ABSTRACT
On December 3, 1934, an international conference of hoteliers met in Berlin. One of the keynote speakers was Fritz Gabler, a well-known German hotel owner. His speech, not surprisingly, paid homage to the leaders of the “new Germany,” but his concluding remarks may have been unexpected. ough the Nazi regime clearly strove towards self-suciency in many areas, “tourism and autarky,” he proclaimed, were “conceptually incompatible.”1 He was trying to assuage his fellow hoteliers’ fears that the Nazi regime would further restrict tourists’ freedom of movement through increased visa regulations and foreign currency constraints, as indeed it soon did. Germany wanted foreign visitors, he explained, and the new government believed that Germans too should get to know foreign lands. But Gabler’s statement about the impossibility of autarky in the touristic sphere speaks to more than just the literal crossing of borders by pleasure travelers. No nation’s tourism industry has ever stood entirely alone. As this book shows, tourism policies and practices always emerged out of a transnational dialogue between professionals from countries with the most diverse forms of government. Even under Hitler, then, those active in the industry connected with one another, shared ideas, borrowed a concept here and advised on a matter there. is was not and could not be a closed o, selfreliant community.
