Spread out below Berlin’s landmark TV tower, with a glass front that gleamed orange in the sun, the hammer and sickle wreath hanging prominently in the middle: The Palace of the Republic (Palast der Republik) served as an architectural calling card of communist East Germany.
From its opening 50 years ago through its controversial destruction in 2006-08, the iconic building embodied the ideals and promises — or for many, failed promises — of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).
Even today, in its structural absence, its legacy lives on, a memory that reveals the debates and complexities woven into German history.
A showpiece building for the young communist state
The year is 1972. The GDR is 23 years old, and its international prominence is growing. Thanks to improved relations with neighboring West Germany, it is establishing diplomatic relations with scores of countries around the world. It has recently become a permanent observer at the United Nations, with full membership to come the following year.
The leadership of East Germany’s communist party (SED), the de facto ruling power, decide they need a building that lives up to their modern, self-assured image. It is to be a “house of the people” (“Haus des Volkes”), an institution that represents socialist values while also serving as a place of culture and entertainment for East German citizens.
They turn to a now barren site in the capital of East Berlin, right next to the Spree River, where a Prussian Palace once stood. Heavily damaged during World War II, its remains were torn down in 1950 on SED orders — an old-power structure making way for the political new order.
Construction on the Palace of the Republic begins in 1973. The goal: to have it completed in just three years’ time. The GDR pours money, materials and labor into its construction, often at the expense of other building projects.
Right on schedule, the palace opens to the public on April 23, 1976.
“The furnishings are of the finest quality. No expense was spared on either material or money,” reported a West German correspondent covering the palace’s inauguration.
State power meets fun and entertainment
The palace has two primary halls, a smaller one housing the GDR’s parliament — a representative body in name only — and a larger one used for events of all types, from the SED’s annual all-party gathering to performances by Leipzig’s famous Gewandhaus Orchestra, international stars like Mexican-American guitarist Carlos Santana and South African singer Miriam Makeba, and even West German rocker Udo Lindernberg.
The two halls are united by a giant foyer, some 86 by 72 meters long (269 by 236 feet), that doubled as an art gallery. Rounding out the palace on various floors are restaurants, bars, cafes, an ice cream shop, as well as a disco and a bowling alley.
“It was always full, always full of people. Something was always going on, whether it was someone in some corner reading poetry aloud or a small group playing music. There were also a ton of small shops, where things were being sold that you couldn’t otherwise get,” recalled Hans-Peter Tennhardt, an acoustic technician at the palace, in an interview for a German museum publication.
The palace, which draws some 10,000 visitors a day, is a space in which one should feel awed by the socialist state, but also happy, allowing the population to indulge and celebrate in ways that aren’t always possible elsewhere.
For some, the palace is an exciting contrast, a pleasant break from daily life. But it also draws scorn and derision. The foyer’s thousands of bulbous hanging lightbulbs quickly inspire the nickname “Erich’s Lamp Store,” after SED party leader Erich Honecker. Others call it “Palazzo Protzo” because of its pompous scale and decor.
And for others still, it is the manifestation of the SED’s inescapable dictatorial power.
People felt all different ways about the building, says Mareen Maass, a museum program manager who conducted dozens of interviews about the palace and people’s relationships to it for a historical project.
“For some, it was a symbol of the German Democratic Republic’s oppression time, because it was an official place to go to. It took a lot of money to build that building, so they were very critical because they said all the money went to this place while various other places in the periphery really lacked of a lot of things,” Maass told DW.
But most people Maass talked to said that the Palace of the Republic “belonged to the culture of their lives in that state. And they took it really hard that it was decided after the Wall came down that this building is now closed.”
A controversial disappearance
The palace closes just as the East German state ceases to exist. The very last GDR government orders it shuttered due to asbestos contamination in September 1990; the building had been in use only 14 years.
On October 3, not even one month later, GDR citizens become citizens of the new, reunified Federal Republic of Germany.
Whether they loved, hated or were indifferent to the palace, its closure coincides with a pivotal moment of transition in their lives, the end of their lived realities, from the jobs they had done, in some cases, to the restrictions on their freedom.
“For many people in Eastern Germany, it was a really symbolic place connected to their lives,” Maass said. Its closure was a “bigger sign for them.”
Over the coming decade, the palace is slowly decontaminated. Everything from fixtures to insulation is taken out, leaving only the frame behind.
In 2003, the German Parliament decides to tear down what remains of the palace and construct a new building, one arguably more fitting for the reunified capital. The decision is controversial.
For a few years in the mid-2000s, the skeletal structure is open to artists to use as an exhibition and performance space, and some push to continue this. Others see the palace’s ultimate removal as an attempt to try and erase East German history from reunified Germany’s historical narrative.
From 2006-08 the last vestiges of the Palace of the Republic are dismantled, the steel melted and shipped off for use elsewhere, including in Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower.
There is now a new building where the Palace of the Republic once stood: the Humboldt Forum, a cultural center and museum. The building is a partial replica of the Prussian Palace so detested by East German leaders. While there have been temporary exhibitions and projects dedicated to the Palace of the Republic, no permanent replica or exhibition exists today. Just the memories of those who encountered it, in one way or another.
Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier
