Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place vs. home

Posts tagged ‘Friedrich Engels’

25T24 Marx & Engels: relic of system & time

E23, B18.

Behind the Wall, the East Germans continued to build monuments to bolster their one-party-is-all ideology among the working masses.

In 1986, authorities set aside about 3 hectares of space for the Marx-Engels-Forum after Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who both authored “The Communist Manifest” (1848). This park was located between the Palace of the Republic, the East German parliament which eventually got demolished; and Alexanderplatz with the area’s largest and tallest free-standing structure, the Television Tower completed in 1969.

Today, the Marx-Engels-Forum has been left somewhat wanting long after the Fall of the Wall and subsequent reunification of the two Germanys. There are plans to renovate the site, but in the meantime, the Forum is squeezed on one side by the new Humboldt Forum and the City Palace, a new old-reconstruction with a large controversial dose of the imperial past; and on the other side by one of the last remnants of socialist East Germany, the Television Tower, which makes money now like any good tourist attraction should in a western-style economy. 

What Marx and Engels might be thinking, sitting “alone” between reminders that East Berlin and East Germany no longer exist.

Karl Marx (seated) & Friedrich Engels, after whom the open public space was named after completion in 1986 by East German authorities.
Behind Marx & Engels to the southwest is the very recent Humboldt Forum and the City Palace behind (not seen).
In front of and over Engels & Marx to the northeast looms this funky ‘70s disco ball in the sky 🪩
Big plans for a big plaza, from all levels of government: city-state, federal, and European. What will the space be and how will it eventually appear?
The wide open space: in the background left to right are respectively: Marienkirche (St. Mary’s), Fernsehturm (Television Tower), Rotes Rathaus (red city hall).

I made all images above with an iPhone15 on 31 May 2025. This post composed within Jetpack for iOS appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com.