Film feature Archive - Thinking from the Pedestal

Vigil of “Young Pioneers“ in front of the Ernst Thälmann monument, 1986.

The Thälmann Myth in the German Democratic Republic (GDR)

The GDR chose Ernst Thälmann as its first hero. The state leadership instrumentalised and idealised Thälmann into a cult figure.

15. July 2023

Ernst Thälmann

Ernst Thälmann was born in Hamburg on 16 April 1886. He grew up in modest circumstances.

14. July 2023

Employees of the Lauchhammer factory with the bronze head of the Ernst Thälmann monument, 1985.

The History of the Monument

A few weeks after the founding of the German Democratic Republic, the first competition for the creation of a monument to Ernst Thälmann in Berlin was announced.

13. July 2023

The Thälmann monument has been painted repeatedly with graffiti since the 1990s.

Ernst Thälmann Monument and Park since 1990

After 1989, a public debate began about the name of the residential area and dealing with the Ernst Thälmann Monument.

12. July 2023

In addition to the central monument, the focal points of the park’s design were a pond with a rhododendron grove, a rose garden and playgrounds. View of the area, around 1986.

Ernst-Thälmann-Park

The park, the residential buildings, and the central Ernst Thälmann monument were aspects of a project with symbolic value for the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party (SED).

11. July 2023

The Gasworks

Ernst Thälmann Park was built on the site of an inoperative gasworks. From 1873, here a municipal gasworks produced gas.

10. July 2023

Lookinout
The space around the monument and its usage

As early as 1986, Betina Kuntzsch would have had some alternatives for the monument: heroes or heroines with a human face – Rosa Luxemburg in a huge flower garden or Sigmund Jähn, the first German in space.

14. November 2021

Head Fist Flag
A Thälmann monument – three years before the fall of the Wall

Ernst Thälmann had moved the masses during the Weimar Republic. He failed to bring about the “victory of communism”.

13. November 2021

Gasometer
The Triple Colosseum of Prenzlauer Berg

When the decision to build Ernst Thälmann Park was made in 1981, things were starting to simmer in the capital of the GDR. Resistance developed against the planned demolition of the former gasworks.

13. November 2021