fittings to the flat roof sealing (VEB Spezialbau Magdeburg) and plumbing (sheet metal work). The hotel then and now When it opened, the Hotel Merkur had 447 air-conditioned rooms and apartments with 700 beds, twelve restaurants, bars and clubs with a total of 800 seats - including the nationality restaurant Sakura, the second Japanese restaurant in the GDR after a restaurant in Suhl - as well as five salons and a 265-seat banquet and convention center. The hotel employed 740 people, including 110 at the Intershop. The hotel had 15 in-house vehicles from the Wartburg, Lada and Volvo brands. The hotel also had its own passport and visa office. In January 1987 the 15th Congress of Internists met in the hotel, in April the International Congress of the Anatomical Society; in September of the same year, the 23rd anniversary of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes. On 8 March 1990, Leipzig's first casino (still during the German reunification) opened in the Hotel Merkur. In the top ten list of the Allgemeine Hotel- und Gastronomie-Zeitung (AHGZ) in 1991, the Hotel Merkur was ranked 8th among the best hotels in Germany. The Treuhandanstalt initially continued to run the Interhotels, but later sold it to investors. On 1 January 1993, the Interhotel Merkur became the Hotel InterContinental Leipzig and part of the Intercontinental Hotels Group. Between 1993 and 1994 a total of 43 million DM was invested in the renovation and conversion of the house. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Inter-Continental Hotels & Resorts, the hotel initiated the environmental and benefit campaign "One Day for Leipzig" in 1996. At the end of 2002, the four-star hotel was taken over by the Westin chain; since 1 January 2003, it has operated as The Westin Leipzig. On 28 April 2005, the Falco restaurant was opened on the 27th floor under the direction of Peter Maria Schnurr. In 2007 the gourmet restaurant received its first Michelin star and in 2008 the Falco received its second Michelin star. It was the first restaurant in the new federal states with two Michelin stars. On the occasion of the hotel's 30th anniversary (2011), Bild published details from the Stasi file of the Hotel Merkur with "personal records of sex for sale, clumsy spies and hotel employees who even betrayed their own colleagues". In October 2021, there was a media discussion about the hotel after