East Berlin was the partially recognised capital city of East Germany (GDR) from 1948 to 1990, although in 1945, it was recognised by the Three Powers as the Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French sectors were known as West Berlin. From 13 August 1961 until 9 November 1989, East Berlin was separated from West Berlin by the Berlin Wall. The Western Allied powers did not recognize East Berlin as the GDR's capital, nor the GDR's authority to govern East Berlin. For most of its administrative existence, East Berlin was officially known as Berlin, capital of the GDR by the GDR government. On 3 October 1990, the day Germany was officially reunified, East and West Berlin formally reunited as the city of Berlin.
The Straße des 17. Juni, is a street in central Berlin, the capital of Germany. Its name refers to the 17 June 1953 uprising in East Germany. It is the western continuation of the boulevard Unter den Linden. It runs east–west through the Tiergarten, a large park to the west of the city centre. At the eastern end of the street is the Brandenburg Gate and the Platz des 18. März, it then passes the Soviet War Memorial before passing either side of Victory Column (Siegessäule) in the middle of the park, and out of the park through the Charlottenburg Gate, terminating about half a kilometre later at Ernst-Reuter-Platz. The street is a section of the main western thoroughfare radiating out from the centre of Berlin so the road continues to the west of Ernst-Reuter-Platz, the first section of which is called Bismarckstraße.
The East German uprising of 1953 was an uprising that occurred in East Germany from 16 to 17 June 1953. It began with strike action by construction workers in East Berlin on 16 June against work quotas during the Sovietization process in East Germany. Demonstrations in East Berlin turned into a widespread uprising against the Government of East Germany and the Socialist Unity Party the next day, involving over one million people in about 700 localities across the country. Protests against declining living standards and unpopular Sovietization policies led to a wave of strikes and protests that were not easily brought under control and threatened to overthrow the East German government. The uprising in East Berlin was violently suppressed by tanks of the Soviet forces in Germany and the Kasernierte Volkspolizei. Demonstrations continued in over 500 towns and villages for several more days before eventually dying out.
The culture of East Germany varied throughout the years due to the political and historical events that took place in the 20th century, especially as a result of Nazism and Communism. A reflection on the history of arts and culture in East Germany reveals complex relationships between artists and the state, between oppositional and conformist art. In four decades, East Germany developed a distinct culture and produced works of literature, film, visual arts, music, and theatre of international acclaim. Popular culture specialities included among others a high popularity of nudism in Eastern Germany.
U5 is a line on the Berlin U-Bahn. It runs from Hauptbahnhof in Mitte eastwards through Alexanderplatz, Friedrichshain, Lichtenberg and Friedrichsfelde, surfaces in Biesdorf-Süd to pass Kaulsdorf and Hellersdorf above ground and finally reaches city limits at Hönow.
Friedrichshain is a quarter (Ortsteil) of the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany. From its creation in 1920 until 2001, it was a freestanding city borough. Formerly part of East Berlin, it is adjacent to Mitte, Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg and Lichtenberg.
Karl-Marx-Allee is a monumental socialist boulevard built by the GDR between 1952 and 1960 in Berlin Friedrichshain and Mitte. Today the boulevard is named after Karl Marx. It should not be confused with the Karl-Marx-Straße in the Neukölln district of Berlin.
Alfred Frederik Elias Grenander was a Swedish architect, who became one of the most prominent engineers during the first building period of the Berlin U-Bahn network in the early twentieth century.
The Frankfurter Tor is a large square in the inner-city Friedrichshain locality of Berlin. It is situated in the centre of the district, at the intersection of Karl-Marx-Allee and Frankfurter Allee with the Warschauer Straße and Petersburger Straße ring road. The Frankfurter Tor station, on the city's U-Bahn line U5, is located under the square.
The Bundesstraße 5 is a German federal highway running in a northwesterly to southeasterly direction from the Danish border near Niebüll to Frankfurt (Oder). It provides a direct route for motorists traveling between Berlin and Hamburg. In Berlin B5 forms among others the following squares and streets Heerstraße, Theodor-Heuss-Platz, Kaiserdamm, Straße des 17. Juni, Großer Stern, Unter den Linden, Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, Alexanderplatz, Karl-Marx-Allee, Frankfurter Tor, and Frankfurter Allee. The section north of Hamburg is partially paralleled by Bundesautobahn 23.
Hermann Henselmann was a German architect most famous for his buildings constructed in East Germany during the 1950s and 1960s.
The Straße der Pariser Kommune is a street in Friedrichshain, Berlin, Germany. It was known as Fruchtstraße until March 17, 1971, when it was renamed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Paris Commune.
The Kino International is a film theater in Berlin, built from 1961 to 1963. It is located on Karl-Marx-Allee in former East Berlin. It hosted premieres of the DEFA film studios until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Today it is a protected historic building and one of the venues of the annual Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale).
The Frankfurter Allee is one of the oldest roads of Berlin, the capital city of Germany. It extends the Karl-Marx-Allee from Frankfurter Tor in the direction of the city of Frankfurt (Oder). It is part of Bundesstraße 1 and has a length of 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi).
Edmund Collein was an East German architect and urban planner. He is also known for his photography while studying at the Bauhaus art school.
The Berlin U-Bahn originated in 1880 with Werner Siemens' idea to build an urban railway in Berlin. During the nine years after the German Empire was founded, the city's population grew by over one-third and traffic problems increased. In 1896, Siemens & Halske began to construct the first stretch of overhead railway. On 1 April 1897, the company began construction of an electric underground railway. The Berliner Verkehrs Aktiengesellschaft (BVG) was formed in 1928, and took over further construction and operation of the network. In 1938, the company was renamed Berlin Transport Company; the original acronym, however, remained. Since 1994, the BVG has been a public company.
Die Sechzehn Grundsätze des Städtebaus, or The Sixteen Principles of Urban Design, were from 1950 until 1955 the primary model for urban planning in the GDR.
The East German Republic Day Parade of 1989 was a parade on Karl-Marx-Allee in East Berlin on 7 October 1989 commemorating the 40th anniversary of the establishment of East Germany. This was the last East German Republic Day Parade and the last major East German political event with the regime falling mere weeks later. In Germany, this parade is remembered as the end of "the great period of military parades".
The Strausberger Platz is a large urban square in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg and marks the border to the district of Mitte. It is connected via Karl-Marx-Allee with Alexanderplatz and via Lichtenberger Straße with the Platz der Vereinten Nationen. These two streets intersect in an oval roundabout at Strausberger Platz.
The Lenin Monument was a monument to Vladimir Lenin in East Berlin created by the Soviet Russian sculptor Nikolai Tomsky. It was inaugurated on April 19, 1970 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth. After German reunification, the district council of Friedrichshain voted for its removal despite demonstrations and petitions from neighborhood residents and preservationists. The demolition process began in November 1991, and by February 1992 the monument was completely dismantled and its fragments buried on the outskirts of Berlin. In 2015, the head of the statue was excavated, and since 2016 it has been on display at Berlin’s Spandau Citadel as part of a permanent exhibition of Berlin political monuments.
