A conquering power sometimes goes too far after victory. Stalin’s Alley was to be East Germany’s show place, site of May Day parades. So care was taken, and luckily for Berlin, by Germans not Russians. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist, the first of a two parter.
The small size and simple printing of the stamp lets it down or in emblematic of the façade depending on your point a view. It still is all here though, a wide boulevards, elaborately decorated with ceramic tile wedding cake style buildings in the Stalinist style. Also with the statue of Stalin, in its last years after his death before the Stasi disappeared it.
Todays stamp is issue A43, a 20 Pfennig stamp issued by East Germany in 1957. This was an over twenty stamp issue in different denominations over a seven year period from 1953 to 1960. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents unused.
The street on the stamp was known as Great Frankfurter Strasse prior to 1949. At that time the area was under Soviet occupation and in need of urban renewal after the war. It was decided to make the street a showplace in the Eastern Sector of Berlin. This was before the wall was built. Naming a street after the person who just lead a large army into Germany showed the level of deference to the Soviets on the part of the East German leadership. Nevertheless the project was German. Noted architect Hermann Henselmann designed the street that later became a favorite of post modernists. There were upscale apartments and shops and restaurant/bars that had themes based on Eastern European cities like Budapest and Bucharest. East Berlin after all was to look east. The Bucharest bar featured Romanian beer that was 18% alcohol was especially memorable. As seen on the stamp, there was a bronze statue of Stalin. It was a gift of the Soviet Communist Youth group Komsomol on the occasion of World Festival of Youth and Students held that year in the Soviet Sector of Berlin. No doubt parents were thrilled to send their children to listen how great Stalin was. I mean, who wouldn’t?
When things go too far they often self correct. In 1961, in the middle of the night, the Stasi secret Police came for the Stalin statue knocking it off it’s pedestal and trucking it away to be broken and recycled. East Germans woke the next day to find The street renamed Karl Marx Alley with all the street signs and subway stations changed. Karl Marx was still communist, but at least a German.
Unlike much of the East German work after the wall fell, Karl Marx Alley was deemed worthy of preservation, even the name. Henselmann’s architecture has stood the test of time. In later years Henselmann became more of a modernist and many of his buildings still stand in Germany. He had made the conscious decision to stay in the East, taking the advise of Bertolt Brecht.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast architect Hermann Henselmann, He operated under difficult conditions but was able to build things that survive. Come again tomorrow for part two of rubbing Germany’s nose in it from a different war that was dealt with less well, but is another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.