• Memorial to Ernst Thälmann
In 1986, on the 100th birthday of Ernst Thälmann, one of the pre-war leaders of the Communist Party, the GDR authorities named a residential area and a park in Berlin's Prezlauer Berg district after him. Located in the park is also a memorial to Ernst Thälmann, who was murdered in 1944 in the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Image: Essen, 1925, Political rally of the KPD in Essen prior to the March 1925 presidential elections, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-14686-0026, k.A.
Essen, 1925, Political rally of the KPD in Essen prior to the March 1925 presidential elections, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-14686-0026, k.A.

Image: Berlin, 2010, Memorial to Ernst Thälmann, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2010, Memorial to Ernst Thälmann, Stiftung Denkmal
Ernst Thälmann, born in Hamburg in 1886, was a communist politician, and between 1919 and 1933 a member of the Hamburg Parliament for the KPD (Communist Party of Germany). Between 1924 and 1933, he was also a member of the Reichstag, the national parliament. In 1923, Ernst Thälmann and leading figures in the Hamburg KPD organised the Hamburg Uprising. The uprising failed and over 100 people lost their lives. In 1925, Ernst Thälmann became the KPD's leader; that same year, as well as in 1932, he ran for the position of Reich president. Under Ernst Thälmann's leadership, the KPD adopted the course of the Soviet Communist Party and its leader Joseph Stalin. The main political enemy of the KPD was the Social Democratic Party, which, in their opinion, was reactionary.
Following the National Socialists' rise to power, Ernst Thälmann was arrested. He spent 11 years in numerous prisons without ever being put on trial. On August 18, 1944, Ernst Thälmann was murdered upon Adolf Hitler's direct orders: he was taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp and most probably shot by the SS. His body was cremated right afterwards.
Image: Essen, 1925, Political rally of the KPD in Essen prior to the March 1925 presidential elections, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-14686-0026, k.A.
Essen, 1925, Political rally of the KPD in Essen prior to the March 1925 presidential elections, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-14686-0026, k.A.

Image: Berlin, 2010, Memorial to Ernst Thälmann, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2010, Memorial to Ernst Thälmann, Stiftung Denkmal
The memorial is dedicated to Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the Communist Party who was shot in the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944 following 11 years of imprisonment by the National Socialists.
Image: Place unknown, 1932, Portrait of Ernst Thälmann as the KPD's candidate for the Reich presidential elections, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-14686-0026, k.A.
Place unknown, 1932, Portrait of Ernst Thälmann as the KPD's candidate for the Reich presidential elections, Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-14686-0026, k.A.

Image: Berlin, 2010, Memorial to Ernst Thälmann, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2010, Memorial to Ernst Thälmann, Stiftung Denkmal
The GDR leadership considered itself a successor of the KPD – to them, Ernst Thälmann was a communist hero who was both a leader of the labour movement, an important party leader and a resistance fighter against fascism. The cult surrounding Ernst Thälmann played a central role in the official historical policy of the GDR. Already in 1949, the government of East Berlin decided to rename Wilhelmplatz to Thälmannplatz in his honour. That same year, a tender for the design of a memorial was issued. The disputes surrounding the memorial went on for decades. The erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 was an obstacle to setting up a memorial on Thälmannplatz which was too close to the sector border; the project was discontinued in 1966. In the 1970s, the GDR leadership commissioned a concept for a memorial in front of the Central Committee's headquarters on Werderscher Markt. This plan, too, was not realised, while the Thälmannplatz itself seized to exist due to construction work in the mid-1970s.
In 1979, the politbureau of the SED decided to remodel the premises of the shut-down gas works along Greifswalder Straße to a park and name it in honour of Thälmann. Head of state Erich Honecker personally commissioned Soviet artist Lev Kerbel with designing the Thälmann memorial for the park. On Thälmann's 100th birthday, in 1986, the memorial and the park were inaugurated in the vicinity of a newly established residential area. The memorial depicts the bust of Thälmann in front of a waving flag. Initially, surrounding the statue were stones bearing inscribed quotations by Thälmann and Honecker. Following Germany's reunification in 1990, a commission of the Berlin Senate recommended tearing down the memorial. Finally, only the stone plaques with the quotations were removed. The memorial is today registered as a monument and has since 2006 been tended to by the city of Berlin.
Image: Berlin, 2010, Memorial to Ernst Thälmann on Greifswalder Straße, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2010, Memorial to Ernst Thälmann on Greifswalder Straße, Stiftung Denkmal

Image: Berlin, 2010, Detailed view of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal
Berlin, 2010, Detailed view of the memorial, Stiftung Denkmal
Name
Denkmal für Ernst Thälmann
Address
Greifswalder Straße 52
10405 Berlin
Open
Accessible at all times