Eisenhüttenstadt
Encyclopedia
Eisenhüttenstadt is a town in the Oder-Spree
district of Brandenburg
, Germany
at the border with Poland
. The town was founded in 1950 (under the name Stalinstadt) alongside a new steel mill as a socialist model city and has a population of 32,214 (as of 31 December 2008). It was formerly linked to Kloppitz by bridge.
Eisenhüttenstadt is colloquially referred to as Hütte or Hüttenstadt by locals.
river in the Berlin-Warsaw glacial valley and is surrounded by terminal moraine
hills to the south and pine forests. The Oder-Spree canal
flows into the Oder in the town. Eisenhüttenstadt is located 25 km south of Frankfurt (Oder)
, 25 km north of Guben
and 110 km east of Berlin
.
in 1990, the population of Eisenhüttenstadt has continuously fallen (32,214 in 2008).
. Henry had acquired the former Lubusz Land
s north of Szydłów (Schiedlo) from the Silesia
n duke Bolesław II the Bald of Legnica
and incorporated the territory into his March of Lusatia. From 1316 to 1817 the town was enfeoffed to Neuzelle
Abbey, located at the northern border of Lower Lusatia
with the adjacent territory of the Margraves of Brandenburg
.
After Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg
had incorporated Lower Lusatia into the Lands of the Bohemian Crown
in 1367, he initiated the construction of the city wall. According to the 1635 Peace of Prague
, Fürstenberg became part of the Electorate of Saxony
and after the Congress of Vienna
in 1815 passed to the Prussian
Province of Brandenburg
. In 1830, the population was 1,686. With the construction of the railway line from Frankfurt (Oder)
to Breslau in 1846 and the construction of the Oder-Spree Canal in 1891, the development of Fürstenberg gained momentum. Between 1871 and 1900, the population doubled to 5,700 and reached 7,054 in 1933. In 1925, a river port at was constructed.
In the Nazi
era, armament works and chemical plants were built in Fürstenberg. The workforce was recruited from a nearby subcamp of the Sachsenhausen
and later from the Stalag
III B prisoner-of-war camp. On 24 April 1945 Fürstenberg was captured by the Red Army
. Retreating Wehrmacht
troops had blasted the Oder bridge to Kloppitz, which has never been rebuilt. After the implementation of the 1945 Potsdam Agreement
, Fürstenberg was an East German border town at the Oder-Neisse line
.
(20–24 July 1950) decided to erect a steel mill, the Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost, and an adjacent residential area. Construction began on 8 August 1950. The first blast furnace was put into operation one year later. The residential area was given the name Stalinstadt in honor of Joseph Stalin
on 7 May 1953.
Eisenhüttenstadt was advertised as the "first socialist city on German soil". Like other new socialist towns, such as Nowa Huta
in Poland
, it followed the example of Magnitogorsk
in the Soviet Union
and was built alongside a new state combine. In the first years, the architecture was strongly influenced by Stalinist
and neoclassical architecture
. Later, as in all other East German towns and cities, Plattenbau
architecture became predominant. The city plan was designed by the architect and planner Kurt Walter Leucht
.
As a consequence of destalinization, the town name was changed to Eisenhüttenstadt (German for "Ironwork City") on 13 November 1961. On the same day, the neighboring settlement of Fürstenberg was merged into the town. On 1 January 1969, the Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost together with other steel manufacturing enterprises was consolidated into the state-run VEB
Bandstahlkombinat "Hermann Matern".
After German reunification
, the VEB Bandstahlkombinat "Hermann Matern" was renamed into EKO Stahl AG and prepared for privatization by the Treuhand
anstalt. Due to increased competition from West German steel makers and the collapse of markets in Eastern Europe the EKO Stahl AG had to lay off workers and close several blast furnaces. In 1995, the steel mill was privatized and sold to the Belgian steel maker Cockerill-Sambre
, now part of Arcelor Mittal.
and Bauhaus
architect, Franz Ehrlich
, in August 1950. His modernist
plan, which laid out a dispersed town landscape along functional lines, was rejected by the Ministry for Reconstruction. The same happened to the plan presented by the architects Kurt Junghanns and Otto Geiler. The plan that was ultimately realized was developed by Kurt Walter Leucht
.
and was at 11.5 percent in 2008.
Eisenhüttenstadt is connected by two federal highways, Bundesstraße
112 and 246, to Frankfurt (Oder)
, Guben
and Storkow (Mark). The next motorway is in Frankfurt (Oder)
. The town has a railroad station with hourly trains to Berlin
, Frankfurt (Oder)
and Cottbus
. The town is also linked to Berlin by the Oder-Spree Canal.
(Saarland
, Germany
), established in 1986, this was the first East and West German town twinning Drancy
, France
Głogów, Poland
Dimitrovgrad
, Bulgaria
Oder-Spree
Oder-Spree is a Kreis in the eastern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring are the district Märkisch-Oderland, the district-free city Frankfurt , Poland, the district Spree-Neiße and Dahme-Spreewald, and the Bundesland Berlin.-Geography:The district is named after the two major rivers in the...
district of Brandenburg
Brandenburg
Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
at the border with Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. The town was founded in 1950 (under the name Stalinstadt) alongside a new steel mill as a socialist model city and has a population of 32,214 (as of 31 December 2008). It was formerly linked to Kloppitz by bridge.
Eisenhüttenstadt is colloquially referred to as Hütte or Hüttenstadt by locals.
Geography
Eisenhüttenstadt is located on the OderOder
The Oder is a river in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, later forming of the border between Poland and Germany, part of the Oder-Neisse line...
river in the Berlin-Warsaw glacial valley and is surrounded by terminal moraine
Terminal moraine
A terminal moraine, also called end moraine, is a moraine that forms at the end of the glacier called the snout.Terminal moraines mark the maximum advance of the glacier. An end moraine is at the present boundary of the glacier....
hills to the south and pine forests. The Oder-Spree canal
Oder–Spree Canal
The Oder-Spree Canal, or the Oder-Spree-Kanal in German, is a canal in the east of Germany. It links the Dahme river, at Schmöckwitz in the south-eastern suburbs of Berlin, with the River Oder, at Eisenhüttenstadt. It provides an important commercial navigable connection between Berlin and the...
flows into the Oder in the town. Eisenhüttenstadt is located 25 km south of Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
, 25 km north of Guben
Guben
Guben is a town on the Lusatian Neisse river in the state of Brandenburg, Germany. Located in the Spree-Neiße district, Guben has a population of 20,049...
and 110 km east of Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
Demography
After the foundation of Eisenhüttenstadt in 1950, the population rose from 2,400 in 1953 to 38,138 in 1965 to the historical high of 53,048 in 1988. Since German reunificationGerman reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
in 1990, the population of Eisenhüttenstadt has continuously fallen (32,214 in 2008).
Fürstenberg
Fürstenberg was founded around 1250 by the Wettin Margrave Henry the IllustriousHenry III, Margrave of Meissen
Henry III, called Henry the Illustrious from the House of Wettin was Margrave of Meissen and last Margrave of Lusatia from 1221 until his death; from 1242 also Landgrave of Thuringia.-Life:Born probably at the Albrechtsburg residence in Meissen, Henry was the youngest son of Margrave Theodoric I...
. Henry had acquired the former Lubusz Land
Lubusz Land
Lubusz Land is a historical region and cultural landscape in Poland and Germany, on both sides of the Oder river.Originally the settlement area of the West Slavic Leubuzzi, a Veleti tribe, the swampy area was located east of Mark Brandenburg and west of Greater Poland, south of Pomerania and north...
s north of Szydłów (Schiedlo) from the Silesia
Silesia
Silesia is a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with smaller parts also in the Czech Republic, and Germany.Silesia is rich in mineral and natural resources, and includes several important industrial areas. Silesia's largest city and historical capital is Wrocław...
n duke Bolesław II the Bald of Legnica
Duchy of Legnica
The Duchy of Legnica or Duchy of Liegnitz was one of the Duchies of Silesia. Its capital was Legnica in Lower Silesia....
and incorporated the territory into his March of Lusatia. From 1316 to 1817 the town was enfeoffed to Neuzelle
Neuzelle
Neuzelle is a municipality in the Oder-Spree district, Brandenburg, Germany, along the border with Poland. The settlement in the historic Lower Lusatia region is probably best known for Neuzelle Abbey and its Neuzeller Kloster Brewery.-History:...
Abbey, located at the northern border of Lower Lusatia
Lower Lusatia
Lower Lusatia is a historical region stretching from the southeast of the Brandenburg state of Germany to the southwest of the Lubusz Voivodeship in Poland. Important towns beside the historic capital Lübben include Calau, Cottbus, Guben , Luckau, Spremberg, Finsterwalde, Senftenberg and Żary...
with the adjacent territory of the Margraves of Brandenburg
Margraviate of Brandenburg
The Margraviate of Brandenburg was a major principality of the Holy Roman Empire from 1157 to 1806. Also known as the March of Brandenburg , it played a pivotal role in the history of Germany and Central Europe....
.
After Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg
Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles IV , born Wenceslaus , was the second king of Bohemia from the House of Luxembourg, and the first king of Bohemia to also become Holy Roman Emperor....
had incorporated Lower Lusatia into the Lands of the Bohemian Crown
Lands of the Bohemian Crown
The Lands of the Bohemian Crown , also called the Lands of the Crown of Saint Wenceslas or simply the Bohemian Crown or Czech Crown lands , refers to the area connected by feudal relations under the joint rule of the Bohemian kings...
in 1367, he initiated the construction of the city wall. According to the 1635 Peace of Prague
Peace of Prague (1635)
The Peace of Prague of 30 May 1635 was a treaty between the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II and the Electorate of Saxony representing most of the Protestant states of the Holy Roman Empire...
, Fürstenberg became part of the Electorate of Saxony
Electorate of Saxony
The Electorate of Saxony , sometimes referred to as Upper Saxony, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire. It was established when Emperor Charles IV raised the Ascanian duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg to the status of an Electorate by the Golden Bull of 1356...
and after the Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
in 1815 passed to the Prussian
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...
Province of Brandenburg
Province of Brandenburg
The Province of Brandenburg was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946.-History:The first people who are known to have inhabited Brandenburg were the Suevi. They were succeeded by the Slavonians, whom Henry II conquered and converted to Christianity in...
. In 1830, the population was 1,686. With the construction of the railway line from Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
to Breslau in 1846 and the construction of the Oder-Spree Canal in 1891, the development of Fürstenberg gained momentum. Between 1871 and 1900, the population doubled to 5,700 and reached 7,054 in 1933. In 1925, a river port at was constructed.
In the Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
era, armament works and chemical plants were built in Fürstenberg. The workforce was recruited from a nearby subcamp of the Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May, 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD...
and later from the Stalag
Stalag
In Germany, stalag was a term used for prisoner-of-war camps. Stalag is a contraction of "Stammlager", itself short for Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager.- Legal definitions :...
III B prisoner-of-war camp. On 24 April 1945 Fürstenberg was captured by the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. Retreating Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
troops had blasted the Oder bridge to Kloppitz, which has never been rebuilt. After the implementation of the 1945 Potsdam Agreement
Potsdam Agreement
The Potsdam Agreement was the Allied plan of tripartite military occupation and reconstruction of Germany—referring to the German Reich with its pre-war 1937 borders including the former eastern territories—and the entire European Theatre of War territory...
, Fürstenberg was an East German border town at the Oder-Neisse line
Oder-Neisse line
The Oder–Neisse line is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
.
Eisenhüttenstadt
The third congress of the Socialist Unity Party of GermanySocialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...
(20–24 July 1950) decided to erect a steel mill, the Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost, and an adjacent residential area. Construction began on 8 August 1950. The first blast furnace was put into operation one year later. The residential area was given the name Stalinstadt in honor of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
on 7 May 1953.
Eisenhüttenstadt was advertised as the "first socialist city on German soil". Like other new socialist towns, such as Nowa Huta
Nowa Huta
Nowa Huta - is the easternmost district of Kraków, Poland, . With more than 200,000 inhabitants it is one of the most populous areas of the city.- History :...
in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, it followed the example of Magnitogorsk
Magnitogorsk
Magnitogorsk is a mining and industrial city in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern side of the extreme southern extent of the Ural Mountains by the Ural River. Population: 418,545 ;...
in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and was built alongside a new state combine. In the first years, the architecture was strongly influenced by Stalinist
Stalinist architecture
Stalinist architecture , also referred to as Stalinist Gothic, or Socialist Classicism, is a term given to architecture of the Soviet Union between 1933, when Boris Iofan's draft for Palace of the Soviets was officially approved, and 1955, when Nikita Khrushchev condemned "excesses" of the past...
and neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture
Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...
. Later, as in all other East German towns and cities, Plattenbau
Plattenbau
Plattenbau is the German word for a building whose structure is constructed of large, prefabricated concrete slabs. The word is a compound of Platte and Bau...
architecture became predominant. The city plan was designed by the architect and planner Kurt Walter Leucht
Kurt Walter Leucht
Kurt Walter Leucht was a German architect and city planner. He is mostly known for his design of the planned city Eisenhüttenstadt.-External links:* Todesjahr in archINFORM.net...
.
As a consequence of destalinization, the town name was changed to Eisenhüttenstadt (German for "Ironwork City") on 13 November 1961. On the same day, the neighboring settlement of Fürstenberg was merged into the town. On 1 January 1969, the Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost together with other steel manufacturing enterprises was consolidated into the state-run VEB
Volkseigener Betrieb
The Volkseigener Betrieb was the legal form of industrial enterprise in East Germany...
Bandstahlkombinat "Hermann Matern".
After German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
, the VEB Bandstahlkombinat "Hermann Matern" was renamed into EKO Stahl AG and prepared for privatization by the Treuhand
Treuhand
The Treuhandanstalt was the agency that privatized the East German enterprises, Volkseigener Betrieb , owned as public property. Created by the Volkskammer on June 17, 1990, it oversaw the restructuring and selling of about 8,500 firms with initially over 4 million employees...
anstalt. Due to increased competition from West German steel makers and the collapse of markets in Eastern Europe the EKO Stahl AG had to lay off workers and close several blast furnaces. In 1995, the steel mill was privatized and sold to the Belgian steel maker Cockerill-Sambre
Cockerill-Sambre
Cockerill-Sambre was a group of Belgian steel manufacturers headquartered in Seraing , on the Meuse River, and in Charleroi, on the shore of the Sambre River....
, now part of Arcelor Mittal.
Architecture
The first design for the new residential quarter was developed by the modernistModernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
and Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
architect, Franz Ehrlich
Franz Ehrlich
Franz Ehrlich was a German architect. Franz Ehrlich was a student at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1927 to 1930.-References:...
, in August 1950. His modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
plan, which laid out a dispersed town landscape along functional lines, was rejected by the Ministry for Reconstruction. The same happened to the plan presented by the architects Kurt Junghanns and Otto Geiler. The plan that was ultimately realized was developed by Kurt Walter Leucht
Kurt Walter Leucht
Kurt Walter Leucht was a German architect and city planner. He is mostly known for his design of the planned city Eisenhüttenstadt.-External links:* Todesjahr in archINFORM.net...
.
Economy and Infrastructure
Eisenhüttenstadt's economy is dominated by the steel maker ArcelorMittal Eisenhüttenstadt (former called EKO Stahl GmbH), a subsidiary of Arcelor Mittal. The unemployment rate has steadily risen since German reunificationGerman reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
and was at 11.5 percent in 2008.
Eisenhüttenstadt is connected by two federal highways, Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße
Bundesstraße , abbreviated B, is the denotation for German and Austrian national highways.-Germany:...
112 and 246, to Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
, Guben
Guben
Guben is a town on the Lusatian Neisse river in the state of Brandenburg, Germany. Located in the Spree-Neiße district, Guben has a population of 20,049...
and Storkow (Mark). The next motorway is in Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
. The town has a railroad station with hourly trains to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt (Oder)
Frankfurt is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, located on the Oder River, on the German-Polish border directly opposite the town of Słubice which was a part of Frankfurt until 1945. At the end of the 1980s it reached a population peak with more than 87,000 inhabitants...
and Cottbus
Cottbus
Cottbus is a city in Brandenburg, Germany, situated around southeast of Berlin, on the River Spree. As of , its population was .- History :...
. The town is also linked to Berlin by the Oder-Spree Canal.
Twin cities
SaarlouisSaarlouis
Saarlouis is a city in the Saarland, Germany, capital of the district of Saarlouis. In 2006, the town had a population of 38,327. Saarlouis, as the name implies, is located at the river Saar....
(Saarland
Saarland
Saarland is one of the sixteen states of Germany. The capital is Saarbrücken. It has an area of 2570 km² and 1,045,000 inhabitants. In both area and population, it is the smallest state in Germany other than the city-states...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
), established in 1986, this was the first East and West German town twinning Drancy
Drancy
Drancy is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 10.8 km from the center of Paris.- Toponomy :...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Głogów, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
Dimitrovgrad
Dimitrovgrad, Bulgaria
Dimitrovgrad is a town in Haskovo Province, South-central Bulgaria, located close to the province capital - Haskovo. It is a newly founded settlement, built in the end of the 1940s. and named after the communist leader Georgi Dimitrov. The town is the administrative centre of the homonymous...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
Notable people
- Paul van DykPaul van DykMatthias Paul, better known by his stage name Paul van Dyk is a German Grammy Award-winning Electronic Dance Music DJ, musician and record producer...
, DJ and music producer - Udo BeyerUdo BeyerUdo Beyer is a former East German track and field athlete who competed in the shot put.- Life :Beyer is the oldest of the six children of heating mechanic Hans-Georg Beyer and his wife Eva-Marie and was born in Stalinstadt, today Eisenhüttenstadt. He grew up in Breslack, , and in Eisenhüttenstadt...
, athlete - Frank SchafferFrank SchafferFrank Schaffer is a retired East German athlete who specialized in the 400 metres.He won the bronze medal in the 400 metres at the 1980 Summer Olympics in a lifetime best time of 44.87 seconds...
, athlete - Torsten GutscheTorsten GutscheTorsten Gutsche is an East German-German sprint canoer who competed from the late 1980s to the late 1990s...
, flatwater canoer - Kathrin BoronKathrin BoronKathrin Boron is a German sculler, and four-time Olympic gold medalist...
, sculler - Tania Bunke, communist revolutionary who fought alongside Che GuevaraChe GuevaraErnesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...