FDGB holiday service
The FDGB holiday service was an institution of the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB) in the GDR . He gave the working people of the country subsidized leisure travel domestically. The FDGB holiday service was created in 1947.
As early as the time of National Socialism , recreational leave for people was organized by the state; KdF was active here. Before that there were organized trips by the trade union movement in the Weimar Republic . The tourism in East Germany developed according to the requirements by the SED is not parallel to West Germany and Western Europe, but took the Soviet Union as a model. The constitution of the German Democratic Republic provided for paid annual leave. In the GDR there was not a development towards package tours to other European countries or in hotels and holiday apartments , but attempts were made to reward services for the company and the party.
Accordingly, it was probably never planned and also economically not possible to increase the range of subsidized trips to such an extent that all customers could have been served. In the spring of 1953, the party and the state created the extended basis for the FDGB holiday service with their confiscation of buildings on the Baltic Sea , especially on Rügen , through Aktion Rose . In the GDR system, the FDGB did not have the task of representing the interests of its members in financial and social terms; it was a mass organization with de facto compulsory membership.
The FDGB-Feriendienst was one of the providers of vacation trips in addition to the company vacation spots in the company's own vacation facilities, the GDR travel agency, youth tourist and state camping sites. In 1984 the companies offered z. B. 413,000 vacation spots, the FDGB 135,900. He owned many smaller objects (up to 50 rooms) and employed numerous people there. In addition to the Baltic Sea coast, the Ore Mountains , the Vogtland , the Thuringian Forest , the Elbe Sandstone Mountains and the Harz Mountains were the focus of recreation. The Mecklenburg Lake District , the Spreewald , the Zittau Mountains , the Upper Lusatia and a number of objects in smaller regional holiday and hiking areas must also be included here. The decentralized quarters were usually rented out by private house or property owners to the FDGB holiday service, which then organized the allocations and took on the financial and administrative tasks. For these administrative tasks and for looking after the holidaymakers on site, offices or branch offices of the “FDGB Holiday Service” with full-time employees were installed in the centers of the holiday areas. Meals were mostly provided on a voucher basis in permanently assigned restaurants.
The demand for vacation trips was great; the population of the GDR orientated itself to the conditions in the Federal Republic due to its media consumption. Holidays in relative luxury were possible in the Warnemünder Hotel Neptun as well as in selected Interhotels (e.g. in the Hotel Panorama in Oberhof ). These had to provide a firmly defined part of their capacities for FDGB vacationers, who could also use all services that were available for private guests. The in-house restaurants were supplied with vouchers that were offset against the local restaurant prices and were included in the price of the holiday trip.
The holiday service operated the FDGB holiday ships Arkona , Fritz Heckert and Völkerfreundschaft . These vacation spots on the three cruise ships were also very limited (1962: 16,500 people, 1969: 4,000, 1989: 9,300).
The holiday service was financed from the FDGB fund created through membership fees, from the relatively small additional payments made by the holidaymakers and from the state budget. Around 1989 this contributed directly and indirectly 550 million marks.
From a political point of view, the FDGB holiday service should stabilize the situation; on the other hand, any lack of “state” organized vacation was blamed on the state and there were numerous petitions . The individual vacationer was able to “show the dictatorship's limits”.
literature
- Christopher Görlich: Vacation from the state. Tourism in the GDR. Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-412-20863-9 .
- Thomas Schaufuß: The political role of the FDGB holiday service. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-428-83621-5 .
- Andreas Stirn: dream ships of socialism. The history of the GDR vacation ships 1953–1990 . 2nd edition, Metropol-Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-79-4
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thomas Schaufuss, The Political Role, p. 34.
- ↑ a b Article holiday service ; in: FDGB-Lexikon. Function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945-1990) , ed. by Dieter Dowe, Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke, arr. by Michael Kubina, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-240-6 , online on a page of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
- ↑ Thomas Schaufuß, The Political Role, p. 7.
- ↑ Thomas Schaufuss, The Political Role, p. 50.
- ↑ Christopher Görlich, Urlaub, p. 232.
- ↑ Thomas Schaufuss, The Political Role, p. 123.
- ↑ Article Vacation Ship ; in: FDGB-Lexikon. Function, structure, cadre and development of a mass organization of the SED (1945-1990) , ed. by Dieter Dowe, Karlheinz Kuba, Manfred Wilke, arr. by Michael Kubina, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-86872-240-6 , online on a page of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
- ↑ Christopher Görlich, Urlaub, p. 265.
- ↑ Christopher Görlich, Urlaub, p. 266.