Gästehaus des Ministerrates und Politbüros der DDR, Government guest house in Music Quarter, Leipzig, Germany
The Guest House of the Council of Ministers is a complex in Leipzig's Music Quarter comprising a two-story flat structure with two courtyards alongside a six-story main building on Schwägrichenstraße opposite Clara-Zetkin-Park. The layout combines practical office and accommodation spaces with formal areas designed for official state receptions.
Built in the 1960s, the structure served from 1969 to 1989 as an official accommodation for high-ranking state officials and visiting delegations. It stands as a record of how the East German leadership organized itself during its final decades.
The preserved wall relief by Leipzig painter Bernhard Heisig (1925–2011) survived the decades of vacancy and was restored during the 2020 renovation, as was the roughly 400-square-metre entrance hall with its atrium in the flat building. The complex also held several foyers, reception apartments, dining, cinema and conference halls used for Politburo meetings during trade fairs.
The complex is a private residential building since its 2020 conversion, so interiors and courtyards are not open to visitors; the entrance hall with atrium and Bernhard Heisig's wall relief are inside. The exterior can be viewed from Schwägrichenstraße, Haydnstraße and Karl-Tauchnitz-Straße, opposite Clara-Zetkin-Park and near the Scheibenholz racecourse.
The persistent rumour that Honecker and Schalck-Golodkowski negotiated the 1983 billion-mark loan with Franz Josef Strauß in an eavesdrop-proof bunker here is false: the talks took place in May 1983 at businessman Josef März's Chiemgau estate, and Honecker met Strauß that July at Jagdschloss Hubertusstock. When the contents were auctioned on 15 July 1995, a round table said to have served those talks fetched 10,000 marks, and Michael Moore filmed with a hidden camera.
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