Evelyn Zupke said the names of Communist-era leaders should be removed from city streets
Germany’s parliamentary commissioner has called for changing the names of streets that bear the names of Vladimir Lenin and Cold War–era socialist leaders.
Streets in several cities still have the names of politicians from Soviet-aligned East Germany, which reunited with pro-US West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Evelyn Zupke, the Bundestag’s commissioner representing former East German political prisoners, told the newspaper Bild that names related to the socialist past should be taken out of public spaces.
“Thirty-five years after reunification, no street should be named after Lenin, Otto Grotewohl, or Wilhelm Pieck. Naming a street is a way our democratic society shows appreciation today. But these individuals represent the suffering of thousands of victims,” she said on Saturday. Zupke added that changing the names “would send the right message on the 35th anniversary of German unity.”
According to Bild, more than a dozen cities in the former East Germany have streets named after Lenin, including Nauen in Brandenburg. A spokesperson for Nauen told the newspaper that street names are determined by the city council, and the matter wasn’t on the agenda.
A spokesperson for the town of Weissenfels said that although Mayor Martin Papke “supports keeping them in the long run,” the final decision lies with the residents. The town in Saxony-Anhalt has streets named after Lenin and Pieck, East Germany’s leader from 1949 to 1960, as well as a street named in honor of German-Soviet friendship.
Many countries from the former Eastern Bloc removed pro-Communist names and statues after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine launched its own “decommunization” campaign after the US-backed coup in 2014, and the last remaining Lenin statue was reportedly toppled in August. Moscow has condemned the campaign as a thinly veiled effort to erase Ukraine’s historical ties with Russia.