Positions

Socialist Holiday Dreams and Rea­lities in the GDR

Holidays in your own country: What was an annoying restriction during the pandemic years and is now touted as a climate-friendly alternative, was normality for the majority of the GDR population. Although their travel destinations were limited, working people had the right to holidays.

by Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Daniela Spiegel in July 2024

In her article, archi­tec­tural his­torian and monument con­ser­vator Daniela Spiegel out­lines how this was coor­di­nated through the tar­geted infra­struc­tural deve­lo­pment and expansion of recrea­tional areas. She also explores how, on the one hand, the concept of holidays changed and, on the other, the holiday archi­tecture of the GDR deve­loped typo­lo­gi­cally and con­cep­tually.

“Visafrei bis nach Hawaii” (“Visa-free to Hawaii”) was one of the central slogans chanted by GDR citizens during the demons­tra­tions in the autumn of 1989. The desire behind this demand was not to leave the country forever, but to be able to choose their vacation desti­na­tions freely. Because for the GDR inha­bi­tants, holidays were not usually about satis­fying their desire to travel and getting to know other countries, quite the con­trary. Due to the rigid travel rest­ric­tions, which strictly regu­lated travel abroad and only allowed trips to sel­ected socialist brother states, three quarters of the popu­lation spent most of their holidays in their own country.

Despite, or perhaps because of the rest­ricted freedom to travel, the “recreation system” played a central role in the GDR. The right to holidays for working people was a fun­da­mental and, from the outset, con­sti­tu­tio­nally enshrined com­ponent of the socialist state, which was far ahead of West Germany in this respect. The state con­sidered holidays as a govern­mental duty and used them for its own legi­ti­mi­sation and repre­sen­tation, to demons­trate the supe­riority of socialism and the state’s welfare work both internally and externally. The main pro­vider of the state recreation system was the Holiday Service of the Free German Trade Union Fede­ration (Freier Deut­scher Gewerk­schaftsbund, FDGB), founded in 1947, but com­panies and com­bines also pro­vided large numbers of holiday places for their workers. All trade union and company trips were sub­si­dised by the state by up to two thirds. 

A cor­re­sponding infra­structure was needed to make holiday trips pos­sible: from the Baltic coast to Lusatia, from Lake Müritz to the Thu­ringian Forest, countless holiday faci­lities were built. As in all of Europe, modern mass tourism in the GDR also brought about a massive trans­for­mation of the land­scape. Accor­dingly, the archi­tec­tural relics of this boom period are viewed today more from the per­spective of land­scape des­truction than in terms of their archi­tec­tural quality. However, the holiday archi­tecture of the GDR was much more than the “Platte” – the indus­tria­lised building – on the beach or in the moun­tains. It repre­sented an attractive playing field for planners and archi­tects, offering scope for indi­vidual designs within the tightly-strung corset of the planned economy.(1) 

1950s – The beginning

The initial pro­perty stock of the FDGB Holiday Service con­sisted of a few union-owned old buil­dings and a mana­geable number of expro­priated castles and manor houses, which – instru­men­ta­lised for pro­pa­ganda pur­poses – were por­trayed as rightful acqui­si­tions by the formerly oppressed working class.(2) With further expro­pria­tions in the early 1950s, several guest­houses and hotels were added. At the same time, the FDGB also began con­s­tructing a handful of new buil­dings in tra­di­tional tourist regions. These were referred to as “Feri­en­heime” (holiday homes), in keeping with the tra­dition of the labour movement, empha­sising the coll­ective aspect of holidays spent tog­ether.

In the early years, the pro­pa­gan­distic inter­pre­tation of holidays as a pri­vilege pre­viously reserved for the upper class, now made acces­sible to the entire popu­lation, was extremely important. Ensuring and enforcing sta­tutory holiday entit­le­ments for the rege­ne­ration of the work­force was a fun­da­mental aspect of the young republic’s self-image. This cor­re­sponded to an ideo­lo­gical inter­pre­tation that clearly set itself apart from the Western per­spective – holidays and leisure time were seen as com­ple­ments to the working world and by no means as escapes from it. Con­se­quently, the focus was initially on the rege­ne­rative aspects of holidays, aimed at main­taining the workforce’s pro­duc­tivity. This led archi­tects to draw more inspi­ration from sana­torium archi­tecture than hotel archi­tecture when designing new buil­dings. Typical fea­tures included gently curved, south-facing acco­mo­dation with can­ti­le­vered bal­conies. The first buil­dings were very hete­ro­ge­neous in design, show­casing all the par­allel evolving styles of the time: from socialist clas­sicism to “national tra­di­tions” and influences of clas­sical modernism. Ten­dencies of the “Heimat-Style” from the 1930s also repea­tedly appeared. This can be explained both by the con­ti­nuity in the careers of the archi­tects and by the regional-tra­di­tional refe­rences being seen as an appro­priate archi­tec­tural voca­bulary for these pro­jects that are closely tied to the respective regional culture and nature.

1960s – Attempts at stan­dar­di­s­ation

As the number of union members grew ste­adily, so did the number of people entitled to holidays. It soon became clear that the tra­di­tional holiday regions of the Baltic Sea, Harz Moun­tains, Thu­ringian Forest and Erz Moun­tains would not suffice and that quick struc­tural solu­tions were needed to meet the enormous demand. While sear­ching for new recrea­tional areas, the potential of the Meck­lenburg Lake Dis­trict was reco­g­nised, which had pre­viously been largely untapped for tourism.(3) The FDGB holiday resort Völ­ker­freund­schaft opened in Klink an der Müritz as early as 1962. This was a complex resort con­sisting of a com­munity centre for catering and social faci­lities as well as a large number of indi­vidual bun­galows arranged in curved rows on a spa­cious lakeside area.

Both eco­no­mically and con­cep­tually, the bun­galow resorts opened up new pos­si­bi­lities. Firstly, the bun­galows offered a more informal and more nature-ori­ented form of recreation, espe­cially for families for whom there was not enough space in the holiday homes. Secondly, the bun­galows, designed with pre­fa­bri­cated ele­ments in light­weight con­s­truction, were inex­pensive and quick and easy to erect. A number of dif­ferent types were created, which were also used in allotment gardens and weekend resorts. Of course, these also included the A‑frame cabins (“Finn­hütten”), which are now con­sidered typical of the GDR, alt­hough they can be found all over the world. Holiday vil­lages became incre­asingly popular for company holidays, whereas the FDGB soon returned to focusing on the con­s­truction holiday hostels. Thereby, the union fol­lowed the gui­de­lines of the state lea­dership, which rejected bun­galow estates as too small-scale a solution and instead demanded “the con­s­truction of multi-storey type buil­dings using rational con­s­truction methods (…) for the recreation of working people”(4), as was already common practice in housing con­s­truction.

With the onset of attempts at stan­dar­di­s­ation, the lodging house was sepa­rated from the com­munal area and the spa­cious bal­conies dis­ap­peared. Hence­forth, holiday hostels typi­cally con­sisted of a narrow, multi-storey lodging section with a low-rise building, either adjoining or some­times even pushed under­neath, at the side or extending around the corner, which accom­mo­dated the com­munal and service areas. Solu­tions from resi­dential con­s­truction were often adapted for the lodging sec­tions. One example of this is the holiday hostel Herbert Warnke, gene­rated from a type project of the Halle Housing Con­s­truction Combine (WBK Halle), which was built between 1969 and 1971 as an extension to the Klink holiday resort.(5) An elegant and dynamic-looking building that proved to be abso­lutely state-of-the-art with its Y‑shaped floor plan, ele­vated on pilotis, delicate flying roof and stag­gered façade ele­ments.

Despite all efforts to establish inland waters for tourism, the rush to the tra­di­tional holiday regions, espe­cially the Baltic coast, remained unabated. To coun­teract this, on the orders of Walter Ulb­richt, ambi­tious plans to create a huge tourist centre on the island of Rügen were initiated in the late 1960s, when the major urban deve­lo­pment pro­jects of socialist city centre designs were also underway.(6) On the so-called Schaabe, a narrow spit in the north of the island, the “First Socialist Seaside Resort of the GDR” was to be built, with a final capacity of 20,000 beds. A figure that had once been tar­geted for a major tourism project on Rügen, alt­hough the obvious com­pa­rison to the National Socialist “Resort of the Twenty Thousand” in Prora was of course never drawn. The sur­viving designs show urban planning simi­la­rities with con­tem­po­ra­neous tourism pro­jects on the Black Sea coast: typified hotel towers alter­nating with up to five-storey accom­mo­dation blocks and low-rise com­munal buil­dings, along with extensive leisure faci­lities – including tennis courts, sea­water wave pools, bowling alleys, dance halls and a theatre/cultural centre. The ambi­tious project was not imple­mented, as the ongoing eco­nomic pro­blems of the FDGB, lack of financing and con­s­truction capa­cities caused the planning to essen­tially dis­sipate in the Baltic sand.

Another major project, however, the expansion of Oberhof, a health resort in the Thu­ringian Forest, into an inter­na­tional winter sports and recreation centre, was at least par­tially exe­cuted. It also falls within the context of visionary socialist city centre designs of the late 1960s under Ulbricht’s per­sonal aegis. With Oberhof, he aimed to transform his per­sonal favourite holiday desti­nation “into a magnet for inter­na­tional tourism” that met the highest standards.(7) To gua­rantee this, the respon­sible dis­trict office for urban planning in Suhl was sup­ported by the expe­ri­mental workshop of the Deutsche Bau­aka­demie, headed by Hermann Hen­selmann, which had also been involved in the Schaabe project. In a “socialist joint effort”, they deve­loped a “complex recon­s­truction” of the site, as urban rede­ve­lo­pment schemes were referred to in the lan­guage of the time. The plan envi­sioned a sequence of low, crystalline-shaped, large-roof buil­dings with inters­persed dominant high-rises. The design was con­ceived as a holistic sculpture – it was intended to become the second land­scape, highly modern in form yet regio­nally and cul­tu­rally embedded in the Thu­ringian cul­tural land­scape through the use of local mate­rials such as slate, natural stone and wooden shingles. The planning com­menced with the pre­viously planned Pan­orama Hotel (1967–69) at the north end of the town. It was the first new con­s­truction of the state-owned INTERHOTEL asso­ciation, founded just two years prior, intended to meet the needs of foreign guests with large amounts of foreign cur­rency, which they hoped to attract in the future. Accor­dingly, besides com­for­table amen­ities, spec­ta­cular archi­tecture was also desired. The com­mis­sioned Yugo­slavian coll­ective designed the striking image of two raised tri­an­gular buil­dings accom­mo­dating the hotel rooms with a low-rise structure under­neath for gas­tronomy, leisure faci­lities and admi­nis­tration, which were inter­preted both as mountain peak motifs and ski jumps. The building was cele­brated as “the first land­scape-ori­ented Inter­hotel of the GDR”.

The second rea­lised building was the FDGB holiday hostel Renn­steig, pro­min­ently posi­tioned in the city centre. Also an emble­matic structure, its coni­cally tapering high-rise section with the monu­mental “R” on the gable invoked the shape of the his­to­rical boundary stones of the eponymous his­toric hiking trail. Typo­lo­gi­cally, both buil­dings thus fit into the context of Archi­tecture par­lante, as their archi­tecture refe­renced the tourist identity symbols of the location – winter sports and hiking. Sym­bolic archi­tecture was an inter­na­tional trend at that time, and the mountain peak motif in par­ti­cular was a popular design for alpine hotels.

1970s – Com­pre­hensive deve­lo­pment

The complex trans­for­mation of Oberhof was only par­tially rea­lised – like many visionary con­s­truction pro­jects, it fell victim to the poli­tical and eco­nomic redi­rection that accom­panied the tran­sition of power from Walter Ulb­richt to Erich Hon­ecker in June 1971. Unlike Ulb­richt, who declared socialism as a goal to be achieved in the future, the new party leader pro­pa­gated socialism as “really existing”. Con­se­quently, quick suc­cesses had to be achieved to demons­trate the improved living con­di­tions of the popu­lation. Alt­hough the main focus was on housing con­s­truction, a com­pre­hensive new con­s­truction pro­gramme was also initiated in the recreation sector. Instead of com­pli­cated and costly indi­vidual pro­jects, the focus was now on rapid, com­pre­hensive deve­lo­pment. Between 1971 and 1980, about 40 new holiday homes with a total capacity of appro­xi­m­ately 12,900 beds were built, and another 16 buil­dings with over 9,000 beds were added in the last decade of the GDR’s exis­tence. These were usually quick-to-build type pro­jects with narrow, multi-storey lodging blocks, often directly taken from stan­dar­dized housing construction.They were built in decen­tra­lised loca­tions in existing vacation areas, which they strongly influenced due to their sheer size. Such buil­dings were con­s­tructed in almost every existing seaside resort on the Baltic coast, always in imme­diate vicinity of to the beach, but usually on the out­skirts, so that the town­s­capes of the seaside resorts remained largely intact. Only the tra­di­tional seaside resort of Binz on the island of Rügen underwent large-scale expansion in the 1970s. On behalf of the FDGB Holiday Service, the Rostock Housing Con­s­truction Combine (WBK Rostock) built num­erous large com­plexes there in several con­s­truction phases, not attempting to conceal their typo­lo­gical origin from resi­dential con­s­truction. The noti­ceable lack of wil­lingness to adapt the recrea­tional buil­dings to the existing town­s­capes is sur­prising, con­sidering that the archi­tects of the nor­thern dis­tricts were actually leading the way in the deve­lo­pment of neigh­bourhood-com­pa­tible design solu­tions for indus­trial housing con­s­truction.

In the low mountain regions, favoured by the varied topo­graphy, exposed loca­tions were often chosen, and their urban effect was further empha­sised by pro­minent building forms. Despite the archi­tec­tural domi­nance, some pro­jects also demons­trated the desi­gners’ intention to inte­grate the holiday hostels into the land­scape through their design. A fre­quently chosen motif was the con­ti­nuation of the mountain topo­graphy, already begun in Oberhof, through stepped or slanted struc­tures and the use of local mate­rials (natural stone, slate, wood). Both the mate­rials and the roof design also accom­mo­dated the chal­lenging weather con­di­tions. Inte­gration into the local culture and nature was also an important theme in the interior design of the holiday faci­lities. In con­trast to the rather limited scope for design in the archi­tecture, greater pos­si­bi­lities for expression were available here, which the com­mis­sioned interior desi­gners and artists used in a highly creative manner. They did their best to use artis­ti­cally designed rooms to make holiday guests forget, at least inside, that the basic structure of the building was often the same as that of the resi­dential buil­dings in which they lived.

Artistic design ele­ments such as murals or room dividers were com­mis­sioned for the com­munal rooms, which addressed general themes like the seasons, natural ele­ments and holidays, often refe­rencing the respective local culture to create a “regio­nally typical character”(8).

The most inte­resting fur­nis­hings, however, were to be found in the small gas­tro­nomic themed taverns in the basement, which lite­rally rooted the holiday hostels in local tra­dition. Here, the need for authen­ticity and local colour was satisfied, which the holi­day­makers could hardly live out in the forced mass catering. Nevert­heless, interior desi­gners and artists tried to interpret the respective tra­di­tions in a con­tem­porary way. For example, in the FDGB hostel Am Fich­telberg in Ober­wie­senthal in the Ore Moun­tains, there was a modern inter­pre­tation of a silver mine tunnel. For the Knap­pen­stube (pitman’s parlour) with its adjoining Stei­ger­zimmer (miners’ room), the renowned metal artist Clauss Dietel created an impressive ceiling sculpture con­sisting of closely spaced gal­va­nised rain­water pipes into which indi­vidual light fit­tings were inte­grated, lending the otherwise unlit room with its deep black slate floor a mys­te­rious atmo­sphere. Such small themed rooms became part of the basic equipment of every FDGB holiday home from the mid-1970s onwards and reflected the incre­asing dif­fe­ren­tiation of leisure acti­vities on offer. Equipped with swimming pools, mini golf courses, themed restau­rants, night­clubs and other faci­lities designed to satisfy the holiday dreams of the popu­lation, the holiday hostels’ con­ceptual design incre­asingly resembled hotels. However, as much as the FDGB Holiday Service endea­voured to create the most appe­aling archi­tec­tural framework pos­sible for the holidays of its trade union members, the “socialist holiday dreams” ulti­m­ately remained unful­filled for GDR citizens. The longing for dif­ferent worlds and a tem­porary escape from everyday life – an intrinsic part of the idea of tra­velling – was not satisfied. The growing dis­ap­pointment with this situation became incre­asingly powerful over the last decade of the GDR and ulti­m­ately con­tri­buted to the downfall of the state.

This article first appeared in issue no. 3 2024 of Die Architekt, the magazine of the Asso­ciation of German Archi­tects BDA.

The article is based on the habi­li­tation thesis Urlaubs(t)räume des Sozia­lismus. On the history of vacation archi­tecture in the GDR in a European context by Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Daniela Spiegel, that was published by Wasmuth & Zohlen Verlag in 2020.

About the author

Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Daniela Spiegel has been a pro­fessor of Heritage Con­ser­vation and Archi­tec­tural History at the Bauhaus-Uni­ver­sität Weimar and a member of the DFG Research Training Group “Identity and Heritage” since April 2023. Pre­viously, she taught Archi­tec­tural History and Heritage Con­ser­vation at Anhalt Uni­versity of Applied Sci­ences. Her research focusses on heritage con­ser­vation theories and the archi­tec­tural and urban planning history of the 20th century. In addition to the archi­tecture and urban planning of Italian fascism, she explores the archi­tec­tural, espe­cially the tourist heritage of the GDR. This article sum­ma­rises the results of a long-term research project in which the author examined how the archi­tec­tural framework for state-con­trolled holiday expe­rience in the GDR was designed and what con­cepts, ideas and influences from Eastern and Western Europe influenced GDR holiday archi­tecture.

Foot­notes

1 — Spiegel, Daniela: Urlaubs(t)räume des Sozia­lismus. Zur Geschichte der Feri­en­ar­chi­tektur in der DDR, Berlin 2020.

2 — On the history of the FDGB Holiday Service, cf.: Görlich, Chris­topher: Urlaub vom Staat. Tou­rismus in der DDR, Zeit­his­to­rische Studien 50, Cologne 2012.

3 — The iden­ti­fi­cation of the Meck­lenburg Lake Dis­trict as a future recrea­tional area was one of the key fin­dings of a study carried out by land­scape architect Frank Erich Carl on behalf of the Deutsche Bau­aka­demie. Carl, Frank Erich: Erho­lungs­wesen und Land­schaft. Ein Beitrag zur Planung der Feri­en­er­holung in der Deut­schen Demo­kra­ti­schen Republik, Berlin 1960.

4 — Kuhl, w/o first name: Neubau des ersten FDGB-Urlau­ber­heimes in Mon­ta­ge­bau­weise, in: Gesundheit und Lebens­freude für den Sieg des Sozia­lismus, Forum für die Mit­ar­beiter des Kur- u. Erho­lungs­wesens, 1967, issue 2, p. 6.

5 — The ori­ginal project was a high-rise building deve­loped by Wulf Brand­städter from the Halle Housing Con­s­truction Combine, which was first built in Halle in 1969, then in Dessau and Halle-Neu­stadt. Spiegel 2020, pp. 85 — 87.

6 — For details on the Schaabe project, cf.: Spiegel 2020, pp. 127 – 137.

7 — On the planning history of Oberhof, cf.: Spiegel, Daniela: Aus großer Geste wird Stückwerk. Die städ­te­bau­lichen Pla­nungen für den Win­ter­sportort Oberhof 1948–1989, in: Escherich, Mark / Nehring, Jens / Scheid­hauer, Simon / Spiegel, Daniela: Utopie und Rea­lität: Pla­nungen zur sozia­lis­ti­schen Umge­staltung der Thü­ringer Städte Weimar, Erfurt, Suhl und Oberhof. For­schungen zum bau­kul­tu­rellen Erbe der DDR, Vol. 6, Weimar 2018, pp. 189 – 242.

8 — Spiegel, Daniela: Urlaubs(t)räume des Sozia­lismus, pp. 211 – 235.

Picture credits

1 (Cover photo) — Oberhof, Inter­hotel „Pan­orama“ (1967 – 69), Postcard 1970 (Postcard archive D. Spiegel, Kunst­an­stalt Straub & Fischer)

2 — FDGB-Holiday home „Fritz Heckert“, Gernrode, (1952 – 54), Postcard 1975 (Postcard archive Daniela Spiegel (Pka DS), VEB Bild und Heimat Rei­chenbach (VEB BHR), Photo: Doehring

3 — Tabarz, FDGB-Holiday home „Theo Neu­bauer“ (1951 – 53), Photo: FDGB, around 1962

4 – Ahlbeck, FDGB-Holiday home (ca. 1962 – 65), Postcard 1967 (Postcard archive D. Spiegel, VEB BHR), Photo: Darr

5 — Klink, Holiday home „Völ­ker­freund­schaft“ (1960 – 62), Aerial photo: Deutsche Bau­aka­demie, around 1969

6 — Saaldorf, Fin huts — Holiday home of Land- und Nah­rungs­gü­ter­wirt­schaft des Bezirks Gera (1970s), Postcard 1977 (Postcard archive D. Spiegel, VEB Foto König Loben­stein)

7 — Klink, FDGB-Holiday home „Herbert Warnke“ (1969 – 74), Postcard 1970s (Postcard archive D. Spiegel, VEB BHR), Photo: Kuka

8 — Model photo of the urban planning design for Oberhof, view from the nor­thwest, Juli 1969 (Archive Bauamt Oberhof)

9 – see 1 (Cover photo)

10 — Oberhof, FDGB-Holiday home „Renn­steig“ (1972–73), Foto late 1970s (Bauhaus-Uni­ver­sität Weimar, Dia-Archiv der Pro­fessur Bau­ge­schichte & Denk­mal­pflege)

11 — Oberhof, FDGB-Holiday home „Renn­steig“, Lobby, dining hall, bar, Postcard 1983 (Postcard archive D. Spiegel, VEB Bild und Heimat Rei­chenbach, Photo: Dick, Erlbach)

12 – Fins­ter­bergen, FDGB-Holiday home „Wilhelm Pieck“ (1973–76), Postcard 1982 (Postcard archive D. Spiegel, Auslese-Bild-Verlag Bad Sal­zungen, Photo: Richter, Erfurt)

13 — Binz, FDGB-Holiday homes „Rugard“ and „Stub­ben­kammer“ (Photo: FDGB Das Neue Ferien- und Bäderbuch, Berlin, 1985)

14 — Schöneck, FDGB-Holiday home „Karl Marx“ (1978–85), Postcard 1980s (Postcard archive D. Spiegel)

15 — Frau­enwald, NVA-Holiday home „Auf dem Son­nenberg“, Daytime café with room divider made of Lauscha glass beads (1970s), Photo in: Chronik EHG Frau­enwald

16 — Suhl, VdgB / FDGB-Holiday home „Ring­berghaus“, Far­mer’s parlor, Postcard 1980s (Postcard archive D. Spiegel, VEB BHR), Photo: Voland

17 — Ober­wie­senthal, FDGB-Holiday home “Am Fich­telberg” (1971–75), Knap­pen­stube, Postcard 1976 (Post­kar­ten­archiv D. Spiegel, VEB Bild und Heimat Rei­chenbach, Photo: Voland)

18 — Daniela Spiegel: Urlaubs(t)räume des Sozia­lismus. Zur Geschichte der Feri­en­ar­chi­tektur in der DDR, Wasmuth & Zohlen, Berlin 2020