The former Honecker hotel in Leipzig
The local hotel ruin in the Leipziger Musikviertel was opened in 1968 as "Gästehaus am Park" (Guesthouse of the Council of Ministers and Politburo) by the SED head of state Walter Unlbricht. On the 13,000 square meter property of the former GDR guesthouse former GDR princes and foreign state guests stayed overnight. The Leipzig painter Bernhard Heisig drew a six-meter-long relief on the six-storey building, which unfortunately is barely recognizable today. The hotel was completely shielded in GDR times, extremely secure and surrounded by secrets. In 1978, the guesthouse was specially prepared for the Shah of Persia, but since this was previously overthrown, he never arrived at the guesthouse. Ulbricht's successor Erich Honecker spent the nights at the Leipzig trade fair at least twice a year in the then luxurious suites. He had himself served on the spacious sun terrace of the guest hotel the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from the capitalist foreign countries and a chilled DAB beer. 1983 was negotiated in the tap-proof bunker under the GDR guest house to a million dollar deal for the almost broke GDR between Erich Honecker and Franz Joseph Strauss. Whether this bunker really existed is another mysterious secret. The collapse of the GDR could not be stopped by the negotiations. The Möbelkombinat Hellerau designed the Bavarian-Blue-and-White suit of Franz Joseph Strauss, which remained untouched until after the reunification in 1995. This year, the Treuhand sold the entire hotel to the Hamburg restaurant chain Block for DM 20 million , This chain wanted to demolish the DDR guest house, and build a luxury hotel on it for 100 million. But these plans were smashed and auctioned the Hamburg restaurant chain including Erich Honecker's bathroom scale, in July 1995, shortly after the acquisition, the entire hotel inventory. This day coincided with the decommissioning of the guest house. Part of the inventory can still be seen today in the hotel "Leipziger Hof". Many Leipzig citizens, for whom the secretive hotel of the GDR state guests was always taboo, came to this auction to take a look at the luxurious inventory of the former GDR princes. In 2012, the Hamburg restaurant chain sold the now gutted hotel, in which the interior of the reinforced concrete was destroyed by a fire in 1999, to the Leipzig project developer Michael Klemmer of the Vicus AG. The Vicus AG aimed at the immediate demolition of the former hotel, since in their view, the building would not be economically to renovate. This opinion also supports the CDU. However, the Saxon State Office for the Preservation of Historic Monuments recognized the former monument to the former GDR Hotel and listed the building in 2013 as a historic monument. The monument protection authority is convinced of a refurbishment and the preservation of the building and believes that the hotel is a cultural and contemporary historical testimony, among other things by its GDR architecture, and therefore rejected the demolition request. What now becomes of the former Honecker Hotel, which has been empty for more than 20 years, is still uncertain. But the building gnaws at the decay. Due to fire, vandalism and the long vacancy, the former guest house at the park, in no good condition. Broken windows, ruined walls and ceilings, an overgrown courtyard and empty, gutted and gutted, ruined former luxury suites, are the current condition of the guesthouse and, as things currently stand, nothing has changed in the near future.
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