Letter from Germany: shrinking city

Her face lights up briefly with the memory of it: “Shampoo and coffee! Only if you lived in the GDR would you know what those shops smelled like”. I had asked about that socialist peculiarity – Intershops: hard currency stores that stocked things, like coffee, that hadn’t otherwise been available in the German Democratic Republic. My guide was 10 when the Berlin Wall came down and she had mixed memories of socialist East Germany. She was showing me round her hometown of Eisenhüttenstadt, built from scratch in the early 1950s to house workers for the giant steel mill established there. Its wide boulevard of a main street leads straight to the steel mill, still functioning and billowing out white smoke but now downsized and owned by a corporation.

It was the first of the new Soviet-inspired industrial combine towns to be built in eastern Europe. It was promoted as a socialist showcase and was called Stalinstadt until 1961. At its height the city was home to about 50,000 but now it was down to around 30,000: one of eastern Germany’s shrinking cities.

“You are my first tour in English,” the guide admitted once we had identified ourselves at the slightly run-down two-track train station. The weather was a cold, grey drizzle threatening to get worse. The guide explained that usually some of the tour was walked but not today, so for the next couple of hours or so we hopped in and out of her Skoda. Our first stop was the tall, dark columnar Soviet war memorial. It marks a mass grave of more than 4,000 Soviet soldiers. During Stalin’s time the official story was that they had died in battle. The truth was the vast majority died in a PoW camp.

From there she took me to see some of the housing complexes, tall regular blocks built around generous areas of grass and trees with lots of benches and little bronze statues. The creamy-coloured blocks were built one after another as the population grew; each one had to be built “faster and cheaper” than the last one to keep up with demand. The guide pointed out the changing architecture from Stalinist neoclassicism to motifs based on Grimm’s fairytales: a reflection in itself of the complicated politics of the GDR in its 40 or so years of existence.

“I love my town,” the guide explained. Since 1989 decline had really set in. It was hard for her to see the place dying: boarded up blocks and phased closing down of others, but she was hopeful. Eisenhüttenstadt has been given heritage status; surviving buildings were being renovated; the gardens and squares tidied up. The numerous small bronze statues are restored: a wild boar here, a mother with a child there, and an elegant dancer-like figure gracing a pathway. The Trabant car showroom is now a bright yellow bakery, the Activist Restaurant a pub. The last thing she points out is the huge mosaic of a giant hand releasing a dove that continues to overlook the main street.

The Guardian Weekly regularly publishes a Letter from one of its readers from around the world. We welcome submissions – they should focus on giving a clear sense of a place and its people. Please send them to weekly.letters@theguardian.com