Tour of the Eisenhüttenstadt Monument

On the tour through the Eisenhüttenstadt monument, you will experience the largest contiguous monument in Germany. Impressive, unique architecture, green streets, hidden courtyards and tangible history make the former Stalin city a special experience. In front of each station there is a display with text and a QR code.

start / finish Lindenallee 23, 15890 Eisenhüttenstadt
Length 4 km 
Duration about 1 hour
arrival / departure RE1 to Eisenhüttenstadt, bus 453 to stop "Lindenallee" 

This tour takes you through the historical and cultural highlights of this fascinating city. The tour starts in the picturesque LindenalleeHere you will find the impressive Friedrich-Wolf-Theater, named after the famous writer. 

Afterwards we continue to the Place of RemembranceThe square was originally called "Square of German-Soviet Friendship" (DSF). In the center of the square is the Soviet memorial for the prisoners of the Stalag III B prisoner of war camp. Below the obelisk are three burial chambers containing the bones of those who died. 

Next stop is the Astrid Lindgren Elementary School, which was called "1. Polytechnic High School "Georgi Dimitroff"" during the GDR era. As the first school in the residential town and the only representative building of the new town standing in 1953, the name of Stalinstadt was given by Walter Ulbricht from the balcony.
Beyond the school is also the first kindergarten in the city, which today houses a special needs school: the Pestalozzi SchoolIn the centre of the complex (which can only be accessed from Karl-Marx-Straße) there is a fountain worth seeing, which is dedicated to Till Eulenspiegel in its elaborate mosaic decoration.

If you turn into Saarlouiser Straße, after a few meters you will reach the former large restaurant "Activist"The house was the first HO restaurant to open on December 21, 1953, initially on a partial site. The building was fully completed in May 1954. In keeping with its character as a "large restaurant," hundreds of hot meals were served daily. The dance evenings on the upper floor, where the parquet floor was transformed into a dance floor every Wednesday evening, became legendary. 

Continuing along Erich-Weinert-Allee you reach the Museum Utopia & Everyday Life (formerly DOK Center), which is located in the building of the former daycare center II. In a permanent exhibition on everyday culture and history in the GDR as well as regular special exhibitions, the history and everyday life of the GDR can be discovered and experienced.

Today's Erich-Weinert Elementary School At the top of the green belt, School II was the central school for WWII. The light blue color scheme chosen is striking as a contrast to the sandstone-colored residential buildings. The school interrupts the green belt, which is later continued slightly offset in the former Ludmilla-Hypius-Weg into WWV to Bertolt-Brecht-Allee and finally ends in the Diehloer Mountains as a local recreation area.

Crossing Poststrasse into the residential quarters of Pawlowallee, you will see the monumental Hospital the city. A detour to the site is worthwhile! The hospital was built in 1952 and opened in 1953 as a provisional hospital in what was later known as the "isolation house". The building complex was completed in 1959. This also includes the park-like outdoor area with terraces, balustrades, works of art and fountain basins. 

The tour through the Eisenhüttenstadt monument continues along the green belt through the spacious residential courtyard to Fritz-Heckert-Straße and from there you reach Maxim-Gorki-Straße, past the former “sisters’ dormitory” on the left, and finally the building of the former School III, which today serves as comprehensive school 3 with upper secondary school level.
We are now in WW III, which, in contrast to WW II, was built in the "Heimatstil". Instead of flat roofs, you will find gable and hipped roofs throughout. The "small German town" theme was represented here with bay windows, gateways and plasterwork on the facades. Characteristic facade elements are reliefs with motifs from German fairy tales. 

At the other end of Heinrich-Heine-Allee, already in Saarlouiser Straße, stands the self-service store for WWIII. It was the first building in the city to incorporate the then new concept of "self-service". It was the first building in Stalinstadt in the "modern" style.

In the centre of the planned city lies the Central Square, where the originally planned city centre was to be located. The only actual building there is the Town hall the city, which was built as the “House of Parties and Mass Organizations”.

The Hotel Lunik was built between 1960 and 1963. Unlike the residential complexes I - III in classic masonry construction and the residential complex IV in large block construction, the hotel is a skeleton structure made of reinforced concrete, only the extension with kitchen and café was built in classic brickwork.

At the end of the tour through the Eisenhüttenstadt monument you reach the Lindenzentrum, which was built between 1959 and 1960 as a textile department store. In the 1970s, textile department stores appeared nationwide under the brand "Kaufhaus Magnet". In the 1990s, the building was converted into the current office and business center "Lindenzentrum". The main tenant today is the city library.
The department store was once decorated with Meissen porcelain tiles, like much of the Lindenallee. The color scheme was blue and yellow. The tiles fell off in the 1970s and were replaced by the current red color accents during renovation.
On the top floor, where the department store café once stood, there are mosaic columns by the mosaic artist Heinrich Jungebloedt.