How does Statue of Joseph Stalin, Berlin elucidate its Clandestine removal of the Berlin monument?
The governments of other socialist countries, including the GDR, also renounced the Stalin cult. In the night from 13 to 14 November 1961 all the street signs on Stalinallee in Berlin were removed in a clandestine operation. The western section between Alexanderplatz and Frankfurter Tor was renamed Karl-Marx-Allee, the eastern section between Frankfurter Tor and the Lichtenberg viaduct was given the name Frankfurter Allee. That same night the statue was pushed off its pedestal with a bulldozer and a low-load truck brought the bronze statue to a factory hall of Bauunion, a construction company. Several members of a Stalinallee construction team under brigade leader Gerhard Wolf had the job of reducing the statue to small pieces under guard by security forces. The responsible Stasi member gave the following orders: "The monument is to be reduced to unrecognizable pieces. No remnants may be taken away. Nothing is to be said about this entire matter." The statue's pedestal was removed the next morning by soldiers of the GDR's National People's Army.Some of the workers assigned to destroy the monument nevertheless managed to secretly appropriate fragments of the shattered statue. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification the brigade leader who had had the task of destroying the head turned over two leftover pieces of the statue, an ear and part of the mustache, to the Geschichtswerkstatt Stalinallee, a group researching the history of Stalinallee. He also provided a report on the details of the monument removal operation. The sculpture had been broken down into small pieces, melted, and used to recast other works of art, perhaps statues of animals for the East Berlin zoo.On 14 November 1961 the city authorities (Magistrat von Berlin) supplied the daily newspapers with the following announcement about what happened:
Having taken note of the material from the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Greater-Berlin city authorities agreed at its meeting of 13 November 1961 on the following measures in connection with the infringement of revolutionary legitimacy which occurred in the period of Stalin's personality cult:
The section from Alexanderplatz to Frankfurter Tor of what has up to now been Stalinallee is to be renamed Karl-Marx-Allee.
The section of Stalinallee from Frankfurter Tor eastward is to be given the name Frankfurter Allee.
The monument to J. W. Stalin is to be removed.
The Stalinallee S-Bahn station is to be renamed S-Bahnhof Frankfurter Allee. Correspondingly, the U-Bahn Station Stalinallee is to be renamed U-Bahnhof Frankfurter Allee.
In the name VEB Elektroapparatewerke J. W. Stalin, the addition J. W. Stalin is to be deleted. The company is henceforth to bear the name VEB Elektroapparatewerke Berlin Treptow.
Berlin National People's Army socialist countries Berlin Wall East Berlin Frankfurter Allee 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union zoo S-Bahn Communist Party of the Soviet Union S-Bahnhof Frankfurter Allee German reunification U-Bahn Soviet Union VEB Stalinallee Karl-Marx-Allee 22nd Congress Soviet Elektroapparatewerke Stasi Alexanderplatz Frankfurter Tor