Ernst Thälmann. Der Mythos hinter dem Denkmal | Orte Ost

One of the capital's most controversial monuments stands in the heart of Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district: the Ernst Thälmann Memorial. The new episode of »Orte Ost« (Places of the East) goes on a search for clues and asks: Who was Ernst Thälmann – and what role do monuments play in our culture of remembrance? Historian Dr Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk traces the life and work of Ernst Thälmann: from Hamburg dockworker and KPD chairman to his role as »Stalin's man in Germany« to his arrest and murder by the Nazis in Buchenwald concentration camp. The film shows a contradictory biography and its transformation and rewriting by the SED since the 1950s. The new episode of ‘Orte Ost’ looks behind the myth of a man who was stylised as an anti-fascist hero in the GDR and was one of the gravediggers of the Weimar Republic. At the same time, the episode poses the contemporary question: How do we deal with such monuments today? Demolish them, leave them standing or rethink them? Using the Thälmann monument as an example, »Orte Ost« discusses how to question historical myths and what remembrance in public spaces can look like – beyond hero worship and historical glorification. »Orte Ost« (Places of the East) stands for a lively, vivid and contemporary examination of GDR history and invites visitors on an exciting journey of discovery between the past and the future.