This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2012) |
Industry | Hotels |
---|---|
Founded | 1965 |
Defunct | 2006 |
Number of locations | 37 |
Area served | East Germany (prior to reunification) |
Services | Lodging, dining |
Owner | Free German Trade Union Federation |
Interhotel was an East German chain of luxury hotels. It was founded in 1965 as a chain.
Originally, the hotel chain consisted of a hotel each in Berlin, Erfurt, Jena and Magdeburg, two hotels in Chemnitz (then Karl-Marx-Stadt) and five hotels in Leipzig.
5-star hotels were exclusively for guests from non-socialist states, 4-star hotels were mainly for guests from Comecon countries, for example, the HotelStadt Berlin was built for Soviet guests. There were also some 3-star hotels in smaller towns, such as "Hotel Elephant" in Weimar.
Practically all luxury hotels in East Germany were part of the Interhotel chain, notable exceptions being hotel "Neptun" in Warnemünde and Cecilienhof castle in Potsdam. The Verband Deutscher Konsumgenossenschaften (VDK), the union of consumer co-operatives in the GDR also ran hotels, mainly 4 star and three star hotels such as the Konsum Erholungsheim in Oberhof, which is still part of what remains of the co-operative movement in Germany.
After German reunification, most of the hotels were still run by Interhotel AG. In 1991, some hotels were sold to the Klingbeil group, and in December 2006 some were sold to the Blackstone Group.
The Interhotel hotels were under the control of the East German state security service, the Stasi, under the Tourist Department. The Stasi tried to monitor the activities of international tourists, by sending prostitutes to audio- and video-controlled hotel rooms. They focused on hotels where political decisions were discussed, such as Hotel Bellevue in Dresden.
Thuringia, officially the Free State of Thuringia, is a state of central Germany, covering 16,171 square kilometres (6,244 sq mi), the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million.
The Park Inn by Radisson Berlin Alexanderplatz is the second tallest building in Berlin and the 42th-tallest building and tallest hotel-only building in Germany. The 37-floor skyscraper is in the northeast of Alexanderplatz in the central Mitte district and has a height of 125 metres.
The Bastei is a rock formation rising 194 metres (636 ft) above the Elbe River in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains of Germany. Reaching a height of 305 metres (1,001 ft) above sea level, the jagged rocks of the Bastei were formed by water erosion over one million years ago. They are situated near Rathen, not far from Pirna southeast of the city of Dresden, and are the major landmark of the Saxon Switzerland National Park. They are also part of a climbing and hiking area that extends over the borders into the Bohemian Switzerland.
The FDGB-Pokal was an elimination football tournament held annually in East Germany. It was the second most important national title in East German football after the DDR-Oberliga championship. The founder of the competition was East Germany's major trade union.
Erfurt Hauptbahnhof (Erfurt Hbf) or Erfurt Central Station is the central railway station at Erfurt in Germany. It is an important junction on the German rail network, served by numerous local and long-distance rail services. Immediately north of the station is Erfurt's city centre. The station was used by approximately 12.5 million passengers in 2006, an average of about 34,000 per day. The station lies on the Thüringer Bahn, which connects Halle to Bebra. It is served also by the Erfurter Bahn.
The Erfurt–Leipzig/Halle high-speed railway is a 123 km (76 mi)-long high-speed line in Germany between Erfurt and Leipzig and Halle, built as part of the Berlin–Munich high-speed railway.
Rapid transit in Germany consists of four U-Bahn systems and 14 S-Bahn systems. The U-Bahn, commonly understood to stand for Untergrundbahn, are conventional rapid transit systems that run mostly underground, while the S-Bahn or Stadtschnellbahn are commuter rail services, that may run underground in the city center and have metro-like characteristics in Munich, Hamburg and Berlin which they only have to a lesser extent in other cities. There are also over a dozen semi-metro or Stadtbahn systems that are rapid transit in the city center and light rail outside.
A Kunstgewerbeschule was a type of vocational arts school that existed in German-speaking countries from the mid-19th century. The term Werkkunstschule was also used for these schools. From the 1920s and after World War II, most of them either merged into universities or closed, although some continued until the 1970s.
A sports club (SC) was a specially promoted sports club for elite sport in the East German sports system.
Palasthotel was a hotel that belonged to the Interhotel chain and was located at Karl-Liebknecht-Straße 5 in the Mitte district of Berlin, behind the Berliner Dom and along the river Spree. It was built between 1976 and 1979 on a design by Ferenc Kiss. The hotel had 600 rooms with 1,000 beds and a conference hall with about 2,000 seats. It was closed to all East German guests, as one had to pay in hard currency instead of the local East German mark. Between 1990 and 1992 the hotel was owned by Interhotel AG, and in 1992 the hotel was renamed the Radisson SAS Berlin. It closed on 1 December 2000 due to Asbestos that was used in its construction, and was eventually demolished in 2001 to make room for the new DomAquarée, which houses a hotel of the Radisson Blu group and was opened in 2003.
The Halle–Bebra railway, known in German as the Thüringer Bahn, is a 210 kilometre-long railway line from Halle (Saale) via Erfurt and Gerstungen to Bebra, mainly in Thuringia. As far as Gerstungen the line originally belonged to the Thuringian Railway Company. From Gerstungen to Bebra, it was owned by the Frederick William Northern Railway (Friedrich-Wilhelms-Nordbahn), named after the Prussian king, Frederick William IV. It is now a two-track, electrified, standard gauge mainline operated by DB Netze. It was opened between 1846 and 1849 and was the first railway line in Thuringia. All types of trains from Regionalbahn to ICE currently run on the line except Interregio-Express. Four of the six largest cities in Thuringia are located on the line.
The Magdeburg–Leipzig railway is a double-track, electrified railway in the German states of Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony, connecting Magdeburg via Köthen and Halle to Leipzig.
The Weimar–Gera railway is a line in the German state of Thuringia, connecting the city of Weimar via Jena, Stadtroda and Hermsdorf to Gera. It was built by the Weimar-Gera Railway Company, which was founded in June 1872, and the line was officially accepted into operation in June 1876.
Dieter Goltzsche is a German painter and graphic designer. He won the Hans-Theo-Richter-Preis of the Sächsische Akademie der Künste in 2010.
The Westin Grand Berlin is a luxury business hotel located on Friedrichstraße in the Mitte district of Berlin, Germany.
Horst Förster was a German conductor, choirmaster, violinist and university teacher. In 1952, he was appointed the youngest General Music Director of the GDR in the Landestheater Eisenach. Afterwards, he was chief conductor of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Halle and the Singakademie Halle (1956–1964) as well as the Dresden Philharmonic (1964–1966).