At the beginning of the 1970s, some impressive murals were painted in the Halle-Neustadt district of Halle, which are still preserved today. The artist Erich Enge erected the mural „He stirred the sleep of the world“, dedicated to Lenin, on the outer wall of the building in Schieloer Straße, at the corner of Harzgeroder Straße. Weiterlesen
The sitting Lenin from Bischofswerda looks grandfatherly. With a serene posture and a light smile, he looks contemplatively to the side. In his left hand he holds a book and marks the page with his index finger, as if after a short pause for thought he wanted to read on. In contrast to many of Lenin’s heroic representations, Manfred Wagner created this calm, reflexive figure in 1970. He was interested in presenting the person behind the hero. Weiterlesen
After the military withdrawal in 1994, a statue of Lenin was left behind in the military area of the Soviet Army in Fürstenwalde. The sculpture is presumably a creation of the members of the army from the 1970s. After a long period of uncertainty, the monument was brought into the private collection of the association IFA-Freunde Trebus (Fürstenwalde) in 2015, where it is part of a large exhibition of GDR vehicles, everyday objects and monuments. Weiterlesen
Almost thirty years ago the Sassnitz Lenin bust was stained with red paint and wrapped in a plastic cover in the local municipal depot. Now the sculpture came on lent to Fürstenwalde, where it is part of the GDR collection of the association IFA-Freunde Trebus. Before its presentation, the Lenin head was thoroughly polished so that it can now receive visitors in its old freshness. Weiterlesen
In the year of 2015 a typical scene from the period immediately after the German reunification was seen again in the city of Strausberg: A Lenin-statue being lifted by a crane truck, in order to prepare its removal. The sculpture had been lying in the backyard of the Museum for Local History since 1991, covered by a black plastic. The German Communist Party had proposed its re-erection, but neither the mayor nor the director of the museum were convinced of the idea. Instead, they decided to give the statue to the cultural association “IFA-Freunde Trebus” (from the city of Fürstenwalde), in order to be exposed together with a collection of cars and everyday objects from the GDR. Weiterlesen
Only fifteen minutes walk from the Rostock city harbour lies one of the most impressive revolutionary monuments in Germany. It’s the „memorial of revolutionary sailors“ erected in honour of the 1918-November Revolution. The sailors‘ uprising in Kiel was the beginning of the revolution that led to the fall of the monarchy in the German Reich and the foundation of a parliamentary democracy („Weimar Republic“). Rostock’s monument consists of two parts: a twenty-metre-long relief wall with scenes of the international labour movement and a nine-metre-high bronze sculpture of two sailors in attacking position. Weiterlesen
A statue, which is under monument protection, but disappears twice without a trace. An old and forgotten bust, which suddenly is standing at the entrance of the Volkspark. Lenin’s existence in Potsdam is a succession of mysterious incidents and even journalists, politicians and public authorities lose track of it. Weiterlesen
After the Red Army left its base in Vogelsang, Brandenburg, the abandoned barracks turned into a popular destination for photographers and adventurous tourists. The main attraction was the large mural with a Lenin relief between the old café and the officers‘ house. However, a few years ago, following the decision to renaturalize the area, the demolition of the entire military complex began, which also endangered the Lenin Monument. But finally the monument to the Communist revolutionary was saved in spring of 2017 and taken to Wünsdorf, being placed in front of a museum. Weiterlesen
In 1974 Dresden received the second largest German Lenin statue, a 120-ton monument in red granite showing Lenin marching forward followed by two comrades. After the fall of Communism, the statue was removed from its former location and given to the private collection of an art collector from southern Germany, where it still stands today, dismantled into many pieces. The mural „The Path of the Red Flag“, which was made between 1968 and 1969 and depicts Lenin among other communist thinkers and revolutionaries, had a better luck: The thirty-metre long and ten-metre high work of art was put under protection and recently completely restaured. It is now shining in all its splendour again right in the centre of Dresden. Weiterlesen
The chronicle of the Lenin-monument in Großenhain in Sachsen resembles the plot of a Hollywood film. After the German reunification, the 4,80-metre-high concrete block weighing over ten tonnes was dismantled and hidden in a secret operation with the intention of preserving it from a possible destruction. For 25 years, the colossal monument was considered „disappeared“ until its surprising comeback in 2017 to be re-erected in front of the local Bunker Museum. Weiterlesen
