New Germany publishing house

New Germany publishing house
Basic data
Place:	Berlin-Friedrichshain
Construction time :	1969-1974
Architectural style :	Modern
Architect :	Collective around Eberhard Just and ; Edgar Hofmann
Use / legal
Usage :	office building
Technical specifications
Floors :	7th
Building material :	Reinforced concrete , steel , facade made of concrete with struts made of aluminum
address
City:	Berlin
Country:	Germany

The New Germany publishing house is on the street of the Paris Commune at Franz-Mehring-Platz 1 in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain . In the time of the GDR it was built as the seat of the SED - Central Organ New Germany . In addition to the newspaper, it houses other organizations and associations.

History and conception

Originally the station building of the Ostbahn station stood at this location , which was used by the well-known Variety Theater Plaza after passenger traffic was moved to the neighboring Silesian station . After the building was destroyed, the New Germany publishing house was to be built here . In a competition in 1952, a design by the architects' collective Colden , Sommerer , Doehler and Englberger in the style of national traditions emerged as the winner. However, this project was not implemented.

New Germany publishing house, 1981

Only after the completion of the Axel Springer high-rise in West Berlin was the construction of a new publishing building pushed again. The international-style building was built between 1969 and 1974 according to designs by the architects' collective around Eberhard Just and Edgar Hofmann . VEB Industrieprojektierung Leipzig took over the construction management. It is designed as a high-rise slab. Werner Lamberz , head of the agitation and propaganda department responsible for the press in the SED Central Committee, described the building at its opening as "the largest and most important building our party [the SED] has ever built". Almost at the same time, another press building was built in East Berlin with the house of the Berliner Verlag .

The complex covers 21,000 square meters. A printing shop, a polygraphic center and our own car repair shop are also connected. At the time of its creation, the printing house was one of the most modern in Europe. In addition to the daily newspaper Neues Deutschland , the weekly newspaper Neue Deutsche Bauernzeitung and the puzzle newspaper Troll were printed in it. A total of eight different daily newspapers, 19 weekly newspapers, 48 company newspapers and various SED publications were produced here.

In 1972 the square in front of the Küstriner train station was renamed Franz-Mehring-Platz after the Marxist publicist Franz Mehring .

Today's use and owner

The building has been used as an office block since 1990. Since it is located on the former premises of the Deutsche Reichsbahn , there was a legal dispute over the property between 1995 and 2005 between Verlag des Neues Deutschland and Deutsche Bahn as the legal successor to the Reichsbahn. During this time, the printing works moved out and Deutsche Bahn used the building as a furniture store. It was then renovated and the Neues Deutschland publishing house moved in again.

In addition to the newspaper publisher, the building is, among other things, the headquarters of Karl Dietz Verlag , the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation , the Communist Party of Germany , DKP Berlin , the DEFA Foundation , ICESTORM Entertainment GmbH , the East German Board of Trustees of Associations (OKV, including GRH , GBM ), the initiative group for the protection of the social rights of former members of armed organs and the customs administration of the GDR e. V. (ISOR) and the member service of the union ver.di (ver.di Service GmbH). From 1989 to the end of 1999, the editorial staff of the satirical magazine Eulenspiegel was also based there.

In the building there is a hall named after the communist publisher Willi Münzenberg , which is used for events.

The property and building are owned by the property company Franz-Mehring-Platz 1 GmbH , 90 percent of which is a subsidiary of Neues Deutschland Druckerei und Verlags GmbH . Half of its share capital is held by Föderative Verlags-, Consulting- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH - FEVAC in trust for the party Die Linke, and the other half by Communio Beteiligungsgenossenschaft eG .

Artistic design

In front of the building: bronze sculpture Rosa Luxemburg by Rolf Biebl ; behind two terracotta - reliefs in honor of Mathilde Jacob and Karl Liebknecht by Ingeborg Hunzinger

There is a ceramic installation in the inner courtyard of the building.
In 1996, two were in front of the publishing house terracotta - steles in honor of Mathilde Jacob and Karl Liebknecht placed by the artist Ingeborg Hunzinger were created. In front of the building is a bust of Franz Mehring by the Magdeburg artist Heinrich Apel as well as the bronze sculpture Rosa Luxemburg from 1998/1999 , a work by Rolf Biebl .
During the Iraq War of 2003 , the facade was illuminated with the slogan “No war” ('No war'). The installation was implemented by the typographer Verena Gerlach and Oliver Krieger, two members of the Blinkenlights project .
Since May 8, 2009, a stele commemorates the Volksvarieté Plaza, which opened at this location in 1929, and its founding director Jules Marx .

Quotes on the facade

In 2011, the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung had a tape with the following quotes installed on the outside wall of the building:

Rosa Luxemburg : The only way to rebirth is the school of public life itself, unrestricted broadest democracy, public opinion
Peter Weiss : So the writer comes to writing via a detour via disintegration and powerlessness, and every word with which he wins a truth has emerged from doubts and contradictions.
Karl Marx : The social revolution cannot draw its poetry from the past, but only from the future.

Reception in literature and film

The filmmakers Sandra Prechtel from Munich and François Rossier from Switzerland shot a television documentary about the building for MDR in 2004 under the title ND - Deutsches Neuland , which was shown at several smaller festivals.

The title of the 2011 novel Die Kältezentrale by the writer Inka Parei refers ostensibly to the air conditioning rooms in the basement of the publishing house as a place of action, but is a metaphor for the political climate in the publisher close to the government and in East Berlin as a whole in the 1980s.

literature

Otto Englberger : Publishing House New Germany . In: Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der HAB Weimar (1953, first draft for the building that was not realized).