10 March 2020

The Guardian: First Lenin statue in western Germany to be erected after heated battle

A statue of Vladimir Lenin is soon to be erected in the German city of Gelsenkirchen following a longstanding battle between a leftist party and city authorities.

Gelsenkirchen, in the centre of the Ruhr valley, once Germany’s industrial heartland, will be the first western German city with a statue of the founder of the Russian communist party. [...]

A court has now given permission for the Marxist-Leninist party of Germany, the MLPD, to place the metal statue outside its headquarters. The city authorities had tried to stop the statue, ordering a halt to the building of a concrete pedestal on which it is due to stand. It argues that the statue will “disturb the view” of a neighbouring listed building, a 1930s building society branch. The statue’s presence, it said, would also contravene historical monument preservation rules. It would, the city argued, “mean that the view of the observer of the historic building would no longer be unrestricted”

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