Ernst-Thälmann-Park
Encyclopedia
Prenzlauer Berg
Prenzlauer Berg is a locality of Berlin, in the borough of Pankow.Until 2001, Prenzlauer Berg was a borough of Berlin; in that year it was included in the borough of Pankow....
district in 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...
. It was laid out in 1986 at the site of a former coal gas
Coal gas
Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made by the destructive distillation of coal containing a variety of calorific gases including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane and volatile hydrocarbons together with small quantities of non-calorific gases such as carbon dioxide and nitrogen...
plant and named after the former Communist party
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...
leader Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...
(1886-1944).
The former plant built in 1874 was closed in 1981, the last gasometer was demolished in 1984. With regard to the 750 years' jubilee of (then) East Berlin
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...
the East German government set up plans for an "inhabited park", including a memorial, a public pool, a planetarium
Planetarium
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation...
, a school and a housing estate for 4.000 residents. The park was inaugurated on April 16, 1986, Thälmann's hundredth birthday. The former use of the area left an extensive contamination of soil and ground water with cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
s, phenols
Phenols
In organic chemistry, phenols, sometimes called phenolics, are a class of chemical compounds consisting of a hydroxyl group bonded directly to an aromatic hydrocarbon group...
and tar
Tar
Tar is modified pitch produced primarily from the wood and roots of pine by destructive distillation under pyrolysis. Production and trade in tar was a major contributor in the economies of Northern Europe and Colonial America. Its main use was in preserving wooden vessels against rot. The largest...
that 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...
had to be cleared by excavation and bioremediation
Bioremediation
Bioremediation is the use of microorganism metabolism to remove pollutants. Technologies can be generally classified as in situ or ex situ. In situ bioremediation involves treating the contaminated material at the site, while ex situ involves the removal of the contaminated material to be treated...
. 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 (45.9 ft) was created by Lev Kerbel
Lev Kerbel
Lev Efimovich Kerbel is a renowned sculptor of Soviet realist works. Kerbel's creations included statues of Marx, Lenin and Yuri Gagarin, which were sent to socialist countries across the world...
between 1981 and 1986. Disputed from the beginning, some plaques with political slogans have been removed in the 1990s. It is today a protected landmark.