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Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists

Buildings and structures in Friedrichshain-KreuzbergGranite sculpturesMonuments and memorials to the victims of Nazism in BerlinOutdoor sculptures in BerlinPolish culture
Polish military memorials and cemeteriesSoviet military memorials and cemeteriesVandalized works of artWikipedia references cleanup from February 2021
Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti Fascists 1
Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti Fascists 1

The Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists (German: Denkmal des polnischen Soldaten und deutschen Antifaschisten; Polish: Pomnik żołnierza polskiego i niemieckiego antyfaszysty) is a war memorial in Berlin, dedicated in 1972. Built by the German Democratic Republic during the division of Germany, it is today the principal German monument to the Polish soldiers who died in World War II, as well as an important monument to the German resistance.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti-Fascists
Virchowstraße, Berlin Prenzlauer Berg

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Latitude Longitude
N 52.528766666667 ° E 13.437633333333 °
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Denkmal des polnischen Soldaten und deutschen Antifaschisten

Virchowstraße
10249 Berlin, Prenzlauer Berg
Germany
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Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti Fascists 1
Memorial to Polish Soldiers and German Anti Fascists 1
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Nearby Places

Ernst-Thälmann-Park
Ernst-Thälmann-Park

Ernst-Thälmann-Park is a park in the centre of the Prenzlauer Berg district in Berlin. It was laid out in 1986 at the site of a former coal gas plant and named after the former Communist party leader Ernst Thälmann (1886-1944). The former plant built in 1874 was closed in 1981, the last gasometer was demolished in 1984. In honor of Berlin's 750-year jubilee the East German government drew up plans for an "inhabited park", including a memorial, a public pool, a planetarium, a school and a housing estate for 4,000 residents. The park was inaugurated on 16 April 1986, Thälmann's hundredth birthday. The former use of the area left an extensive contamination of soil and groundwater with cyanides, phenols and tar that after German reunification had to be cleared by excavation and bioremediation. Though there had been some discussion about the name, a majority of dwellers voted against a change in 1997. Today the park features public houses as well as art galleries and a small theatre at the former administrative building of the gas plant. The Ernst Thälmann bronze monument with a height of 14 m (46 ft) was created by Soviet sculptor Lev Kerbel between 1981 and 1986. Some plaques with political slogans were removed in the 1990s. The monument remains a protected landmark today. Since the early 2000s the Ernst Thälmann bronze monument has become a famous skateboarding spot with professionals from all over the world visiting the site. Memorable skateboarders such as Dylan Rieder and Kenny Hopf have performed their outrageous trickery at the venue. Hopf even filmed a full video part at the historical site during COVID-19-lockdown in 2020.

Karl-Marx-Allee
Karl-Marx-Allee

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. The boulevard was named Stalinallee between 1949 and 1961 (previously Große Frankfurter Straße), and was a flagship building project of East Germany's reconstruction programme after World War II. It was designed by the architects Hermann Henselmann, Hartmann, Hopp, Leucht, Paulick, and Souradny to contain spacious and luxurious apartments for workers, as well as shops, restaurants, cafés, a tourist hotel, and an enormous cinema, the Kino International. The avenue, which is 89 metres (292 ft) wide and nearly 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) long, is lined with monumental eight-story buildings designed in the wedding-cake style, the socialist classicism of the Soviet Union. At each end are dual towers at Frankfurter Tor and Strausberger Platz designed by Hermann Henselmann. The buildings differ in the revetments of the facades which contain often equally, traditional Berlin motifs by Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Most of the buildings are covered by architectural ceramics. In 1963 the tiled facades of these buildings were falling off, necessitating sheltering structures over the sidewalks in some places to protect pedestrians.A monumental Stalin statue presented to the East German government by a Komsomol delegation on the occasion of the Third World Festival of Youth and Students was formally dedicated on 3 August 1951 after being temporarily placed at a location on the newly designed and impressive boulevard. It remained there until 1961 when it was removed in a clandestine operation in the course of de-Stalinization. On 17 June 1953 the Stalinallee became the focus of a worker uprising which endangered the young state's existence. Builders and construction workers demonstrated against the communist government, leading to a national uprising. The rebellion was quashed with Soviet tanks and troops, resulting in the loss of at least 125 lives. Later the street was used for East Germany's annual May Day parade, featuring thousands of soldiers along with tanks and other military vehicles to showcase the power and the glory of the communist government. De-Stalinization led to the renaming of the street, after the founder of Marxism, in late 1961. Since the collapse of Eastern European communism in 1989/1990, renaming the street back to its prewar name Große Frankfurter Straße has periodically been discussed, so far without conclusive results. The boulevard later found favour with postmodernists, with Philip Johnson describing it as 'true city planning on the grand scale', while Aldo Rossi called it 'Europe's last great street.' Since German reunification most of the buildings, including the two towers, have been restored.