Leave No Marx

I took an unplanned break from blogging but we're back again now.

I have to admit that I'm finding it hard to stick to a particular schedule when blogging so from now one the posts are going to be as and when rather than sticking to various places on various days.

I was reading in the newspaper today about plans to rename all the streets, avenues, squares etc. in the former East Germany which had been named after Karl Marx. This made me wonder how many cards I have of such places.

During my, still ongoing, search I found this.

I did mention in my introduction to the blog that name change places will feature in the blog, especially with post marks which no longer exist.

The card was sent almost exactly 40 years ago, again a coincidence, from Karl- Marx-Stadt in the DDR to Hannover in the BRD.

Karl-Marx-Stadt was the name given to Chemnitz  on 10th May 1953, the town centre had been heavily bombed in WWII and the rebuilding  and the new name were meant to symbolise urban development under socialism.

I'm not going to go into a history of the fall of Communism and the changes in Europe at the time, but suffice to say Germany was reunified on 3rd October 1990.

The change of name back to Chemnitz had actually taken place a few months before with 76% of the town inhabitants voting in favour of reverting back to Chemnitz in a referendum held in April that year.

I'm trying to find out which of the places feature on the card still exist. I know the petrified forest still does and Strasse der Nationen has kept its name.

I can't find any info on the fountains. They are very of their time so they may have been destroyed but they are quite innocuous looking so maybe they still stand.

The other building on the card is the Interhotel Moskau. From what I can gather the building still stands but has changed its name to Hotel an der Oper.

Interhotels had a reputation for being used by the Stasi to spy on Western Tourists. You can't help but wonder if the sender of this card was subject to such surveillance.

Paulinerkirche - Leipzig's Lost Church (1956)

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have an interest in the GDR so you can expect to see quite a few East German cards on the blog.
I spent 5 months as student at Leipzig university in 1998 by which time University looked rather different from this 1956 postcard.
The Paulinerkirche is probably the most well know of the buildings on the card. It was built in 1231 and since the foundation of the university in 1409, the two have been closely related with the preachers appointed by the university.
During its proud history, which included inauguration by Martin Luther, many famous musicians have been associated with the church. Johann Sebastian Bach conducted holiday services there and Felix Mendelssohn's funeral was held there.  It also served as a military hospital during the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.
The church survived both word wars with little damage but a decision was made by the GDR government in 1968 to dynamite the church and the Augusteum next door as they were deemed ill-fitting for their concept of a socialist-orientated university.  Protestors were arrested.  A memorial, in the form of an A-frame sculpture in the size and location of the church was erected in 1993 and was still there in 1998 when I was a student in the city.
Today there is a new university church in its place and has the same shape as the Paulinerkirche. Church Services have been carried out there since 2009.

Edit - I've found  a picture which I took in 1998 as a student there, showing the A-frame.