Sister states - Tension in the socialist family. Places of Soviet history

A statue of the personification of grieving “Mother Russia“ holding the body of her fallen son, covered by the flag of victory, is situated in front of the obelisk and constitutes the main focal point of the memorial. Above all, gravestones define this memorial: they remind us of the more than 13,000 Red Army soldiers who were buried here between 1947 and 1949 on the 2.75 hectare military cemetery. Most of them were never identified. 2,647 names are written on 100 bronze tablets on the wall surrounding the memorial. The soldiers, including 120 women, died either fighting against National Socialist Germany, or they perished in POW camps. Others died in the forced labour camp that existed in the southern part of the Schönholzer Heide during the Second World War. In November 1949, the memorial was erected. It was designed by the Soviet sculptor Iwan G. Perschudtschew and the architects K.A. Solowjow, M.D. Belawenzew and V.D. Koroljow.

Opening hours:

• April to September 7 am - 7 pm
• October to March 8 am - 4 pm

Adress:

• Germanenstraße 17, 13156 Berlin

Bus:

• Bus stop Ehrenmal Schönholz (Bus 155)

The baroque palace was hardly damaged during the Second World War. It was confiscated by the Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) in the summer of 1945. The former café on the southern end of the ground floor was converted into an officers’ casino. In another part of the building, a school/boarding school for the children of Soviet officers stationed in the GDR was established. Schönhausen palace, which, in the 18th century was the main residence of Queen Elisabeth Christine of Prussia (wife of Frederick the Great) became somewhat of a representative landmark by the new owners. In 1946, the KPD functionary Wilhelm Pieck, who had returned from Soviet exile, celebrated his 70th birthday on the premises. In 1949 the SMAD gave Pieck - now president of the newly founded GDR – the palace as his official residence. Even after Pieck’s death in 1960, when the GDR replaced the presidential office with a council of state, the building retained this function. From 1965 on, Schloss Schönhausen was turned into a guest residence for government officials accommodating numerous high-ranking Soviet state leaders, including Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev and Foreign.Minister Eduard Shevardnadze. In June 1990, Shevardnadze was one of the negotiating partners in the Two-plus-Four Negotiations, which laid the groundwork for German reunification.The permanent exhibition in the palace includes furnishings from the socialist years as well as original wallpaper from Queen Elisabeth and the oldest preserved rococo ballroom in Berlin.

Opening hours:

• April bis Oktober Di–So 10–17.30 Uhr

Adress:

• Tschaikowskistraße 1, 13156 Berlin

Tram:

• Tschaikowskistraße M1

Tips and recommendations

Haus Tschaikowskistraße 13
At first glance Tchaikovski Street 13 resembles an ordinary residence.However, an information board reveals 100 years of German history concealed behind the modernized façade. Built in 1912 as an old people’s home for deaf-mute jewish citizens, the house was later confiscated by the Nazis in 1938. The remaining residents were deported to extermination camps in 1940. At the end of the war, the Soviet embassy was located here and from 1951 onwards the GDR secret service known as the “Foreign Intelligence Service” was stationed here.

Adress:

• Tschaikowskistraße 13, 13156 Berlin

Tram:

• Tschaikowskistraße (M1)

Schlosspark Schönhausen (palace park)
The park surrounding the palace was originally laid out as a rococo garden. It owes its present form to English landscape parks created by architect Peter Joseph Lenné (1789 -1866). He redesigned the palace park between 1828 and 1831.

Adress:

• Tschaikowskistraße 1, 13156 Berlin

Tram

• Tschaikowskistraße (M1)

Behind the southern exit of the palace park, on Majakovskiring, west of Ossietzkystraße, you will find a quiet residential area consisting of comfortable detached houses. At the beginning of the 20th century the area already had a similar character. At that time, one part of the oval Ringstrasse was called Viktoriastraße and the other part Kronprinzenstraße. It was in the centre of a suburban settlement popular with artists and entrepreneurs. On August 9, 1945, the Soviet Military Administration declared the entire residential area”restricted” and confiscated all the houses to make them available to highranking Red Army officers. A guarded wooden fence protected the military area called “Grodok” (small town). In addition, KPD officials returning from exile were also accommodated here. After the founding of the GDR, the Soviet military left the houses completely in the hands of the new government. In 1950, Ringstraße was then named after the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovski (1893-1930). The wooden fence was replaced by a wall, behind which almost every member of the GDR government lived in the 1950s. Most of the houses of that time have since been demolished or replaced by more modern buildings. However, the permanent exhibition „The Rulers of Pankow - Majakowskiring and Schönhausen Palace after 1945“ documents the history of this special residential area containing numerous original documents and historical photos.

www.pankower-machthaber.de
Exhibition and website available in German only

Opening hours:

• Open daily 10 am – 6 pm

Adress:

• Ossietzkystraße 44 – 45, 13187 Berlin

Tram:

• Tschaikowskistraße M1

Tips and recommendations

Schlosspark Schönhausen (palace park)
The park surrounding the palace was originally laid out as a rococo garden. It owes its present form to English landscape parks created by architect Peter Joseph Lenné (1789 -1866). He redesigned the palace park between 1828 and 1831.

Adress:

• Tschaikowskistraße 1, 13156 Berlin

Tram:

• Tschaikowskistraße (M1)

Tips and recommendations
On the way to the permanent exhibition "Prenzlauer Allee, corner Fröbelstraße", Fröbelstraße 17, 10405 Berlin

Garbátyplatz (Garbáty Square)
A metal sculpture and plaque remind us of Josef Garbáty-Rosenthal, born in 1851 in Vilnius. The former cigarette factory owner was one of the largest and most socially committed jewish entrepreneurs in Pankow from 1906 to the end of the 1930s. In 1938 the company was “aryanized”. This meant Garbáty-Rosenthal was forced to sell his factory. The majority of the family then emigrated to the US. Josef Garbáty-Rosenthal, however, remained in Pankow and died in 1939, two days after his 88th birthday.

Adress:

• Garbátyplatz, 13187 Berlin

S + U Bahn:

• S + U Pankow (S2, S8, U2)

Tram:

• S + U Pankow (M1, 50)

Wohnstadt Carl Legien (residential city Carl Legien)
In 1925, the architects Bruno Taut and Franz Hillinger proposed a counter-design to the dark tenements of the Wilhelminian era within this settlement. Since 2008, the residential town of Carl Legien - named after the trade union leader and Social Democrat who died in 1920 - is one of six modernist housing estates in Berlin. They also enjoy UNESCO World Heritage Site
status.

Adress:

• Erich-Weinert-Straße (between the intersections Sültstraße and Gulbitzstraße), 10409 Berlin

S-Bahn:

• Prenzlauer Allee (S8, S85, S41, S42)

Tram

• Erich-Weinert-Straße (M2)

Zeiss-Planetarium
Opened in 1987, the planetarium was one of the last representative buildings of the GDR. Following extensive refurbishment, it has been considered the most modern science theatre in Europe. Since 2016 it has offered 360-degree astronomy programmes as well as radio plays and music.
www.planetarium.berlin/zeiss-grossplanetarium

Adress:

• Prenzlauer Allee 80, 10405 Berlin

S-Bahn:

• Prenzlauer Allee (S8, S85, S41, S42)

Tram:

• Tram Fröbelstraße (M2)

From 1945 to 1950, the Soviet Military Command used several buildings on the current district authority site. In the basement of House 3, the Secret Service set up a prison with 30 cells, officially intended for Nazi war criminals. Historical research has shown, however, that about two thirds of imprisoned citizens here were critics of the Soviet occupying power as well as opponents of the forced unification of the KPD and SPD parties. Members of the church or youth groups with contacts to British occupying forces were also detained here. In 1950, the GDR Ministry of State Security adopted the prison facilities until they were closed down in 1956. Today the building is a memorial, marked by a band of black acrylic glass, which was designed by the artist Karla Sachse. It confronts viewers with questions such as: “Who closed the iron door?” and “How cold was the wall?” According to the construction plans of the city building officer Hermann Blankenstein, House 3 as well as all the other buildings on site were originally intended to be used as a hospital and homeless shelter. The permanent exhibition showing numerous photos brings to life the entire eventful history from 1886 to 1989.

Opening hours:

• open daily 9 am – 6 pm, Permanent exhibition in the corridors of houses 3 and 6 as well as the outdoor area

Adress:

• Fröbelstraße 17, 10405 Berlin

S-Bahn:

• Prenzlauer Allee (S8, S85, S41, S42)

Tram:

• Fröbelstraße (M2)

The creator of the monumental structure, Lew Kerbel (1917-2003) was one of the most decorated artists of the Soviet Union. After the Second World War, the Red Army commissioned him to create artwork commemorating the sacrificial journey of the 1st Belarusian Front to liberate Berlin in early 1945.The Obelisk of Kostrzyn (Küstrin) near the Oder River (dismantled in November 2008), the monument commemorating the Battle of Seelower Heights in Brandenburg and The Soviet Memorial in Berlin-Tiergarten was also his work. Originally a port worker from Hamburg, Ernst Thälmann (1886-1944) depicted here, had become chairman of the German Communist Party (KPD) as well as head of its military organisation, the Red Front Fighters’ Federation (RFB) in 1925. Members greeted each other with a clenched fist. This gesture has been immortalized by the sculpture “Red Front”. After the KPD was banned in 1933, Thälmann was imprisoned for eleven years. In 1944 he was murdered in Buchenwald concentration camp. The monument (50 tons) was erected on a base of Ukrainian granite and was commissioned by the SED party leadership on the occasion of Thälmann’s 100th birthday. The sculpture required as much bronze as East Germany (GDR) was able to produce in one year. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, there were repeated calls for the demolishon of the monument. Thälmann was to be honoured in a more contemporary way. However, these plans were not put into effect for reasons of cost. Since 1995, the sculpture has been under a preservation order. The residential complex behind the monument was built between 1983 and 1986. 1300 apartments, a swimming pool and ponds were considered a showcase project of socialist living. Prior to this, and since 1874, the IV Berliner Gasanstalt was located on the premises.

Adress:

• Greifswalder Straße 52, 10405 Berlin

S-Bahn:

• Greifswalder Straße (S8, S85, S41, S42)

Tram:

• Greifswalder Str./Danziger Str. (M10, M4)

The neo-classical, Stalinist style architecture alongside Karl-Marx-Allee from Strausberger Platz to Frankfurter Allee, just under two kilometres to the east, lends distinction to the boulevard. The structures consist of city blocks up to 300 metres long, whose massive effect is tempered by projecting and receding structural elements and different numbers of storeys. The façades are partially covered with ceramic ornaments. Because these are reminiscent of cake decorations they gave rise to the term “confectioner’s style”, which is often used for this type of architecture. An air raid in February 1945 reduced the previous buildings on this site to rubble. After the end of the war a new residential area was to be built. However, there was great disagreement about its design: Initial plans envisaged a more rural development with single-family houses, gardens and small, workers’ housing estates. In 1949, Hans Scharoun, who was still town planner, appointed by the Soviet occupying powers, built two 1920’s style pergola houses (Karl-Marx-Allee 102/104 and 126/128). When the GDR was founded, the street was re-named after the Secretary General of the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union Josef Stalin, and as such, the government demanded a correspondingly splendid and stately aesthetic. As part of the “National Reconstruction Programme” announced in 1951, it was decided to broaden the street to 90 metres and to build seven to nine storeys high. Seventy percent of the materials used for the construction consisted of rubble collected and sorted by volunteers. Citizens contributed a total of four million working hours to the development, and in return, were given preference in the allocation of the apartments. Equipped with central heating, garbage chutes and elevators, they were of an extraordinarily high standard for the conditions at the time. The first 1148 apartments ready for occupancy were ceremonially handed over to the tenants on Stalin’s birthday in 1952. The year prior, a bronze statue had already been erected in his honour, located between Andreasstraße and Koppenstraße. Following the end of the Stalin era, the gift was removed overnight and eventually melted down. Info stations at several points along the avenue provide detailed information on the history of this extraordinary boulevard

Adress:

• Karl-Marx-Allee, 10243 Berlin (located between Straußberger Platz and Frankfurter Tor)

U-Bahn:

• U Strausberger Platz, U Weberwiese, U Frankfurter Tor (U5)

Tips and recommendations:

On the way from the Friedrichshain district, the former Stalinallee, to Karlshorst to the German-Russian Museum. Also the somewhat further detours are worthwhile.

Café Sibylle
Detailed information about the history of the Stalinallee - including the subsequent construction phase, which leads west from Straußberger Platz to Alexanderplatz - can be found in the permanent exhibition in the Café Sibylle.

Adress:

• Karl-Marx-Allee 72, 10243 Berlin

U-Bahn:

• U Strausberger Platz (U5)

Stasi Headquarters. Campus for Democracy.
Until 1990, this building complex housed the GDR Ministry for State Security (Stasi). Today, various institutions are based here, engaged in the research of state spying, repression and resistance. The Robert Havemann Foundation for example is in charge of the exhibition “Revolution and the Fall of the Wall”, which can be visited via audio guide in the courtyard. In House no.1, the working methods of the State Security are examined, while the exhibition “Einblick ins Geheime“ (Access to Secrecy) presents discoveries from the Stasi documents archive.
www.havemann-gesellschaft.de
www.stasimuseum.de
www.einblick-ins-geheime.de

Adress:

• Ruschestraße 103, 10365 Berlin

U-Bahn:

• U Magdalenenstraße (U5)

Gedenkort Rummelsburg (memorial)
The open-air exhibition was opened in 2015. It is located on the grounds of the former 19th century workhouse. In socialist Germany, however, the building served as a men’s prison. The exhibition will inform you about the fate of 18 former inmates who either suffered under the Prussian law system or the NS regime. They were either percecuted on racial grounds or stigmatised as “asocial individuals“. In the former workhouse/prison the inmates were commonly forced to hard physical labour which was often hazardous to their health. Additional informations can be retrieved via App.
www.gedenkort-rummelsburg.de/

Adress:

• Hauptstraße 8, 10317 Berlin

S-Bahn:

• Rummelsburg (S3)

Tierpark Friedrichsfelde (zoo / wildlife park)
Occupying 160 hectares, the Friedrichsfelde Zoo is Europe’s largest. It was opened in 1955. Prior to this, the area was a park designned by Peter Joseph Lenné. The Friedrichsfelde Palace (built in 1685) is now part of the zoo.

Adress:

• Am Tierpark 125, 10319 Berlin

U-Bahn:

• U Tierpark (U5)

Tram:

• Tierpark (21, 27, 37, 67, M17)

Amalien-Orgel
In the Karlshorst church “Zur frohen Botschaft” one finds the most distinctive baroque organ of the city. The instrument was built in 1755 for the Prussian princess Anna Amalia. Initially, it stood in the balcony room of the Berlin City Palace. Miracously, the organ survived various moves as well as two world wars. It consists almost exclusively of original components and can still be used today by musicians from all over the world.

Adress:

• Weseler Straße 6, 10318 Berlin

Tram:

• Marksburgstraße (21,27,37,67, M17)

No other place in Berlin has been so closely connected to the former Soviet presence than the district of Karlshorst. In the course of a peaceful take-over in April 1945, the German barracks complex in Zwieseler Straße was confiscated by Red Army troops. One week later, the unconditional surrender was signed in the officers’ mess and the head of Soviet Military Administration (SMAD) moved into their new quarters. Large parts of the surrounding district became restricted areas. Guards, officers and administrative staff lived and worked here. Even though the military administration officially disbanded with the founding of the GDR, many employees remained on site, carrying out similar tasks in an advisory capacity. As of 1952, the Soviet secret service resided on the premises. From 1963 onwards, the building complex was protected by a wall as well as a high-voltage metal screen. The remains of it can still be seen here today.In 1967 the officers’ mess was opened to the public and turned into the “Museum of the unconditional surrender of fascist Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945”. The Soviet military museum was mainly established to educate soldiers and cultivate tradition. After the withdrawal of the Russian troops in the early 1990s, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Russian Federation decided to jointly maintain the museum in a new form. Important reminders of Soviet merits in the victory over National Socialism have been preserved, such as the original furnishings of the room where the surrender was signed and the diorama “Storming the Reichstag”, designed in 1967 by the Soviet artist Mikhail Ananiev. In addition, the permanent exhibition “Deutschland und die Sowjetunion im Zweiten Weltkrieg“ (Germany and the Soviet Union in the Second World War) sheds light on the war of annihilation that Germany waged against the Soviet Union - from the perspective of both sides. Supplementary exhibitions are periodically devoted to special themes. Right now, visitors can see the exhibit, “Von Casablanca bis Karlshorst“ (From Casablanca to Karlshorst) on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the German surrender in 1945.
www.museum-karlshorst.de

Opening hours:

• Tuesday to Sunday 10 am – 6 pm

Adress:

• Zwieseler Straße 4, 10318 Berlin

S-Bahn:

• Karlshorst (S3, S5)

Tram

• Karlshorst (21, 27, 37, 67, M17)

Bus:

• Museum Karlshorst (Bus 296)