Berlin – When I read the message from the State Monuments Office, my heart pounded. The houses on Wilhelmstrasse will be listed as a historical monument, the message said. I read it twice, I was happy and angry. Because at the end of the message it was stated that the residential area had largely been preserved in its original state, “except for one demolition”.
Angela Merkel, Birgit Breuel, Mr. Wegner
The “demolition” was my house, there was my apartment. Otto-Grotewohl-Straße 13 a, later Wilhelmstraße 59, next to the Russian swimming pool, diagonally across from the Brandenburg Gate. I got the apartment in 1992 shortly before the birth of my son, with a residence permit. One more thing that makes me angry. The message says: “At the time of the division of Germany, the unusually large apartments were reserved for the social and political management level of the GDR.” That is true and not true. Katarina Witt and Günther Schabowski lived there. But also my friend Claudia, a single nurse, our caretaker Mr. Wegner, my Tagesspiegel colleague Lothar Heinke. And later: Angela Merkel, Joachim Gauck, Birgit Breuel. The Chancellor, the Federal President, the head of the trust. There is nothing in the message about that.
History has to be told precisely. You can learn that from my house. It was the last in the last socialist residential area of the GDR. Helmut Stingl designed it, just like the maple leaf, which no longer exists. Stingl came from the Sudetenland and was a Bauhaus fan. He was actually supposed to move into one of the apartments on Wilhelmstrasse himself, but after the monetary union he was afraid that he would no longer be able to pay the rent and preferred to stay in Lichtenberg. That too is part of the story.
An eyesore like the Palace of the Republic
The rents then did not rise that much, the street did not become the Kudamm of the East, as caretaker Wegner had prophesied when we moved in. GDR prefabricated buildings in the center of the city were a provocation, an eyesore, like the Palast der Republik. The housing association Mitte sold all but one of the houses to a Swiss entrepreneur, and the Senate let the buyback right expire. When my house was demolished, Michael Müller was Senator for Urban Development.
I often drive past the corner where my house was and now the most expensive apartments in town are about to be built. I can’t look I’m sorry about that. It’s hard to say why. I had long since moved when the demolition excavators came.
I recently learned during a tour of the House of Statistics that the Federal Republic of Germany began manufacturing prefabricated buildings at the same time as the GDR, but that it soon stopped because it was too expensive for them. I saw photos of the demolished Springpfuhl arcades and was amazed at how beautiful they were. A few days later I read that Willi Neubert’s mural at the press café was being exposed again. After 30 years.
Something is currently changing with regard to the GDR architecture. Realization comes too late for my house. But maybe in the future Berlin visitors will be wondering why this building is there on Wilhelmstrasse, which looks completely different from the others, and who has allowed it. I could tell you the story.
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