LENIN MONUMENT : One stands still

Since “Good Bye, Lenin!” we know: The lenin Statuen disappeared from our cities. From all cities? No, in Schwerin there is the Soviet leader monument further. And it raves a fight for it


Everywhere is the Lenin away. In Berlin they buried it in the Köpenicker forest. In Potsdam it was torn by the base. Dresden gave away it to a Dutch collecting tank. In hall Neustadt one put, where he stood once, a shopping centre. The GDR was scattered with monuments, which at Lenin, whom founders of the Soviet Union should remind. With the SED state also the memorials disappeared. But not all.
In Schwerin the Lenin looks to Hamburg avenue, it still over those stands there since 1985 in a slab construction quarter on behalf of large Dreesch. Heavyin Lenin is impressive. 3,50-meter-high, with legs wide spread, the hands in the coat bags. Trappings look it as in the scenes of Good Bye, Lenin! That was 2003 that film over fall of the wall and motherly love, in which the stone Soviet leader is away-flown in the end by the helicopter. But heavyin Lenin was not removed. It stands. In the meantime violent controversy is inflamed around the question whether it may to stand still. It concerns thereby historical politics. Around symbol politics. And also therefore whether a city in 25. Year of the unit somewhat sovereignly with their GDR inheritance to deal cannot. Whether one can leave the Lenin not simple now, since he already survived a quarter century capitalism, where he is.

“Why should we deal defensively with our cultural inheritance? ”, Angelika Gramkow asks. The left one is heavyin mayor. Their party membership is however in this question not substantial. “Lenin outlived also the mayors of SPD and CDU.” Why did the Lenin remain in its city, until today? A little bullishness probably played a role. Those is just particularly pronounced in Mecklenburg. Gramkow, 55, is the most prominent defense of the Lenin Statue. It entered 1978 the SED, was active in the FDJ Kreisleitung, studied economic science in Leipzig and worked as a teacher in Schwerin. She says: “I had at that time already argued with Stalinism. I knew from reprisals and Gulag.” She says however nevertheless: “I did not question the system in the GDR.” Lenin belongs for it to GDR history. “It was not responsible for the Second World War and the division of Germany.” It cannot be that all GDR street names became changed, all monuments dragged. “The discussion repeats itself since the 90s. There I make not with”, say Gramkow. “Lenin is to be borne.” Is it that? Opponents throw the Statue in the meantime regularly with color bags, sympathizers paint “Lenin remain!” in large type characters on the lying in front of it sidewalk. To one day the communist leader is sullied, cleaned on the next day. Before a few years would have it nearly folded with the plan to dispose of Lenin. An town councillor resolution should bring the turn. In the end two voices were missing. “, The initiator at that time Christoph Priesemann, city delegate of the FDP remembers two of the CDU”. Praising man father had been arrested 1950 on the road, shot later to Moscow kidnapped and. Because town councillor Priesemann was in the GDR a teacher, those would have sworn linking in the town councillor: So badly it was not issued nevertheless it in the SED state! One regarded, says it as a traitor praising man. But it remains thereby: Away with Lenin! It receives support from Klaus Schroeder, Politikwissenschaftler to the FU Berlin. “Lenin was a mass murderer”, says Schroeder. “There is zero reasons for a Statue.” What thus do with the monument, Mr. Schroeder? “With the pneumatic hammer near.” The memorial actually is meanwhile more frequently to the collar. On 17 June, which became anniversary of the rising of the people of 1953, Lenin head with a cloth euphemistically. “A provocation” should be, says Alexander Bauersfeld. Farmer field sat at GDR times one and a half years in detention, because it had carried church peace work out. Its Lenin veiling wanted to forbid the city to it, it had to forwards the bundesland administration court to pull. The city had rejected approval before. A reason: Participants could fall when climbing up the leaders. Farmer field won. Brought the action so far nothing. The Lenin stands.