The area around this wide boulevard has a vibrant and relaxed atmosphere. Most residents are in their mid-twenties, drawn here by the alternative cafés and cool bars.
t The 2-km (1-mile) boulevard stretches from Frankfurter Tor to Strausberger Platz
Experience Friedrichshain
t One of the two domed towers of Frankfurter Tor (Frankfurt Gate)
The route leading east to Poland and Moscow was initially called Frankfurter Strasse, and then renamed Stalinallee in 1949. Having suffered severe damage during World War II, the street was chosen as the site for the construction showpiece of the new German Democratic Republic, featuring spacious and luxurious apartments for workers, as well as commercial infrastructure.
The avenue was widened to 90 m (300 ft) and, in the course of the next 10 years, huge residential tower blocks and a row of shops were built on it. The first houses to be built on the street were Modernist in style and quickly denounced as “too Western”. They were hidden behind trees while the rest of the street proceeded in a more aptly Socialist style. The next architects followed a style known in the Soviet Union as “pastry chef”, which was “nationalistic in form, but socialist in content”, and linked the whole work to Berlin’s own traditions. Hence there are motifs taken from famous Berlin architects Schinkel and Gontard, as well as from the renowned Meissen porcelain.
The buildings on this street, renamed Karl-Marx-Allee in 1961, are now considered historic monuments, and the section between Strausberger Platz and Frankfurter Tor is effectively a huge open-air museum of Socialist Realist architecture. The buildings have been cleaned up and the crumbling details are gradually being restored.
Experience Friedrichshain
In 1953, Karl-Marx-Allee was the site of a mass worker uprising. Increasing food costs and work quotas led people to begin peaceful protests, which were followed by strikes and marches as their calls fell on deaf ears. The situation escalated, with the uprising spreading across East Germany. The uprising ended on 17 June, when Soviet tanks were called in to help the police suppress a protest in East Berlin. Over 50 workers were killed and many more injured in the revolt.