Berlin Stalinallee Renamed

Press, Volume C, Issue 29671, 15 November 1961, Page 15

Berlin Stalinallee Renamed

(N.ZJ’.A.-Reuter—Copyripht) BERLIN (Eastern Sector), November 14. East Berliners found today that their showpiece main street had changed its name overnight, from Stalinallee to Karl Marxallee at one end and Frankfurter Allee at the other. A Reuter reporter saw workmen at midnight removing the “Stalinallee” street signs and replacing them with signs bearing the words “Karl Marxallee.”

The reporter also heard loud sounds of drilling from the part of the street where a more than life-sized statue of Stalin stands, but strong forces of police were keeping everyone out of the area. Late last night, two large cranes and a Long open lorry were seen to draw up near the statue.

There had been no previous warning of the renaming of the street or demolition of the statue, which observers said were an obvious consequence of the final debasement of Stalin at the recent Soviet Communist Party Congress. After the reporter, prevented from driving into the Stalinallee from a side street, had managed to walk there and see the new signs being put up, a policeman stepped out of a doorway as he approached the statue. “This is a prohibited area,” he said: “We are permitted to give no information of any sort. Please go home immediately.” Change Announced

East Berlin City authorities today briefly announced the renaming of Stalinallee and the removal of Stalin's statue from East Berlin hours after the work had been started.

The 18-line announcement, quoted by the official East German news agency A.D.N said these and other changes were resolved by the City Council yesterday.

The announcement said that this was done “after taking into account documents of the 22nd Soviet Communist Party Congress with regard to the violations of revolutionary legality and the resultant serious consequences in the period of Stalin’s personality cult.” The announcement stated that the Stalinallee, East Berlin’s mile-long Soviet-style “first socialist street” had been divided into two and given two different names. The half of the street nearest the city centre in which the statue of the late Soviet

dictator stood has been renamed Karl Marxallee, while the less fashionable half of the street leading into the suburbs has reverted to its former name of Frankurter Allee.

Besides removal of the more-than-life-size Stalin statue, the overhead S-bahn and underground railway stations at the far end of the erstwhile Stalinallee have also been renamed Frankfurter Allee.

An electrical factory named “J. W. Stalin” will now bear the name of Treptown, the Berlin suburb in which it is situated, the announcement said. City Renamed StaMndstadt, East Germany’s brand new iron and steel city on the river Oder, east of Berlin, has lost its name, the main communist newspaper “Neues Deutschland” reported today. The report said the provincial council of Frankfurt-on-Oder met yesterday and de-

cided to merge Stalinstadt with the nearby town of The combined town was to be given the name Eisenhuettenstadt (iron workers’ city). The announced changes have, in one swoop, deleted the word “Stalin” from all main East German institutions bearing his name.

Most of the East Berliners passing the spot where Stalin's statue had stood hurried by without a glance. But one teenage boy stopped to gaze at the operations with a puzzled smile. He was quickly moved on by two policemen who told him: “lit is forbidden to watch.” As he walked away, he commented; “Who really cares?” Shortly afterwards a young man, looking at the shining new street signs, raised laughter from passers-by when he said: “Who is this Karl Marx anyway?”