Broken Utopias: The Many Lives of Stalinallee

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Stalinallee, now Karl-Marx-Allee, was once the prestigious boulevard of the GDR. This guided tour of the avenue in East Berlin sheds light on what was hidden behind the decorative facades.

Große Frankfurter Straße, Stalinallee and Karl-Marx-Allee - the three names of the magnificent boulevard in East Berlin bear witness to its tumultuous history.

With the help of thousands of volunteers, Stalinallee was created from the rubble of Große Frankfurter Straße, which was destroyed during World War II. The working conditions under which the GDR's flagship socialist avenue was built led to a mass uprising in 1953, which almost led to the end of the young GDR.

Stalinallee offered people more than just simple living space. The buildings to the left and right side of the wide street were comparatively luxurious both inside and out. Today, the large apartment blocks with their decorative "confectioner's style" façades bear witness to the new architectural ideal of the time. But it wasn't just the apartments that offered GDR citizens new standards: cafés, restaurants and well-stocked shops were intended to convey the image of an idyllic life under socialism. Howeverm in many places, the beautiful façades concealed the GDR secret police's listening posts. IThis guided tour sheds light on what the new comfortable life meant for the people who built and lived on the boulevard and the generations that followed.

Stalinallee was given its current name Karl-Marx-Allee in 1961. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, the socialist boulevard was forgotten for a while. However, real estate agents soon became interested in the apartments and their special features. This guided tour shows the development of the boulevard from the German reunification to the 21st century and the stories of the people who still live there.

Tour details

• Length: 2 hours
• Cost: €20 per person, discount fee for children, students and seniors: €15
• Highlights: Discover how mid-century optimism and Cold War ideology shaped Berlin’s architecture, admire the most ambitious building project in former East Berlin, learn about the East German uprising of 1953, uncover the truth about surveillance and suppression by the East German secret police, see the filming locations of The Lives of Others and The Queen's Gambit.
• Meeting point: By the Nextbike stand outside the Frankfurter Tor underground station at the corner of Warschauer Strasse and Karl-Marx-Allee. Look for your guide holding an orange umbrella
• Finish: Strausberger Platz