Tag Archives: Karl Marx

Soyuz chic

The sky was overcast but beginning to clear as we walked into the reception area at the bottom of the Fernsehturm, the famous TV tower. The tower rises in brutal Soviet modernity overlooking Alexanderplatz, the area which used to be the showcase of the DDR.

An illuminated sign said that there was no view to be seen, but I thought otherwise and the girl in the ticket booth was willing to take our money. We walked into the base of the tower, the interior of which resembles a set from “2001”, a space-age womb of ribbed curving walls and soft lighting. For some unknown reason, the cramped lifts were colder than any other area of the tower.

Approximately 45 seconds and 300 metres later, we stepped out into the observation lounge. The tower is basically shaped like a huge sharpened spike, with first a sphere and then a smaller cylinder impaled on it about a third of the way down. The part of the spike under the sphere is the usual concrete, the top part is painted in red and white stripes, and the cylindrical bit is fitted with a selection of dishes, aerials and microwave receivers. The whole construction looks like what you’d get if you crossed a Soyuz spacecraft with a giraffe.

The observation lounge is in the bottom part of the sphere, with its windows angled at about 45 degrees to the vertical. The glass seemed to be about a centimetre thick, and I had sudden visions of James Bond fighting some evil East German spy

XQ pointed out the various old buildings as the evil Communist spy gave Bond a vicious left hook, lifting him and throwing him against the window. Miraculously, the glass failed to give way. Quickly, the spy jumped up onto the window ledge, and he and Bond began grappling with each other as XQ indicated the Museum Island and the course of the river.

Bond eventually manoeuvred his assailant’s back against the glass, punching him viciously in the stomach. As the East German struggled for breath, Bond grabbed his trusty Walther PPK and shot at the corner of the window. The glass fractured and collapsed under the weight of the spy, and he scrabbled to grab the window frame to prevent himself from falling back and following the shards of glass in their lengthy descent.

A cold wind whipped in from the broken window as XQ pointed down at Marx-Engels-Platz. Bond smiled slightly as he walked up to the East German and gave him a gentle push. His grip broken, the evil Communist spy plunged three hundred metres to his death. I leant forwards and watched him fall, the statues of Marx and Engels in the background.

XQ finished her narration, and we decided to climb the stairs to the revolving restaurant. Ever since as a child I’d first read about London’s Post Office Tower, I’d wanted to sit in a revolving restaurant. Sadly, once the Post Office Tower had been declared an Official Secret for reasons of national security, the restaurant had been closed.

We found an empty table and sat by the windows, facing each other. Eventually XQ waved at one of the passing waitresses, and she tossed a menu to us with all the polite grace I had come to expect in the East. Even without the moody expression and air of “I suppose you can order something, if you insist”, it was plain that she was an Ossi. The over-use of tacky makeup and the slightly seventies cut of her clothes made it sadly obvious.

We scoured the menu for something that wasn’t too much of a rip-off. Eventually XQ settled on something hot, fruity and alcoholic, and I picked a coffee and some Black Forest Gateau.

When the food and drinks eventually arrived, they were surprisingly good. We sat and watched the world revolve around us, chatting about the various buildings that swam into view.

A lone sponge finger swept majestically past on the window ledge, a lonely confectionery digit seemingly raised in obscene salute towards the DDR buildings and statues beneath it. A couple of the buildings still had adverts for Skoda, Intourist or Berolina, no longer illuminated, but most had been torn down and replaced with bright neon saying Technics, Casio and Coca Cola.

I suddenly felt sorry for Karl Marx. What a fate, to have his statue in Marx-Engels-Platz, forced to stare at these bright symbols of capitalist victory 24 hours a day.

Berliner in Neuruppin

Neuruppin is a small town in the former DDR. It used to be a fairly large town, but half of the population was made up of Soviet troops, and most of them have gone back to Russia now. The town was one of the major Soviet army bases just outside West Berlin, and there are still many signs of the Russian occupation. Occasionally a Soviet personnel transporter speeds around the town.

When the Soviets siezed Neuruppin, they grabbed all the largest and most luxurious houses for themselves. These ancient mansions are mostly along the main road out of town to the south, and are now largely abandoned. They are still walled off by white fences, though, with signs in Russian and German saying that trespassers will be shot. For some reason the Russians painted all the houses uniform grey before leaving. Nobody seems to know why.

We stopped at a small kiosk in the town centre and bought two doughnuts. XQ asked if I had noticed anything about the town square. I said no. She asked if I didn’t think it was perhaps a little bit large?

I looked around at the town, then back towards the main town square. I said that yes, now that she mentioned it, it was rather big and empty. The roads were unusually wide, too.

XQ sighed, and explained it to me. The town square had been the centre of regular parades; it had been build wide so that troops could be paraded around it. She pointed at the lamp posts, and indicated a small protrusion about two thirds of the way up each post. A bracket, she explained, for mounting flags in spontaneous displays of enthusiastic celebration.

We walked on a bit further. I pointed to a large, well-kept and majestic building to the left. It had a big radio mast on top, with several smaller antennas and microwave dishes. That, explained XQ, had been the headquarters of the Stasi.

I bit further into the doughnut. Instead of jam, inside was something black and sticky and sweet. Peter Gabriel’s Digging in the Dirt started playing in my head. Molasses?

We carried on walking. The puttering of the engines of the passing Trabants was drowned out by the sounds of their tyres on the cobbled streets. XQ told me there was a statue of someone I’d recognize.

It was a small square, with two boarded up fountains. Between them was a statue of Karl Marx. Naturally; the main street is called Karl-Mark-Strasse, this was Karl-Marx-Platz. Whilst most of the places named after Russians have been hurriedly renamed, the Germans seem to have decided to keep all the street names referring to other Germans, even if they were Communists.

It makes a kind of sense; and besides, blindly renaming things is a Soviet way of imposing a culture. West Germany’s approach is far less subtle, and far more effective.

Wherever you go in the former East, it’s easy to spot the Western invaders. The rule is simple: anything brightly coloured is Western. A block of shabby brown and grey Soviet-style high-rise flats has a bright yellow telephone box next to it. The greying and yellowing Eastern road signs are gradually being replaced by gleaming reflective Western ones, in red, blue, green or white. Brown bus, east; orange bus, west.

A once-majestic but now crumbling building with peeling paint and dangerous-looking balconies has a cascade of bright lights and neon in one corner—Neuruppin’s first computer shop. Out near one of the housing estates, a small shopping mall has opened, with a supermarket and a bank. It also houses the town’s first restaurant serving foreign food: Italian, in this case. So far, none of the places selling food from other countries seem to have been attacked; as one graffito pointed out, Nazis eat kebabs. I suppose they’re at least grateful that they have the choice.