Foreword

FROM RED DISTRICT TO NOBEL QUARTERS

Whilst visiting the East Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg between 1980 and the fall of the wall in 1989 I took many photographs capturing the districts ambience and people. Since the fall of the wall the district has changed like no other. During the time of the GDR Prenzlauer Berg was not the much sought after area it is today. The Wilhelminian style houses offered little comfort, no central heating and no warm water. Many apartments were missing balconies and those that remained were often damaged. The façades were in a state of disrepair with scores of bullet holes from the war. The apartments in the rear parts of the building often only had toilets on one floor. Almost all of the houses had coal powered heating and men hauling bags of caol up to the top floors was a common sight.

It was the workers moved into the comfortable prefabricated high-rise apartment blocks and what remained was a mixture of pensioners, students, underground artists and the idle. Together with the crumbling  façades this mixture created, on one hand, an environment of proletarian bohemia and on the other hand an ambience found in the work of Zille, one of Berlins most famous artists. Such an environment was perhaps most prevalent and undiluted in Prater, on Kastanienallee. There was a great sense of community and with some luck it was easy to get ones hands on something one might need to brighten up a drab flat.

The Kudamm of Prenzlauerberg was Schönhauser Allee. If there was a new collection of shoes at Hans Sachs queues were guaranteed in Boulevard des Nordens. A bag fom Aldi brought in by someone from the west had the same flair back then that a Prada bag may have today. Then there was Konnopke! Germany's most famous Wurst take-out already had cult status during the GDR - not just since Gerhard Scröder revealed he enjoyed their food.

The Jewish cemetery at the start of Schönhauser Allee, devastated by the Nazis contained graves that were totally destroyed back then and served as a grim reminder of the past. Prominent names such as Leopold Ullstein, Max Libermann, Giacomo Meyerbeer und Moses Mendelssohn found their final resting places there. The graveyard, known to the GDR, was left in its delapidated state. It was only after unification that many of the graves were repaired.

When the old gas holder in Prenzlauer Allee was blown up there was significant protest from the people. During the GDR the gas holder had been a novelty. In oder to conciliate the people who saw  the gas holder as a symbol of their district, a playground and planetarium were built on the same site.

The city pool on Oderberger Straße, closed in 1886, should have been renovated but nobody was willing to take on the huge costs, neither the East Berlin magistrate nor the senate today. It has now been taken over by Denkmalschutz and the location has since been used to stage theatre pieces and other events. Due to the protests against the idea demolition is unlikely.

Prenzlauer Berg was, however, always a thorn in the side of the GDR officials as the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) did not recieve 99.9 percent of the vote in the elections. At that time the GDR officials planned to demolish many of the Wilhelminian style houses and replace them with prefabricated high-rise apartment blocks.

Eventually the resistance against the GDR found its beginnings in the Gethsemane church on Stargarder Straße which contributed to the collapse of the government.

Today, after the unifcation Prenzlauer Berg is the most favoured district in Berlin to live in. The houses are being extensively renovated and modernised and Prenzlauer Berg is becoming the largest area in Germany to have Wilhelminian style houses.

If one goes to Prenzlauer Berg today, it is difficult to recognise many of the streets. The street signs give the impression that one is in the same street that existed in the GDR. The scores of trees, which did not exist before have enriched the appearance of the area. Countless restaurants and shops have established themselves. Around Kollwitzplatz a whole new scene has come about, with yuppies, those who have come into money, artists and those who work in media. The mixture of old and young, workers and intellectuals that used to give the district its charm has gone. Today there is social monotony. Above all, young, well-off couples and foreigners move into the district, hardly any Turkish or Arabic, like in other parts of the city, but G8-foreigners – Americans, British, French and Italian.

High rents and owner-occupied apartments are leading to an exchange process of the people. More and more of the original residents cannot afford the cost of living there anymore and are moving away. Around Kollwitzplatz 80 percent of the original residents have moved away.  Owner-occupied apartments cost up to 4500 Euros per square metre and the rent too is increasing.    Gentrification is changing the character of the district, perhaps more so here than in other parts of Berlin or other metropolises. Harldy anything remains of the political scene, today a sense of consumerism thrives here. The district has stepped into a state of dynamic change.

Wolfram Venohr
Spring 2010.