Max Reinhardt

In 1918, Max Reinhardt, Europe's most famous theater producer at the time, bought the Schloss (German for palace), which was in a very dilapidated state at the time. Reinhardt used his considerable creative talent to restore the castle with the help of Salzburg craftsmen.

Together with Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss, Reinhardt founded the Salzburg Festival at Schloss Leopoldskron in 1920. During the Reinhardt era, Schloss Leopoldskron became an important gathering place for theater producers, writers, composers, and actors from around the world.

During the Nazi-era “Aryanization”, the Schloss was seized in 1938 and only restituted in 1945 after World War II to Reinhardt's widow, Helene Thimig. Impressed by the passion of several young Harvard students for post-war reconciliation, she loaned the use of the Schloss to the founders of the Salzburg Global Seminar in 1947.