In 1990, the East Side Gallery was built, which is today the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall, as some 118 artists from 21 countries built the mural to divide the murals.
Moscow artist Dimitri Vurbel was to paint “Brotherly Kiss”, who was in an emotional embrace of former Soviet Union leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German rule chief Erich Honkar – one of the most prestigious works of the gallery.
Along with art, a counter -splash -fed on the banks of the Hod River behind the east wall, because hundreds of people install homes and creative places in carvan and improvised houses.
But after 35 years, these people are goons in the form of East Side Gallery – a tourist hotspot with more than 400 million visitors – is overheaded by real estate development.
“The white buildings that have been constructed are luxury apartments and hotels.
A cultural historian who has been managing the East side gallery for the Berlin Wall Foundation since 2018, reflects radical changes in the region since the early 1990s by Arnim-Rosanthal.
A wagon fort in the middle of Berlin
After 1991, artists and alternative types from all over the world settled on the border of East Eastern Berlin when the region was still a barren land. But already until 1996, under the pressure of the Senate – and among the bad presses, claiming that the area attracted crime and drugs – the site was approved for urban development. Wagon residents living in the area had to move forward.
In the early 2000s, US billionaires Philip Ansachutz were sold on the banks of the Hod River. “And this is why we now have high-growing buildings, hotels, uber erina, offices, malls and so on,” says Arnim-Rosanthal of large-scale growth in the Fredericashen region. “Alternative lifestyle has been pushed to another place.”
Alternative trailer camps, or the only remains of the Wagon Mahal, is a hole in the wall that was built by the residents as a shortcut.
Rab Levin, a Scotsman, who had lived temporarily in squats and trailer camps in Berlin since 1992, took photographs of the thesis alternative communities, photography was banned in the so-called East Side Wagonburg.
Their images portray the everyday life of the community and make it clear how much the area has changed.
Arnim-Rosanthal says, “Now we are standing at the same place where Rab took the picture,” standing together by standing together in a caravan between a barren land. Today’s scene is marked by a huge Mercedes Benz Star logo above a corporate glass building.
The Anschutz group developed an entire urban quarter in office buildings, hotels and Uber Eats Music Hall here, known as Mercedes-Benz Arena.
Meanwhile, the Anschutz has been repeatedly protested against the projects of the group, especially after the conservative engineer, Philip Anschutz, accused of financial supporting campaigns against the LGBTQ+ community.
Between development and protection
The fact that Berlin excluded the alternative lifestyle and supported the development of the area with luxury apartments and hotels, should be seen in a historical context, calling Arnim-Rosanthals.
“People did not really want any way in CityScape.” So people tried to find an agreement, continued to develop the city, but still preserved this place. ,
Despite the development, the East side gallery and its art and the spirit of freedom is still there, she says: “This idea was to re -interpret the wall that so many people convert this place of their lives and this place of fear and death into a place of arts, encounters and freedom.”
The East side gallery manager stops in front of his favorite work of art: “The Diagonal Solutions” by Russian artist Mikhail Serrayakov. The picture shows a raised thumb hero by a chain. “The artist’s message is: Make the best of a bad situation,” she says.
This article was original in German,