Meanwhile in the GDR

All posts this far has been about post cards from West Germany. Few - if any - post cards from the German Democratic Republic (GDR) showed the wall or the brutally divided city. What did the post cards from the GDR show then? Of course they showed the success, the progression, the architecture and the happiness in the young socialist state. The pictures where taken from locations not far from the western ones, sometimes from just the other side of the wall, but still they are completely different.

On the above picture you can see classical buildings mixed with new ones. 

• The first picture, at the upper left, shows a scene from the buildings around Unter den Linden. Classical architecture was not directly correct according to communist ideas, but they were built by workers and the efforts of those were celebrated. The buildings are a bit younger than they look, mainly built during the late 1700:s and the 1800:s.
• To the upper right you have the Palast der Republik, the huge parliament building of GDR. The building was erected between 1973 and 1976 and housed the parliament, a concert hall, restaurant, and much more. It was finally demolished 2008 to make room for a rebuilt Stadtschloss. I will likely spend a complete blog post about this sole building one day.
• To the lower left there is a picture of the Spreepark. It opened 1969 as Kulturpark Plänterwld. It was an amusement park where the citizens of the GDR could amuse themselves for a while. It was the only constant amusement park in the GDR. The park continued to be open after the unification but was closed around 2001 due to economical problems. It can be visited by guided groups at restricted times.
• To the lower right we see Rotes Rathaus and Fernsehturm, the TV tower. Behind Rotes Rathaus is Alexanderplatz. This place, together with the Stalinallé, was built to brag about. In my collection of post cards from the divided Berlin I have huge amounts of cards with various motives around here. The Alexanderplatz area was really dull when the wall came down, but nowadays it has bloomed to one of the more interesting ones in Berlin and the TV tower is still very cool in its futuristic pride.

The back side is unwritten.

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[Aftonbladet] [DN-norrsken]