Eisenhüttenstadt


Eisenhüttenstadt is a town in the Oder-Spree district of Brandenburg, Germany. It is located at the confluence of the Oder–Spree Canal and the River Oder on the border with Poland. Eisenhüttenstadt was founded as a planned city by East Germany in 1950, as a socialist model city and a state-owned steel mill complex. It was known as Stalinstadt between 1953 and 1961, in honor of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and received its current name during the de-Stalinization campaign.
WWW eisenhuettenstadt.de

Geography

The municipal area is situated on a sandy terrace in the Berlin-Warsaw glacial valley. It is bounded by the Oder river and Germany–Poland border to the east. Eisenhüttenstadt is the eastern terminus of the Oder–Spree Canal. The town centre is located about south of Frankfurt (Oder) and southeast of Berlin. Eisenhüttenstadt is served by the Berlin–Wrocław railway line.
The town comprises the districts of Diehlo, Fürstenberg, and Schönfließ.

History

The town was built near the historic village of Fürstenberg which was founded in 1251. In 1319, Fürstenberg became part of the Duchy of Jawor within fragmented Piast-ruled Poland. Later on, it passed to the Kingdom of Bohemia, and Charles IV bought the town from the Cistercians of Neuzelle and allowed the construction of a bridge over the Oder to create a new trade route to Poland. In 1469, it passed to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, and, in 1490, it returned to Bohemia. After the Peace of Prague in 1635, Fürstenberg became part of the Electorate of Saxony. In 1815, it was transferred to Prussia, and, in 1871, it became part of the German Empire. In 1925, a port on the Oder was created.
During World War II, the Germans operated the Stalag III-B prisoner-of-war camp for Polish, French, Belgian, Serbian, Soviet, American, Dutch, Italian and British POWs in Fürstenberg with several forced labour subcamps in the town and region, a forced labour camp for Jewish men, and a subcamp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
The present-day town was founded as a socialist model city in 1950 following a decision by the East German Socialist Unity Party, alongside a new steel mill combine located west of the historic town of Fürstenberg. A few years before the new town was established, a bridge over the Oder river had been constructed, the earlier one having been destroyed by retreating Wehrmacht forces in February 1945, near the end of World War II.
The population grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. It was renamed Stalinstadt following the death of Joseph Stalin. In 1961, during de-Stalinization, the town was renamed Eisenhüttenstadt. After German reunification in 1990, the state-owned steel works were privatized, and most of its 12,000 employees lost their jobs. Thereafter the factory employed around 2,500 workers. The town experienced a steep decline in population, from just over 50,000 to under 30,000. Consequently, many apartment blocks have now been demolished, although some in the inner city dating from the 1950s have been renovated and restored.

Architecture

The first design for the new residential quarter was developed by the modernist and Bauhaus architect, Franz Ehrlich, in August 1950. His modernist plan, which laid out a dispersed town landscape along functional lines, was rejected by the Ministry for Reconstruction. The same happened to the plan presented by the architects Kurt Junghanns and Otto Geiler. The plan that was ultimately realized was developed by Kurt Walter Leucht.

Twin towns – sister cities

Eisenhüttenstadt is twinned with:

Notable people

Eisenhüttenstadt is the birthplace of:

Other personalities associated with the city