Interhotel

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The 26-storey Interhotel "Kongreß" in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today Chemnitz ) opened in February 1974

Interhotel was a hotel chain founded on January 1, 1965 in the GDR . Interhotels were upscale hotels in which guests from socialist countries (SW), the " non-socialist economic areas " (NSW) and the FDGB of the GDR ( Free German Trade Union Confederation ) were preferred .

history

The Hotel Merkur in Leipzig , 1981 (center: building in the background)
The Hotel Elephant in Weimar
The Grandhotel Berlin, opened in 1987 as one of the most important Interhotels

The hotel chain originally consisted of one hotel each in Berlin , Erfurt , Jena and Magdeburg , two hotels in what was then Karl-Marx-Stadt and five hotels in the trade fair city of Leipzig . The five-star hotels were almost exclusively open to visitors from the “non-socialist economic area” (NSW), and payment had to be made in freely convertible currencies .

The visitors from the NSW were offered services according to international standards, including gastronomy, congress and banquet facilities as well as various leisure activities. Through corresponding contracts with West German car rental companies, NSW guests were even able to rent a West car (mainly Fiat, Renault, Volvo). An Intershop foreign exchange shop was also set up in all Interhotels.

The subgroup of the so-called "foreign exchange hotels", which were indirectly assigned to the commercial coordination area in the Ministry of Foreign Trade , was largely reserved for visitors from the non-socialist economic area; In 1969 the Interhotel Potsdam was opened. In 1985 these included the “Metropol” and the “ Palasthotel ” in Berlin, the “ Merkur ” in Leipzig, the “ Bellevue ” in Dresden, and later the “ Grand Hotel ” and the “ Domhotel ” in Berlin . Often guests from the FDGB ( Free German Trade Union Federation ) and from the countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Aid were accommodated in four-star hotels. A well-known example is the Hotel Stadt Berlin in East Berlin , which was primarily a hotel for Soviet guests. The lowest category of Interhotels were a few three-star hotels , especially in smaller cities, such as the traditional but structurally neglected Hotel Elephant in Weimar . According to international standards, the Interhotels were each rated about one star too high, with a few exceptions.

Almost all upscale hotels in the GDR were Interhotels ; Well-known exceptions were the HO-Hotel Neptun in Warnemünde and the Hotel Cecilienhof in Potsdam (belonging to the travel agency of the GDR) . Interhotels existed in most of the district towns, but also in Jena (until the early 1980s: Hotel International) and Oberhof ( Hotel Panorama ).

From 1987 to 1989 the Interhotel chain had the Hotel Dresdner Hof (opened in 1990; Hilton Dresden since 1992 ) built. In addition, construction began on the Domhotel on Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt , which was sold to Hilton shortly after it opened in 1991/92 . In Weimar, the construction pit for the Hotel Belvedere had been excavated for years , but it only opened in 1991 and was also operated by Hilton shortly afterwards.

After reunification , numerous Interhotels were managed by the Treuhandanstalt and continued by Interhotel AG . In 1991 it was sold to the Klingbeil Group .

The German Bank and Depfa Bank have the German Interhotel Holding GmbH & Co. KG with all homes in 1995 by the Berlin Trigon Group (formerly Klingbeil-Groenke Guttmann group ) accepted. Deutsche Bank held 45.6 percent of Deutsche Interhotel, Aarealbank held around a third. The Westin Grand Berlin on Friedrichstrasse is one of the Interhotels now taken over by the financial investor .

In December 2006, the remaining Deutsche Interhotel hotels were sold to the Blackstone Group for around € 750 million. The American financial investor Blackstone, which had previously acquired the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport for 168 million euros and the Grand Hotel Esplanade in Berlin, has acquired twelve hotels from the Interhotel Group.

Locations

Berlin

Dresden

Erfurt

Gera

Hall

Jena

  • Hotel International - built in 1963, Interhotel between 1965 and the early 1980s, demolished in 1997

Karl Marx City

Leipzig

Magdeburg

Neubrandenburg

  • Hotel Vier Tore - built in the 1950s as a hotel to the four gates and operated by the trade organization HO , 1972 expansion and renaming to Hotel Vier Tore , from 1990 Interhotel, from 1995 Radisson SAS , from 2009 Radisson Blu , demolished in 2016; there today: shopping center

Oberhof

Oberwiesenthal

  • not realized : Interhotel - instead, the FDGB holiday home Fritz Weineck was built in 1972–75 ; 1990s Hotel Am Fichtelberg , demolished in 2000

Potsdam

Rostock

  • Hotel Warnow - the house was originally intended to be a workers' residence, but was opened as a hotel in 1967; since the 1990s Radisson SAS / Radisson Blu , closed and demolished in 2001; 2005 opening of the new building

Suhl

Weimar

Interhotels and Ministry of State Security

Interhotels were under the observation of Department VI of the Ministry for State Security (MfS), Department of Tourism . The MfS tried to monitor the activities of international guests as well as to use them for intelligence purposes. Often, compromising situations were constructed (use of prostitutes who were obliged to act as IM in hotel rooms with audio and video surveillance) in order to “get” the person concerned to cooperate. Due to the opportunities for contact with travelers from capitalist foreign countries, the IM percentage of the hotel staff was also disproportionately high. There was a particular focus on hotels where political decisions were made, such as the Hotel Bellevue in Dresden.

literature

  • Günter Hofmann (overall management): Interhotel Catalog GDR . Self-published Association Interhotel GDR, Berlin undated (1976)
  • The tasks of the INTERHOTEL association, Author: Heinz Staratzke, Berlin; Berlin January 31, 1965; Publishing house Die Wirtschaft
  • Ordinance on the formation of the INTERHOTEL association of the GDR Council of Ministers of October 22, 1964

Filmography

  • Cleaver. Sale of Interhotels (FRG 1991). Cintec Film- und Fernsehproduktionsgesellschaft mbH (DEFA-Filmstiftung [1] )

Web links

Commons : Interhotel  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Interhotel  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tourist-Verlag Berlin / Leipzig, Travel Atlas of the GDR , 4th edition 1988, page 203
  2. ↑ https://www.zeit.de/1985/30/ddr-rent-a-car/komplettansicht
  3. ↑ Hotel der Spione: The 'Neptune' on the Baltic Sea beach in Warnemünde
  4. ↑ There you get everything that doesn't exist . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1985, pp. 131 ff . ( online - October 7, 1985 , here p. 140).
  5. ↑ https://www.das-neue-dresden.de/hotel-bellevue-1985.html
  6. ↑ https://www.das-neue-dresden.de/hotel-hilton.html
  7. ↑ https://www.das-neue-dresden.de/hotel-astoria.html
  8. ↑ https://www.saechsische.de/plus/dresdner-bastei-wird-jetzt-50-jahre-5075232.html
  9. ↑ http://www.ddr-wissen.de/wiki/ddr.pl?Hotel_Gera
  10. ↑ https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article150018720/Fuer-schaebige-Hotels-sind-Fluechtlinge-ein-Geldsegen.html
  11. ↑ Marketplace (Neubrandenburg)
  12. ↑ http://www.ddr-wissen.de/wiki/ddr.pl?HotelVierTore
  13. ↑ https://e-pub.uni-weimar.de/opus4/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/2696/file/heft_heritage_06_spiegel_pdfa.pdf
  14. ↑ https://www.tophotel.de/hotelmarkt-weimar-elephant-schliesst-bis-ende-2018-18428/
  15. ↑ Belvederer Allee
  16. ↑ "I should gentlemen at the hotel sound out" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1976, p. 67 ( Online - Nov. 15, 1976 ).
  17. ↑ Stasi: Light Food . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1990, pp. 97-103 ( Online - Dec. 10, 1990 ).
  18. ^ The shadow of the Stasi over the "Dresdner Hof": The control of GDR currency hotels began long before they opened