An institution since 1973: Lufthansa Seeheim
In 1973, the German airline moved the training center for its employees from Hamburg to the Bergstraße. From the very beginning, other companies and institutions have also taken advantage of the good infrastructure of Lufthansa’s training center in order to hold conferences and meetings of their own. The most famous example is the so-called “Seeheimer Kreis” – an association of SPD members of the German Federal Parliament – that was founded there in 1978 and used the conference hotel until 1984.
Dr. Klaus Bonhoeffer – the building’s namesake
At the beginning of the 1990s, the building was expanded and renamed the “Klaus-Bonhoeffer-Haus”.
Bonhoeffer was the syndic and manager of Lufthansa´s legal department from 1935 to 1945. Social issues interested him from an early point in his career. He was influenced by the thoughts of Max Weber and had close ties to his brother Dietrich who played a central part in the church resistance to the Third Reich.
In a period in which technological development achieved enormous progress, justice and the rule of law in Germany experienced a downturn of a magnitude previously unknown. Deep outrage about this state of affairs drove Klaus Bonhoeffer into the resistance against the national-socialist regime. He was arrested during the Nazi purges after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler and executed on April 23, 1945.
Lufthansa invests 100 million euros in Seeheim
In times of growing competition, Lufthansa once again declared professional development to be a strategic factor. The “Lufthansa School of Business”, Germany’s first “Corporate University”, trained both young professionals and management personnel.
But in the new millennium, the demands on learning increased rapidly. In 2006, rather than embark on a costly renovation of the more than 30 year-old building, Lufthansa decided in favour of a more economical new building at the same location – and invested around 100 million euros.
After two years of construction, the Lufthansa Training & Conference Center Seeheim opened its doors in early 2009. It is one of the biggest and most modern conference hotels in Europe.
Lufthansa Seeheim:
a chronology
- 1973 Lufthansa opens its international training center in Seeheim
- 1978 SPD members of the German federal parliament found the “Seeheimer Kreis”
- 1990 The building is expanded and renamed “Klaus-Bonhoeffer-Haus”
- 1992 The Lufthansa training center is also open to guests who are not affiliated with Lufthansa Group
- 1998 Seeheim becomes the center of the “Lufthansa School of Business“, Germany’s first “Corporate University”
- 2006 Closure and demolition of the training center
- 2007 Construction begins on the new “Lufthansa Training & Conference Center Seeheim”; founding of the operating company
- 2008 Topping-out ceremony
- 2009 The “Lufthansa Training & Conference Center Seeheim” opens in spring
- 2013 Lufthansa Seeheim celebrates its 40th anniversary in December
- 2016 New Branding “Lufthansa Seeheim – More than a Conference Hotel”
- 2018 Opening “Open Areas” in the hotel area Training & Seminar
- 2019 Opening “Think Terminal”