In 1904 the Russian author, novelist and playwright Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860 – 1904) traveled to Badenweiler together with his wife, the actress Olga Knipper, due to lung disease in hopes of his health being restored there. "If you knew how sunny it is here! It does not burn, it caresses!," he wrote in June 1904 to his sister Mascha on his stay in Badenweiler.
When the fact that Chekhov had tuberculosis became known at the Hotel "Römerbad", the Chekhovs were politely asked after just two nights to look for another place to stay. The couple then moved to the Villa Friederike (Hotel Eckerlin) and later to Hotel Sommer (today the "Parktherme"), where Anton Chekhov died on 15 July 1904 at the young age of 44.
It is said that shortly before his death his doctor wanted to have a bottle of oxygen brought for him. As Chekhov feared that it would not arrive in time, he asked that a bottle of champagne be obtained for his wife and himself instead. After he had slowly drained his glass, he spoke his last words, "Now I die." His body was brought to the Chapel of St. Mary (St. Marienkapelle) in the night in a laundry basket.
Anton Pawlowitsch Tschechow (middle)
