Dancing at the Hotel Adlon: Queer, Black, and Jewish Characters in Contemporary German Television

Abstract

This article discusses Das Adlon: Eine Familiensaga (Hotel Adlon: A Family Saga), a 2013 German miniseries about one of the most exclusive addresses in Germany’s capital. This miniseries about the quintessentially upper-class German location chooses to portray minority characters whose story arcs are developed through dance scenes that reveal the complexity of representing queer, Black, and Jewish characters in a miniseries designed for mass consumption. In this way, the miniseries and its dance scenes raise important questions about who belongs in Germany. I contend that the dance floor is an arena through which the miniseries Hotel Adlon and its characters negotiate changing notions of what it means to be German.