Recreation Home F.
This building is what remains of the first recreation home that the East German federation of trade unions had built for their centralized tourism business.
The FDGB ("Freier Deutscher Gewerbkschaftsbund") was the organization that handled most travel business in East Germany. They've used existing hotels but they also built new ones starting at the beginning of the 1950's.
Groundbreaking for this particular recreation home, which was named after one of the founders of the German Communist Party, happened in 1952, and it was officially opened in 1954.
It is located on the northern edge of the Harz Mountains and is listed as a home in the local register of monuments. The large vacation home was the first new building in the history of tourism in the GDR and was built according to a design by the Halle-based engineering firm Maedecke in the style of classical modernism. The design is based on that of the Berlin Olympic Village of 1936. It was commissioned by the GDR trade union FDGB, which was largely responsible for providing vacation accommodation in the GDR. The home was named after the KPD politician Fritz Heckert (1884-1936). The 85 rooms for up to 147 guests were heated by a modern oil heating installation, and every room had its own running cold and warm water.
Next to the beautiful surroundings, the house was equipped with two club rooms, a chess room, a TV room, library and a billiard room.
After the end of the GDR came also the end of this hotel.
In 1990, its doors were permanently closed.
In July 2021, the town announced the sale of the property, in which vacation apartments and condominiums are to be built. The new owners want to completely renovate the site, which has become known as a lost place in recent years, convert it and reopen it by 2026 with vacation apartments, sports and wellness facilities and a restaurant.
Visited: July 3, 2014
Location: Undisclosed
Status: Abandoned/Renovation planned
