Karl-Marx-Allee

After the War, both the Eastern and Western sectors of Berlin began a massive reconstruction programme to repair the damage inflicted by war. In 1959, East Berlin's mayor, Friedrich Ebert, laid the foundation stone for a flagship building project—a monumental boulevard called Stalinallee. The street, named after the great Russian dictator, was to contain spacious apartments for workers, as well as a tourist hotel and an enormous cinema, known today as the International. Stalinallee immediately gained notoriety as the scene of a bloody revolt on 17th June 1953, when builders and construction workers demonstrated against the government. The rebellion was quashed with tanks and resulted in enormous loss of life. Renamed Karl-Marx-Allee after Stalin's death in 1961, the boulevard is just as impressive today as the day it was completed. Lined with monumental eight-storey buildings in the wedding cake style popular at the time, it is also extremely broad—for a reason. The street needed to be wide enough to hold thousands of goose-stepping soldiers, tanks and other military vehicles for East Germany's annual May Day parade.