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Ernst-Thälmann-Park

PRENZLAUER BERG

On the west side of Greifswalder Strasse stands a monumental bronze bust of Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the German comunist party (KPD) between 1925 and 1933. Staring proudly and defiantly into the distance, the statue – created by Lev Kerbel in the ’80s – seems a serious statement: the pursed lips, drawn brow and clenched fist. But then you notice how that clenched fist seems to burst directly out of his shoulder, and the way the monument is covered in a disrespectful array of bird droppings, broken beer bottles and frayed cigarette butts, and the illusion is shattered.

Behind the statue, stretching all the way across to Prenzlauer Allee, is the associated park, inaugurated in 1986 by the GDR on the occasion of Thälmann’s 100th birthday. Spanning 25 hectares in one of Berlin’s most gentrified neighbourhoods, it’s a prime memento of Prenzlauer Berg before the Wende, and was among the last prestigious urban building projects of the GDR.

Built on the site of a defunct, heavily polluting gas plant (the park‘s soil was ‘remediated’ following reunification, and even today a bio-treatment plant works continuously to decontaminate the groundwater), it was imagined as a kind of ‘state in miniature.’ Built by famed architect Erhardt Gißke to open right in time for the German capital’s 750th anniversary (the manhole covers are stamped with ‘Made in the GDR’), it provides housing, leisure and cultural facilities, including a cutting-edge planetarium.

In general, though, the park’s loose clusters of high-rise Plattenbauten contrast starkly with the area’s high-rent Altbau homes. Its paths and sidewalks wind through rocky outcroppings, beside stagnant ponds paddled by turtles and ducks, and past unkempt foliage and untidy flowerbeds. Old women bend over their walkers, families push their children in strollers and dogs bound from the bushes to rejoin their owners. The park’s slightly worn, East Berlin character offers a surprising few hours of distraction, as well as a glimpse into how Prenzlauer Berg was before it gentrified. TE

North of Danziger Str., between Greifswalder Str. and Prenzlauer Allee, 10405; M4 Danziger Str.

Map: North H2