After the French defeat in the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna , the premises were first rented and finally purchased by Prussia under King Frederick William III in 1818 and became the seat of the Prussian legation . In 1862 Otto von Bismarck resided here , before his appointment as Minister president by King William I in September . Following the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 – 71 , it served as the embassy of the German Empire to the French Republic . Prince Chlodwig of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst , ambassador from 1873 , hosted extravagant ceremonies to improve Franco – German relations . The impressive architecture and premises inspired Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Leo von Klenze , as well as the painter Max Beckmann . In 1894 the theft of a letter addressed to the German military attaché Max von Schwartzkoppen at the embassy triggered the Dreyfus affair . The shooting of the German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by 17-year-old Herschel Grynszpan in 1938 provided the Nazi authorities with the pretext for the antisemitic '' Kristallnacht '' pogrom
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Hôtel Beauharnais