This Is Inga

Inga started working at the hotel in the summer of 2010, just a few months after we opened. It almost didn’t happen… she was a bit disillusioned with the hotel industry and was looking at other employment possibilities. But her friend heard about a position in reception at the new hotel on Warschauerstrasse and persuaded her to apply for it. Inga did, and she got the job. Not long after, Inga was with her family and told them her news. It was only then that she became aware of some rather amazing coincidences, and the connection her family has to the building at Warschauerstrasse 39/40.

In the early 1940s, the part of the hotel which is now rooms 133 to 130 (one floor above where the kitchen is), was the site of an engineer’s workshop where machines were repaired. Employees also lived in the building in small workers’ apartments. One of these workers was Inga’s great-grandfather, who repaired sewing machines. He lived here with his family for four years and during this time they had a daughter, Inga’s grandmother.

She would go on to have a daughter herself – Inga’s mother Christine, who was born and raised in Friedrichshain too. Fast forward to 1983, and Christine finds herself working for the K.W.V – the Kommunale Wohnungsverwaltungen. This was the government body responsible for the distribution of housing in the GDR. And their office was located in what is now the Backstage Room, on the ground floor of the rear building of the hotel. She worked here from 1983 until 1988.

On 31st May 1985, Christine got married at the local Standesamt, a civil registration office responsible for recording births, marriages and deaths. Incredibly, this was also located in what is now the hotel! Where our bar is now, there used to be a long corridor which ran to the back of the building. The Standesamt was located in the space that we now use as offices for our event team.

And the best bit about all this? Christine was pregnant with Inga when she got married on that day in 1985 in the space where Inga now works. So in a way, Inga was the very first Michelberger!