1945 and used as a military hospital for a short time. Under the administration of the Bavarian government, it subsequently served as a convalescent home for tuberculosis patients. In 1951, Müller’s children leased the house and converted it into a hotel. Since the late 1950s it has hosted numerous cultural events and political debates with prominent participants.

The house was largely destroyed by fire in 2005. It was then rebuilt by Dietmar Müller-Elmau, the founder’s grandson, as a “Luxury Spa & Cultural Hideaway Hotel”.