Ernst Thälmann Island

Ernst Thälmann Island
Waters	Caribbean Sea
Geographical location	22 ° 3 ′ N , 81 ° 26 ′ W Coordinates: 22 ° 3 ′ N , 81 ° 26 ′ W
length	15 km
width	500 m
surface	7 km²
Highest elevation	45 m
Residents	uninhabited

The Ernst-Thälmann-Insel ( Spanish Cayo Ernest Thaelmann ) is a Cuban island about 15 kilometers long and 500 meters wide , which is named after the KPD chairman of the interwar period, Ernst Thälmann , who was officially honored extensively in the GDR , which was allied with Cuba has been. It is located about 25 kilometers west of the Bay of Pigs off the south coast of the Matanzas province , to which it also belongs under administrative law.

Since the Ernst-Thälmann-Insel is in a restricted military area , it is not officially allowed to travel to the island.

June 19, 1972, Berlin: After signing the communique, Fidel Castro (left) presented Erich Honecker (center) with a map of the Republic of Cuba. It shows an island that bears the name "Ernst Thälmann" and whose south side is called "Strand DDR".

history

On June 19, 1972 the Cuban President Fidel Castro presented Erich Honecker with a map on the occasion of a state visit to the GDR , in which the Cayo Ernest Thaelmann ("Ernst Thälmann Island") and the Playa RDA ("GDR beach") were recorded . This renaming of part of the island chain Cayos Blancos del Sur ("White Islands of the South") in the Caribbean was officially recorded in Cuban Presidential Decree 3676/72.

On July 1, 1972, the journalist Joachim Conrad, one of the first guests since the name was given, reported in New Germany that the island's vegetation predominantly consisted of “small palm trees, thorn bushes, cassuarines , trees with horsetail-like twigs and iron-hard ones Wood ”and there are mangroves on the side facing the marshland of the Zapata Peninsula .

On the occasion of the 28th anniversary of Ernst Thälmann's death and the 1973 World Youth Festival in East Berlin, a Thälmann bust was ceremoniously unveiled on the island on August 18, 1972. The GDR's deputy ambassador to Cuba, several officers from the GDR training ship MS JG Fichte , the first secretary of the Cuban youth and around 100 Cuban participants in the 1973 World Festival were present.

In 1975 the two GDR pop stars Frank Schöbel and Aurora Lacasa sang the song "Island in the Gulf of Cazones", which was specially composed for the GDR television program "Unterwegs mit Musik - Kuba" on Ernst-Thälmann Island.

As part of the private part of his state visit to Cuba, Honecker, accompanied by Castro, spent a day on the privately used island of Cayo Piedra in 1980, from where they went on a trip to Ernst-Thälmann-Insel.

It is likely that much of the island was devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998 . Among other things, the Thälmann bust fell over.

In 2001, editors of the Internet newspaper “Topic 1” founded a website on which parts of the island were to be auctioned.

Rumors that the island was donated to the GDR at the time, that is, after reunification , that it now belongs to the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany , are, according to a unified statement, by both the Foreign Office and the Cuban embassy in Germany without any basis: “This was one symbolic act that has nothing to do with ownership. "

Web links

Danny Kringiel: Ernst-Thälmann-Insel - GDR under palm trees , Spiegel Online from June 19, 2012.
Axel Ehrlich: Ernst Thälmann under palm trees . In: Volksstimme , published on June 18, 2020, accessed on June 18, 2020.
Marc von Lüpke-Schwarz: The sunniest beach in the GDR . In: DW.de from August 8, 2013.
Michael Ossenkopp: Forgotten GDR Colony. 48 years ago today, Fidel Castro gave the GDR an island . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , published on June 18, 2020, accessed on June 18, 2020.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b symbol of brotherly friendship . In: Neues Deutschland from August 21, 1972, p. 5.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Kai Müller: The Caribbean island of the workers' leader . In: Stern from January 4, 2009, accessed June 18, 2020.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Kersten Schüssl: Brothers, to the sun, to freedom! . In: the daily newspaper of October 16, 2004, accessed on June 18, 2020.
↑ ^a ^b A Cuban island for the GDR? ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk's website from September 14, 2005
↑ Neues Deutschland from June 20, 1972
↑ ^a ^b ^c cement against tropical fruits , television production, RBB, first broadcast April 12, 2007. Description of contents
↑ Visit to the "Playa DDR" . In: Neues Deutschland , July 1, 1972, p. 16.
^ Meeting on the Cuban Ernst Thälmann Island . In: Berliner Zeitung of August 20, 1972.
↑ ^a ^b Thälmann unter Palmen reminds of the GDR . In: Ostseezeitung from February 17, 2001.
↑ On the way with music - Cuba , DFF production, first broadcast December 13, 1975
^ Frank Schöbel: Frank and Frei (autobiography), pp. 279–283.
↑ Juan Reinaldo Sánchez: The hidden life of Fidel Castro. Lübbe, Cologne 2015, p. 21 f.
↑ A friendship between men in Cuba (video). In: Damals im Osten (MDR.de) from December 16, 2005, accessed on February 13, 2015
↑ ^a ^b Curious dispute over a GDR island in the Caribbean . In: Super Illu from March 1, 2001, pp. 10/11.
↑ Matthias Gebauer: German investors want to buy Cuban island In: Spiegel Online from February 24, 2001, accessed on June 18, 2020.
↑ Matthias Gebauer: Did Castro give the Germans a Caribbean island? . In: Spiegel Online from February 14, 2001, accessed on June 18, 2020.

[nde2-1] symbol of brotherly friendship . In: Neues Deutschland from August 21, 1972, p. 5.

[stern-2] Kai Müller: The Caribbean island of the workers' leader . In: Stern from January 4, 2009, accessed June 18, 2020.

[taz-3] Kersten Schüssl: Brothers, to the sun, to freedom! . In: the daily newspaper of October 16, 2004, accessed on June 18, 2020.

[mdr-4] A Cuban island for the GDR? ( Memento from September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk's website from September 14, 2005

[5] Neues Deutschland from June 20, 1972

[rbb-6] cement against tropical fruits , television production, RBB, first broadcast April 12, 2007. Description of contents

[7] Visit to the "Playa DDR" . In: Neues Deutschland , July 1, 1972, p. 16.

[bez-8] Meeting on the Cuban Ernst Thälmann Island . In: Berliner Zeitung of August 20, 1972.

[osz-9] Thälmann unter Palmen reminds of the GDR . In: Ostseezeitung from February 17, 2001.

[10] On the way with music - Cuba , DFF production, first broadcast December 13, 1975

[11] Frank Schöbel: Frank and Frei (autobiography), pp. 279–283.

[12] Juan Reinaldo Sánchez: The hidden life of Fidel Castro. Lübbe, Cologne 2015, p. 21 f.

[13] A friendship between men in Cuba (video). In: Damals im Osten (MDR.de) from December 16, 2005, accessed on February 13, 2015

[sillu-14] Curious dispute over a GDR island in the Caribbean . In: Super Illu from March 1, 2001, pp. 10/11.

[15] Matthias Gebauer: German investors want to buy Cuban island In: Spiegel Online from February 24, 2001, accessed on June 18, 2020.

[spiegel-16] Matthias Gebauer: Did Castro give the Germans a Caribbean island? . In: Spiegel Online from February 14, 2001, accessed on June 18, 2020.