was no longer connected with the Adlon family, as the hotel was now located in the Soviet sector of the city. Instead, it was reported to have been operated by a man named Georg Behlert. On November 22, 1945, a meeting was held in one of the Adlon's surviving ballrooms, which resulted in the formation of DEFA, the state-owned film studio of the future East Germany. By December 1945, 36 rooms had been made habitable for guests. By 1950, the hotel had a staff of 70 and featured a conference hall seating 300, and 100 beds, with plans to add another 30 rooms, with 50 beds. The hotel was expropriated by the East German government on December 14, 1950, and the ruined main Pariser Platz wing was demolished. On September 25, 1951, it was announced that a new Hotel Adlon would be constructed on the site, by the state. Construction never began, and after all the other buildings on Pariser Platz were demolished, the square was left as an abandoned, grassed-over buffer with the West, with the Brandenburg Gate sitting alone by the Berlin Wall, constructed in 1961. In 1955, Hedda Adlon published a popular autobiography, Hotel Adlon. Das Berliner Hotel, in dem die große Welt zu Gast war, which was published in English in 1960 as Hotel Adlon: The Life and Death of a Great Hotel. The book was filmed in German in 1955 as Hotel Adlon by director Josef von Báky, starring Nelly Borgeaud. In 1957, Hedda signed contracts with the Kempinski company, giving them the right to purchase the Hotel Adlon name, and the property, in order to rebuild the hotel, should that ever become possible. Hedda died in 1967. In 1964, the remaining portion of the Hotel Adlon was renovated by the East German government and the facade was rebuilt. In the 1970s, the hotel closed to guests and was converted to serve mainly as a lodging house for government apprentices. Finally, on March 10, 1984, the building was demolished. Second Hotel Adlon Kempinski With the reunification of Germany, Kempinski exercised their rights to the hotel name and the site. After lengthy legal proceedings, they took possession of the property, then sold the development project to Fundus Fonds, a West German investment firm, with Kempinski retaining a long-term lease on the hotel. Fundus Fonds constructed a new hotel between 1995 and 1997. The building, only very