Originally Posted by jspira

I stay in a dozen or more European hotels a year (wait, that was just last month) and have never had anyone ask to hold my Paß. In fact, in some countries, you are required to have it on you as a form of identity card (presuming you don´t have a local identity card, for example).

I do recall one hotel in LAS where the front desk clerk wanted to photo copy my driver´s license and I demanded they provide me with written documentatoin on their privacy policies including information as to how they were going to safeguard the photocopy. The hotel manager gave up after a few minutes of this discussion.

I´ve stayed at the VJ in Hamburg - one of the several luxury hotels there - several times in fact without having to part with my Paß so I am guessing it wasn´t the VJ.