Interhotels der DDR: Einrichtung zwischen historischer Wahrheit und Dichtung. Ein Forschungsbericht

The paper gives an overview of GDR interhotels and their references to East German literature traces the secret and close relations between the FRG and the GDR during the decades of the Cold War. The thesis on the disappearance of hotel literature after the Second World War is critically examined and compared with literary evidence from the seventies to the nineties. The essay argues that interhotels represent the irreconcilable division between literature and power. Starting from the observation that the Central Committee of the SED was guided by Germany's luxurious grand hotel tradition, established in the Twenties, the following account concludes that if the interhotels have played a crucial role in overcoming the "Hallstein Doctrine", in contrast, the effort to "reach and overtake" has proven to be a real trap for the "workers' and peasants' state" in the course of three decades.