¹ These figures come from Peters, Günter (one of the original planners of Marzahn), Hütten, Platten, Wohnquartiere. Berlin-Marzahn: Ein junger Bezirk mit altem Namen (Berlin: MAZZ, 1998)Google Scholar, 185. Taken as one city, the development in the northeast was the fourth largest city in the GDR after Berlin, Leipzig, and Dresden.

² Scott, James, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998)Google Scholar, 4.

³ There are a number of sources on the “rental barracks;” they were an object of intense debate and study throughout the Kaiserreich and afterward; mountains of studies were done on labor and working-class history in the 1970s and 1980s, and in the 1990s and 2000s widespread interest in urban geography and material culture renewed the interest in the “rental barracks” themselves as well as the debates concerning them that existed in the years prior to World War II. See, among others, Geist, Johann Friedrich and Kürvers, Klaus, Das Berliner Mietshaus, vols. 1–3 (Munich: Prestel, 1980)Google Scholar; Ladd, Brian, Urban Planning and Civic Order in Germany, 1860–1914 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Bernhardt, Christoph, Bauplatz Groß-Berlin. Wohnungsmärkte, Terraingewebe und Kommunalpolitik im Städtewachstum der Hochindustrialisierung (1871–1918) (New York: W. de Gruyter, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Niethammer, Lutz, ed., Wohnen im Wandel. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alltags in der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Wuppertal: Hammer, 1979)Google Scholar; and Niethammer, Lutz and Brüggemeier, Franz, “Wie wohnten Arbeiter im Kaiserreich?,” Archiv für Sozialgeschichte 16 (1976): 61–134Google Scholar; and von Saldern, Adelheid, Häuserleben. Zur Geschichte städtischen Arbeiterwohnens vom Kaiserreich bis heute (Bonn: Dietz, 1995).Google Scholar

⁴ Wietog, Jutta, “Wohnungsstandard der Unterschichten in Berlin,” in Arbeiterexistenz im 19. Jahrhundert. Lebensstandard und Lebensgestaltung deutscher Arbeiter und Handwerker, ed. Conze, Werner and Engelhardt, Ulrich (Stuttgart: Klett-Cota, 1981), 114–137; 132.Google Scholar

⁵ See Bullock, Nicholas and Read, James, The Movement for Housing Reform in Germany and France, 1840–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

⁶ Bodek, Richard, “The Not-So-Golden Twenties: Everyday Life and Communist Agitprop in Weimar-Era Berlin,” Journal of Social History 30, no. 1 (1996): 55–78.Google Scholar

⁷ Ibid., 58. See also Boberg, Jochen, Fichter, Tilman, and Gillen, Eckhart, eds., Exerzierfeld der Moderne. Industriekultur in Berlin im 19. Jahrhundert (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1984).Google Scholar

⁸ See Engels, Friedrich, Zur Wohnungsfrage. Die Grundlegende Schrift zur Wohnungsfrage im kapitalistischen Staat und in der Übergangszeit (Singen: Oberbadischer Verlag, 1887)Google Scholar; for the discussion of Engels in the context of liberal reform efforts of the 1860s and 1870s, see Bullock and Read, The Movement for Housing Reform.

⁹ This is taken from Manfred Otto, “Tradition und Gegenwart,” Neue Berliner Illustrierte, no. 3, 1980, 2.

¹⁰ Ibid. See also Vieth, Harald, Bemerkenswerte Bäume in Berlin und Potsdam (Hamburg: Selbstverlag Harald Vieth), 2005.Google Scholar

¹¹ Swett, Pamela's excellent Neighbors and Enemies: The Culture of Radicalism in Berlin, 1929–1933 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)Google Scholar, does an admirable job of illustrating the extent to which left-wing ideology was deeply intertwined in Berlin's “red” neighborhoods, such as the Nostiz Kiez area of Kreuzberg, as well as other parts of Wedding, Prenzlauer Berg, and elsewhere; see especially chaps. 1 and 2. Swett also covered the May Day 1929 riots, 121–136. For Prenzlauer Berg specifically, see Reschke, Oliver, Kampf um die Macht in einem Berliner Arbeiterbezirk. Nationalsozialisten am Prenzlauer Berg 1925–1933 (Berlin: Trafo, 2008)Google Scholar. As both Swett and Reschke made clear, Berlin's tenement districts were not monolithic fortresses of left-wing power, but saw significant inroads made by the SA and were hotly contested areas, often splitting families and generations. This made the memories of living in such places all the more painful, as the example of Anna Heinze later in this essay illustrates. See also the classic by Rosenhaft, Eve, Beating the Fascists: The German Communists and Political Violence, 1929–1933 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; as well as Weitz, Eric's Creating German Communism, 1890–1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

¹² Peters, Günter, Historische Stadtplanungen für den Berliner Nordosten (Berlin: Bezirksamt Marzahn von Berlin, Abt. Jugend, Bildung und Kultur, Kulturamt/Heimatmuseum, 1997)Google Scholar, 12.

¹³ Swett, Neighbors and Enemies, 48–49.

¹⁴ Ibid. Other settlements included the Waldsiedlung in Zehlendorf, Siemensstadt, and Gross-Siedlung Reinickendorf, all of which were built in the late 1920s located on what was then the marginal zone where the city ended and farmlands began.

¹⁵ Not only Nazis, but also fascists throughout Europe were highly conflicted and ambivalent about cities, seeing them as breeding grounds of proletarian subversion and backwardness, as well as opportunities to demonstrate state power. See Horn, David, Social Bodies: Science, Reproduction, and Italian Modernity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar, 95; this point taken from Arthurs, Joshua, Excavating Modernity: The Roman Past in Fascist Italy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012)Google Scholar, 61.

¹⁶ Dieffendorf, Jeffrey, In the Wake of War: The Reconstruction of German Cities after World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 114–116.Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Landesarchiv Berlin (hereafter LA Berlin), A Rep. 009 Nr. 28891 “Sanierung der Elendswohnungen; Dr. Goebbels Sofortprogramm 1938–39,” which concerns a surprise visit made by Joseph Goebbels to the slums in the north and east of Berlin, his indignation at the awful living conditions, and insistence that something would be done immediately to improve housing for Berlin's working class, including a housing program (Wohnungsbauprogramm) that would produce 30,000 residences a year. Almost immediately, the Berlin city government set to work trying to build new housing, but was stymied by the lack of funds it encountered, as well as the increased shortage of homes due to the demolition work of Albert Speer's ministry.

¹⁸ G. Peters, Historische Stadtplanungen, 24. The Berlin municipal government had long been considering plans to build workers' settlements in Marzahn at the very edge of the city, especially for families with a lot of children. See LA Berlin A Rep. 009 Nr. 27675 “Entwurf Bebauungsplan für das von der Landsberger Chaussee, dem Marzahner Weg, und der Gemarkungsgrenze gegen Marzahn umschlossene Gelände des Verwaltungsbezirks 18 1935.”

¹⁹ Reichhardt, Hans and Schäche, Wolfgang, Von Berlin nach Germania. Über die Zerstörungen der “Reichshauptstadt” durch Albert Speers Neugestaltungsplanungen (Berlin: Transit, 1998)Google Scholar, 156.

²⁰ Although Speer also intended that a number of these displaced people could be resettled in vacated Jewish apartments, as many as 40,000 of them. See Geist, Johann Friedrich and Kürvers, Klaus, “Tatort Berlin, Pariser Platz. Die Zerstörung und ‘Entjudung’ Berlins,” in Krieg—Zerstörung—Aufbau, ed. der Künste, Akademie, 65Google Scholar; Reichhardt and Schäche, Von Berlin nach Germania, 159–175; and Willems, Susanne, Der entsiedelte Jude. Albert Speers Wohnungsmarktpolitik für den Berliner Hauptstadtbau (Berlin: Hentrich, 2000).Google Scholar

²¹ See, for example, Bundesarchiv-Lichterfelde (hereafter BA-L) R 113, especially 2107: “Wiederaufbau bombenzerstörter Städte Grundsätze und Richtlinien (Hannover, Kassel, Stuttgart, Hamburg, Bremen) incl: Hochbau und Flachbau in volksbiologischer hinsicht,” which includes “Abschrift ‘Gedanken und Berechnungen zur Lösung des Wohnungsproblems in bombenzerstörten Städten from Bohnert to Staatssekretär Dr. Muhs in Berlin, Geheime Reichssache, 15. April 1944.’” The specific target of much of the Allied (especially British) bombing strategy was the destruction, using fire bombing, of working-class quarters. This was both because working-class tenements offered a greater chance for the “multiplier effects” of incendiary bombs, since they were more closely packed together and having been built in the 1800s contained a higher degree of wood, as opposed to buildings in the affluent neighbors and suburbs, which were less densely packed together, and also newer buildings such as the Horseshoe Settlement, which had a higher concentration of concrete and stone and thus were less likely to burn. See Friedrich, Jörg, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany, 1940–1945, trans. Brown, Alison (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 9–12Google Scholar; on the specific targeting of working-class tenement districts by the British Royal Air Force (RAF), see especially Laurenz Demps, with Bötticher, Kerstin, ed., Luftangriffe auf Berlin. Die Berichte der Hauptluftschutzstelle 1940–1945 (Berlin: Ch. Links, 2013), 14–15Google Scholar, 38; on the view of Nazi urban planners of the bombing as a welcome chance to replan and rebuild cities in their vision, see Süß, Dietmar, Tod aus der Luft. Kriegsgesellschaft und Luftkrieg in Deutschland und England (Munich: Siedler, 2011), 238–254.Google Scholar

²² See Demps, ed., Luftangriffe.

²³ Schnitter, Daniela, Berlin-Marzahn. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Berlin: Bezirksamt Marzahn von Berlin, 1994)Google Scholar, 37.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ Hübner, Christa and Ifland, Dorothee, “Zwangsarbeiterlager auch auf dem Territorium unseres heutigen Bezirks?,” in Links und Rechts der Wuhle. Biesdorf, Hellersdorf, Kaulsdorf, Mahlsdorf, Marzahn. Heimatskalendar 2002, ed. Kadow, Sabine and Kintscher, Harald (Berlin: Lokal Verlag, 2002).Google Scholar

²⁶ As a result, Marzahn and the neighboring village of Hohenschönhausen were targets of numerous bombings by the RAF in 1943 and 1944, a fact that would be revealed during the construction of the Plattenbausiedlung as numerous unexploded bombs would be discovered buried in the sandy soil. See Teresiak, Manfred, “20. Januar 1944. Schwerster Bombenangriff auf Biesdorf,” in Links und Rechts der Wuhle, ed. Kadow and Kintscher, 45–46Google Scholar.

²⁷ Black, Monica, Death in Berlin: From Weimar to Divided Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 123, 145, 154, and 183–85Google Scholar. Kitzmann, Camillo, “Natürlich, reizvoll, unverkäuflich—der Kienberg,” in Links und Rechts der Wuhle, ed. Kadow and KintscherGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ Kintscher, Harald, “Man nannte sie ‘Wüstenbahn.’ Vor 95 Jahren erhielt Mahlsdorf seine Strassenbahn,” in Links und Rechts der Wuhle, ed. Kadow and Kintscher, 52–53Google Scholar.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Hübner, Christa, Rank, Monika, and Teresiak, Manfred, “Historischer Überblick,” in 20 Jahre Marzahn. Geschichte—Bauen—Leben, ed. von Berlin, Bezirksamt Marzahn, Abt. Jugend, Bildung und Kultur (Berlin: Holga Wende, 1999)Google Scholar, 7.

³¹ Buck, Hannsjörg, Mit hohem Anspruch gescheitert—Die Wohnungspolitik der DDR (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2004)Google Scholar, 19.

³² Demps, ed., Luftangriffe, 107.

³³ Ibid., 20. Echternkamp, Jörg, Nach dem Krieg. Alltagsnot, Neuorientierung und die Last der Vergangenheit, 1945–1949 (Zurich: Pendo Verlag, 2003), 19–20.Google Scholar

³⁴ Buck, Mit hohem Anspruch, 23.

³⁵ Hannemann, Christine, Die Platte. Industrialisierte Wohnungsbau in der DDR (Berlin: Schiler, 2005)Google Scholar, 65.

³⁶ For more on the “Kitchen Debates” and the relationship between design, consumption, and the Cold War, see Castillo, Greg, “East as True West: Redeeming Bourgeois Culture, from Socialist Realism to Ostalgie,” Kritika 9, no. 4 (Fall 2008): 747–68Google Scholar, and more broadly his excellent monograph Cold War on the Home Front: The Soft Power of Midcentury Design (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 2010)Google Scholar; Reid, Susan, “Cold War in the Kitchen: Gender and the De-Stalinization of Consumer Taste in the Soviet Union under Khrushchev,” Slavic Review 61, no. 2 (2002): 211–258Google Scholar; and Reid, Susan, “Khrushchev Modern: Agency and Modernization in the Soviet Home,” Cahiers du monde russe 47, nos. 1–2 (2006): 227–68.Google Scholar

³⁷ Hannemann, Die Platte, 61.

³⁸ Palutzki, Joachim, Architektur in der DDR (Berlin: Reimer, 2000)Google Scholar, 116.

³⁹ See also Smith, Mark, Property of Communists: The Urban Housing Program from Stalin to Khrushchev (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2010).Google Scholar

⁴⁰ This encompassed a range of formats, including the ever popular children's animated character “The Sandman” who often went into space. See Soldovieri, Stefan, “Socialists in Outer Space: East German Film's Venusian Adventure,” Film History 10 (1998): 382–398.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Böhm, Karl and Dörge, Rolf, Unsere Welt von Morgen (Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben, 1960)Google Scholar, 219.

⁴² “Städte von Morgen und Übermorgen,” Jugend und Technik, October 1966, 986. See also Rubin, Eli, Synthetic Socialism: Plastics and Dictatorship in the German Democratic Republic (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 108–110.Google Scholar

⁴³ See Sammartino, Annemarie, The Impossible Border: Germany and the East, 1914–1922 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010).Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Thöner, Wolfgang, “From an ‘Alien, Hostile Phenomenon’ to the ‘Poetry of the Future’: On the Bauhaus Reception in East Germany, 1945–1970,” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, Bulletin Supplement 2 (2005): 115–38.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Thöner, Wolfgang, “Zwischen Tradition und Moderne. Richard Paulick, Das Bauhaus und die Architektur der Zwanziger Jahre,” in Bauhaus Tradition und DDR Moderne. Der Architekt Richard Paulick, ed. Thöner, Wolfgang and Müller, Peter (Munich and Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 2006), 23–44Google Scholar. Palutzki, Architektur in der DDR, 139; and Hannemann, Die Platte, 71.

⁴⁶ Urbanisme was Le Corbusier's major work detailing his ideas on urban planning, published in 1924 by Les Éditions G. Crés & Co., Paris. It was translated into English as “The City of Tomorrow.” See Corbusier, Le, The City of To-Morrow and Its Planning (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971)Google Scholar. See also Corbusier, Le, La Ville Radieuse: Soleil, Espace, Verdure (Boulogne-sur-Seine: Éditions de l'Architecure d'Aujourd'hui, 1935)Google Scholar, translated as The Radiant City: Elements of a Doctrine of Urbanism to Be Used as the Basis of our Machine-age Civilization (New York: Orion Press, 1967).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Hudson, Hugh Jr., Blueprints and Blood: The Stalinization of Soviet Architecture, 1917–1937 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994)Google Scholar, 31. See also Kopp, Anatole, “Foreign Architects in the Soviet Union during the First Two Five-Year Plans,” in Reshaping Russian Architecture: Western Technology, Utopian Dreams, ed. Brumfield, William (Cambridge: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar, 182; as well as Kopp, Anatole, Constructivist Architecture in the USSR (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985), 22–23Google Scholar. Hannemann, Die Platte, 53, also makes this same point.

⁴⁸ Kopp, “Foreign Architects,” 191–92; and Ruble, Blair, “Moscow's Revolutionary Architecture,” in Reshaping Russian Architecture, ed. Brumfield, 134–5Google Scholar. See Bliznakov, Milka, “The Realization of Utopia: Western Technology and Soviet Avant-Garde Architecture,” in Reshaping Russian Architecture, ed. Brumfield, 145–175Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ International Congress of Modern Architects (CIAM), ed., Rationelle Bebauungsweisen (Stuttgart: Julius Hoffman, 1931)Google Scholar, 28; see also Gropius, Walter, “Houses, Walk-ups, or High-Rise Apartment Blocks?,” in The Scope of Total Architecture (New York: Collier Books, 1950)Google Scholar, based on the 1931 III CIAM congress. See also Mumford, Eric, The CIAM Discourse on Urbanism, 1928–1960 (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000)Google Scholar, 57; and Hannemann, Die Platte, 41.

⁵⁰ Kosel, similar to many other Bauhäusler, constructivists, and Corbusians managed to keep a low profile during the years of Stalinist terror in the 1930s and continue to work on the kinds of modernist, mass-produced apartment projects that the Stalinist regime had denounced. Hannemann, Die Platte, 78–79.

⁵¹ Hannemann, Die Platte, 54 and 80.

⁵² Le Corbusier was infamous for having said in 1923 “architecture or revolution,” in Corbusier, Le, Vers une Architecture (Paris: Les Éditions G. Crés & Co., 1923)Google Scholar. This, along with the rising tide of xenophobia in the 1930s under Stalinism, led him to be banished from further projects in the U.S.S.R. Similarly, the Bauhaus was a taboo subject for East German architects and designers, though many of them owed their ideas and even training to such modernist schools. Only in the late 1970s did it become politically feasible for architects and officials to acknowledge the influence modernists had had over GDR material culture and urban planning. See, for example, Wolfgang Junker (at the time Minister of Construction), “Das Erbe des Bauhauses ist in der DDR in guten Händen,” Architektur der DDR (January 1977): 2–4Google Scholar; and Behr, Adalbert, “Das progressive Architekturerbe des Bauhauses Dessau,” Architektur der DDR (December 1976): 710–715Google Scholar. See also below in this essay the homage paid to Le Corbusier's “Modulor” under the Richtkrone on Marschwitzastrasse by Marzahn's planners. Hannemann, Die Platte.

⁵³ BA-L DH 2 23501 Dipl. Ing. Grotewohl, Dr.-Ing. S. Kress and Dr.-Ing. W. Rietdorf, “Grundlagen für die Entwicklung neuer Wohnformen,” DBA-ISA, Abt. Wohngebiete, Zwischenarbeit zu Thema 6, Arbeitsschnitt 2, August 31, 1970, 4.

⁵⁴ Ibid., 19, “Verkehr im Wohngebieten.”

⁵⁵ BA-L DH 2 21686 G. Wessel, “Räumliche Ordnung und Bewegungssystem,” DBA-ISA, Abt. Theorie und Geschichte der Architektur, December 1969.

⁵⁶ Hannemann describes the Central Committee's Department of Construction under Mittag as one of the key loci of decision making, along with the DBA-ISA, in the area of city planning and architecture in the GDR. Hannemann, Die Platte, 94.

⁵⁷ Ibid., 100.

⁵⁸ See “Wie sieht der Wohnung der Zukünft aus?,” Kultur im Heim, no. 3, 1963, 2–12Google Scholar. There were other models of Plattenbau tried by the DBA and the Ministry for Construction, such as the QP B55, QP 64, Q3a, WHH models, but these were not as widely used as the P-2. See Lamm, Manfred, “Zur Entwicklung des industriellen Bauens in Berlin-Ost,” in Geschichte und Zukunft des industriellen Bauens. Tag der Regional- und Heimatgeschichte Marzahn-Hellersdorf 2001, ed. Peters, Günter and Heimatverein Marzahn-Hellersdorf e.V. (Berlin: Nora, 2002), 122–138Google Scholar. Reich, Julia, “Chefarchitekt des Industriellen Bauens. Richard Paulick in Hoyerswerda,” in Bauhaus Tradition, ed. Thöner and Müller, 127Google Scholar.

⁵⁹ Grotewohl, Otto in Ulbricht, Walter, ed., Protokoll der Verhandlungen des V. Parteitages der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1959).Google Scholar See also Palutzki, Architektur in der DDR, 139.

⁶⁰ Buck, Mit hohem Anspruch, 181.

⁶¹ Palutzki, Architektur in der DDR, 194.

⁶² Buck, Mit hohem Anspruch, 180.

⁶³ Palutzki, Architektur in der DDR, 194.

⁶⁴ Fulbrook, Mary, The People's State: East German Society from Hitler to Honecker (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005)Google Scholar, 51 and 278. Fulbrook also notes that in the 1980s, when housing became less of an issue (though it still remained one until the end of the GDR), it was rivaled by complaints about being denied travel visas to the west.

⁶⁵ Bundesarchiv (hereafter “BA”) DL102 (Institut für Marktforschung) 800: “Stellungnahme zur Entwicklung des Bedarfs an Konsumgutern im Neubaugebiet Berlin-Biesdorf-Marzahn 1974” (February 13, 1972), 27.

⁶⁶ Peters, Oleg and Seifert, Waldemar, Von der Platte bis zum Schloss. Die Spur der Steine des Günter Peters (Berlin: Forschungsstelle Baugeschichte Berlin, 2003)Google Scholar, 17.

⁶⁷ Hinze, Jürgen, “Das grüne Ungeheuer,” in Marzahn erzählt. (Keine) Plattengeschichten, ed. Rohnstock, Katrin (Berlin: Rohnstock Biografen, 2004), 52–57Google Scholar; 52. Several of the sources used in this article are taken from collections of memoirs written by Marzahners a decade or more after the fall of the GDR, including the volume Marzahn erzählt. (Keine) Plattengeschichten. This poses certain methodological issues, including the possibility that the subjects here are looking back at their lives through the rose-colored lenses of Ostalgie. On the other hand, it is difficult to find observations from the 1970s and 1980s from Marzahners that are trustworthy, as most sources quoted in publications were subject to, at the very least, internal censorship. There are some more reliable sources on what Marzahners actually thought about where they lived, including a longitudinal sociological study through the Institute of Marxism-Leninism on Marzahn, which is discussed below. It is also important here, however, to pay attention to how Marzahners narrate their lives as following an arc that tracks very closely with their move out of crumbling apartments and into Marzahn for understanding the larger narrative the regime was hoping to construct broadly among most of its citizens. Finally, the use of oral history and published memoirs is part of a long-standing trend of Alltagsgeschichte that has been used fruitfully, especially to understand life in dictatorships in German history that did not always allow for free expression of opinion at the time.

⁶⁸ Hemprich, Manfred, “Zu Hause im Hochhaus. Über Marzahner Kinder und ihre Eltern,” Neue Berliner Illustrierte, no. 14, 1980, 12–17;Google Scholar 16.

⁶⁹ Bartsch, Jutta and Bartsch, Rudi, “Die Häuser sind eben so konstruiert und dann sollen sie auch so bleiben,” in Allee der Kosmonauten. Einblicke und Ausblicke aus der Platte, ed. Quiesser, Ylva and Tirri, Lidia (Berlin: Verlag Kulturring in Berlin, e.V., 2004)Google Scholar, 57.

⁷⁰ Hepner, Lothar and Hepner, Helena, “Im Altbau wurde gar nicht saniert,” in Allee der Kosmonauten, ed. Quiesser and Tirri, 87Google Scholar.

⁷¹ Hemprich, “ Zu Hause im Hochhaus,” 16.

⁷² Interview with Gerlinde Paulus, Berlin, July 22, 2008.

⁷³ Buck, In hohem Anspruch, 254.

⁷⁴ Bergmann, Uschi, “Berliner Fenster,” Neue Berliner Illustrierte 35, no. 21, 1979, 16–19Google Scholar; 16.

⁷⁵ Ibid.

⁷⁶ Hannemann, Die Platte, 96.

⁷⁷ For more on the Housing Program, see Rowell, Jay, Le totalitarisme au concret: le politiques du logement en RDA (Paris: Economica, 2006).Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Hübner, Christa, Nicolaus, Herbert, and Teresiak, Manfred, 20 Jahre Marzahn—Chronik eines Berliner Bezirkes (Berlin: Heimatsmuseum Marzahn, 1998)Google Scholar, 10.

⁷⁹ G. Peters, Hütten, Platten, Wohnquartiere, 89.

⁸⁰ See, for example, Bundesarchiv-Stiftung Archiv Parteien und Massenorganisationen (BA-SAPMO) DY 30 2838 “Wohnungsbau in Berlin, Bd. 4: 1972–73”—Material zu Problemen der Erweiterung des Housing Program im Zeitraume 1972 bis 1975 from March 29, 1972, 64.

⁸¹ Ibid.

⁸² Taken here from LA Berlin C Rep 100, Nr. 1527, Berlin Magistrat, “Vorschlag zur Bildung eines Stadtbezirks auf Grundlage der territorial-ökonomischen Entwicklung im Raum Berlin-Lichtenberg,” July 18, 1973.

⁸³ Urban, Florian, Neohistorical East Berlin: Architecture and Urban Design in the German Democratic Republic, 1970–1990 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 49–50Google Scholar. Also see Krause, Dorothea and Zache, Manfred, “Modernisierungsgebiet Arnimplatz im Stadtbezirk Berlin-Prenzlauerberg,” Architektur der DDR 25 (July 1976): 395–400.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Urban, Neohistorical East Berlin. See also O. Peters and Seifert, Von der Platte, 17–18; as well as Günter Peters, “Die Arbeiterklasse zieht sich nicht ins Dorf!,” in Marzahn erzählt, ed. Rohnstock, 45–51, 45. In this last source Peters claims the yield was 6,500, whereas in an interview with the author on February 20, 2008, and in the Von der Platte bis zum Schloss essay, he claimed only 6,000.

⁸⁵ Quoted in Hannemann, Die Platte, 95. Author's emphasis.

⁸⁶ G. Peters, “Arbeiterklasse,” 47.

⁸⁷ BA-L DH 2 21389, “Grundlagenmaterial für die Bebauungskonzeption des Stadtteils Biesdorf/Marzahn,” Magistrat Berlin, Abt. Generalplanungen, October 15, 1973, 31.

⁸⁸ LA Berlin C Rep 902, File 3255, SED Bezirksleitung Berlin, “Vorlage für die Politbüro des ZK der SED. Betreff: Vorschlag für die Bebauungskonzeption des Stadtbezirks Biesdorf/Marzahn der Hauptstadt der DDR, Berlin,” 1974, 3.

⁸⁹ BA-L DH 2 21389, “Grundlagenmaterial für die Bebauungskonzeption des Stadtteils Biesdorf/Marzahn,” Magistrat Berlin, Abt. Generalplanungen, October 15, 1973, 29.

⁹⁰ Ibid., 30.

⁹¹ Großheim, Renate, “15 Tiefbauer immer höher hinaus,” Der Neunte 1, no. 12, July 7, 1977Google Scholar, 2.

⁹² “Vorflutkanal wächst im Biesdorfer Grenzgraben,” Der Neunte 2, no. 5, March 2, 1978, 2–3Google Scholar; as well as BA-L DH 2 21389 “Grundlagenmaterial für die Bebauungskonzeption des Stadtteils Biesdorf/Marzahn,” Magistrat Berlin, Abt. Generalplanungen, October 15, 1973, 32; Hübner, Nicolaus, and Teresiak, 20 Jahre Marzahn, 14.

⁹³ BA-L DH 2 21389 “Grundlagenmaterial für die Bebauungskonzeption des Stadtteils Biesdorf/Marzahn,” Magistrat Berlin, Abt. Generalplanungen, October 15, 1973, 32.

⁹⁴ G. Peters, Hütten, Platten, Wohnquartiere, 102.

⁹⁵ BA-L DH2 21389, “Planung des neuen Stadtteiles Biesdorf/Marzahn,” 3. See also Zech, Hermann, Marzahner Straßennamen—Ortsteil Marzahn (Berlin: Heimatsmuseum Marzahn, 1994).Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Pachmann, Heiner, “So klärt sich das Wasser. Zu einigen Aspekten der Umweltgestaltung im 9. Stadbezirk,” Der Neunte 1, no. 7, April 28, 1977,Google Scholar 4.

⁹⁷ BA-L DH 2 21389, “Grundlagenmaterial für die Bebauungskonzeption des Stadtteils Biesdorf/Marzahn” Magistrat Berlin, Abt. Generalplanunge, October 15, 1973, 31. Again, it is important to note the date here; much of the Marzahn plan was already dictated by the Bezirksbaukommission, which in turn had been given very strict instructions from the Politbüro, and so Korn's plan was a realization with detailed specs of these instructions.

⁹⁸ The “P” in P1 and P2 stood for Platte (“panel”), and the “QP” in QP 71 stood for Querwandplatte (“intersectional panel”). See G. Peters, Hütten, Platten, Wohnquartiere, 136. See also Felz, Achim and Stallknecht, Wilfried, “Die Wohnungsbauserie 70,” Deutsche Architektur 23 (January 1974): 4–10.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Korn, Roland, “Der elfgeschossige Wohnblok der WBS 70,” Der Neunte 2, no. 5, March 1978Google Scholar, 4.

¹⁰⁰ Ibid., 4.

¹⁰¹ G. Peters, Hütten, Platten, Wohnquartiere, 94.

¹⁰² “Was ist die Slobin-Methode?,” Der Neunte 1, no. 9, May 26, 1977Google Scholar, 3.

¹⁰³ G. Peters, Hütten, Platten, Wohnquartiere, 106.

¹⁰⁴ Verein KIDS & Co., ed., Marzahn-Südspitze. Leben im ersten Wohngebiet der Berliner Großsiedlung (Berlin: Bezirksamt Marzahn-Hellersdorf von Berlin, Abt. Ökologische Stadtentwicklung, 2002), 18–19Google Scholar. See also Corbusier, Le, The Modulor: A Harmonious Measure to the Human Scale, Universally Applicable to Architecture and Mechanics (Basel and Boston: Birkhäuser, 2000).Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ Graffunder, Heinz, “Zur Planung und Projektierung des 9. Stadtbezirkes,” Der Neunte 1, no. 8, May 17, 1977, 4–5.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Interview with Evelyn Marquardt, one of the first residents of the initial towers built on the Südspitze, Berlin, May 28, 2008. Among several other sources, Bundesbeauftragte der Stasiunterlagen (hereafter BstU) MfS ZAIG 3294, “Information über ein Vorkommnis mit Bauarbeitern auf der Baustelle in Berlin-Marzahn, Karl-Holtz-Strasse, am 17. Juni 1983.” Also see Hinze, “Das grüne Ungeheuer.” Legends told of workers lowering Trabants into the concrete panel utility canals to race them, related to me by Günter Peters in an interview in Berlin, March 11, 2008.

¹⁰⁷ Hübner, Nicolaus, and Teresiak, 20 Jahre Marzahn, 15.

¹⁰⁸ This information is from a display at the Bezirksmuseum Marzahn-Hellersdorf. Hübner, Nicolaus, and Teresiak, 20 Jahre Marzahn, 15. See also Seyer, Heinz, “In Ur- und Frühgeschichtlicher Zeit,” in 1979–1999. 20 Jahre Bezirk Marzahn von Berlin, ed. von Berlin, Bezirksamt Marzahn (Berlin: MAZZ Verlag, 1999), 17–19.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ LA Berlin C Rep 110–05, Nr. 20, “Dorfkern Marzahn,” 4.

¹¹⁰ In fact, the finds from Marzahn have contributed significantly to an archeological understanding of the ur-Germans and Slavs who first settled Marzahn, and subsequently toward a fuller picture of prehistoric Berlin. See Demps, Laurenz et al. , Geschichte Berlins. Von den Anfängen bis 1945 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1987), 32–45.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Bezirksamt Marzahn von Berlin, Abt. Jugend, Bildung und Kultur, ed., 20 Jahre Marzahn. Geschichte—Bauen—Leben, 82.

¹¹² Elsewhere in Berlin, the amount of live ordinance buried in the soft and sandy soil became and remains a major problem for excavation and any kind of utility work that requires building into the ground. On numerous occasions construction workers or highway teams have been injured and killed by accidentally striking unexploded ordinance, the most recent incident occurring in 2010 that caused the death of three specialists who were trying to defuse a bomb dug up in Göttingen. It is estimated that one in eight bombs dropped on Berlin did not explode—and that almost 8,000 bombs have been defused since the 1980s in Berlin alone. See Eric Westervelt, “World War II Bombs Still Menace Germany,” National Public Radio, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127476757 (accessed November 8, 2011).

¹¹³ Ibid., 10.

¹¹⁴ See Kolenc, Jonas and Blotevogel, Monica, Fremdenführer Marzahn (Berlin: Kinderring Berlin and “Aktion Mensch”/Bezirksmuseum Marzahn-Hellersdorf and Marzahner Tor GWG, 2004)Google Scholar, 27.

¹¹⁵ Müller, Peter, “Die Wuhle erhält ein neues Bett,” Der Neunte 1, no. 4, March 17, 1977Google Scholar, 3. Verein für Technologie, Produktivität und Umweltschutz e.V., Zwischen Spree und Barnim. Das südliche Wuhletal (Berlin: Bezirksamt Marzahn-Hellersdorf von Berlin, Abt. Ökologische Stadtentwicklung Natur- und Umweltamt, 2001)Google Scholar, 6. Pachmann, “So klärt sich das Wasser,” 4.

¹¹⁶ Pachmann, “So klärt sich das Wasser,” 12.

¹¹⁷ “Linden und Eschen für unsere Neunte,” Der Neunte 1, no. 4, March 17, 1977, 4Google Scholar.

¹¹⁸ Ibid.

¹¹⁹ Albrecht, Elisabeth, “Balkonblick nach zwanzig Jahren,” in Marzahn erzählt, ed. Rohnstock, 33–40, 37Google Scholar; and , Ursula, “Zuzug und Bleibe,” in 1979–1999. 20 Jahre Bezirk Marzahn von Berlin, ed. Marzahn, Bezirksamt, 41Google Scholar.

¹²⁰ Wessel, Gerd and Zeuchner, Gerd, eds., “Zur städtebaulich-räumlichen Gestaltung von Wohngebieten,” Deutsche Architektur 23 (April 1974): 199–253Google Scholar, 208.

¹²¹ Krause, H., “Grüß den Kosmonauten,” Marzahn Aktuell 2, no. 10, September 22, 1978Google Scholar, 1.

¹²² “Kosmoswimpel Ansporn im Wettbewerb,” Marzahn Aktuell 2, no. 11, September 28, 1978)Google Scholar, 1.

¹²³ Hübner, Nicolaus, and Teresiak, 20 Jahre Marzahn, 15 and passim.

¹²⁴ Interview with Johann and Sofia Schöring, Berlin, May 23, 2008.

¹²⁵ Bautz, Renate, “Wir taten es für uns,” in Allee der Kosmonauten, ed. Quiesser and Tirri, 67Google Scholar.

¹²⁶ L. Hepner and H. Hepner, “Im Altbau,” 87.

¹²⁷ Ladwig, Renate and Ladwig, Reinhard, “Wir haben beschlossen, dass wir hier alt werden,” in Allee der Kosmonauten, ed. Quiesser and Tirri, 77Google Scholar.

¹²⁸ Domnitz, Christian, “Jetzt packen wir hier alles zusammen,” in Marzahn erzählt, ed. Rohnstock, 43Google Scholar.

¹²⁹ Ibid.

¹³⁰ Ibid.

¹³¹ Franik, Gabriele, “Was heißt hier Gemini?,” in Marzahn erzählt, ed. Rohnstock, 77–82, 80Google Scholar.

¹³² Ibid., 81.

¹³³ Bezirksamt Marzahn von Berlin, Abt. Jugend, Bildung und Kultur, ed., 20 Jahre Marzahn. Geschichte—Bauen—Leben, 119.

¹³⁴ See Palmowski, Jan, Inventing Socialist Nation: Heimat and the Politics of Everyday Life in the GDR, 1945–1990 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Paul Betts also described Mach Mit! in Betts, Paul, Within Walls: Private Life in the German Democratic Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)Google Scholar, 145.

¹³⁵ Bluhme, Manfred, “Erinnerungen,” in 1979–1999. 20 Jahre Bezirk Marzahn von Berlin, ed. von Berlin, Bezirksamt Marzahn, 54Google Scholar.

¹³⁶ Preußing, Torsten, “Fluchtversuch nach Brandenburg,” in Marzahn erzählt, ed. Rohnstock, 17–24, 17–18Google Scholar.

¹³⁷ Albrecht, “Balkonblick,” 33.

¹³⁸ Ibid.

¹³⁹ Domnitz, “Jetzt packen wir hier alles zusammen,” 41.

¹⁴⁰ Loni Niederländer, “Forschungsbericht zum 1. Intervall der Untersuchung ‘Wohnen 80—Marzahn.’ Zur Entwicklung eines Neubaugebietes der Hauptstadt der DDR, Berlin” (Berlin: Humboldt University, 1981), Pt. II, 2.

¹⁴¹ Bezirksamt Marzahn von Berlin, Abt. Jugend, Bildung und Kultur, ed., 20 Jahre Marzahn. Geschichte—Bauen—Leben, 31.

¹⁴² Verein KIDS & Co., ed., Marzahn-Südspitze, 41.

¹⁴³ Bautz, “Wir taten es für uns,” 67.

¹⁴⁴ Franik, “Was heißt hier Gemini?,” 80. In fact, having twins or triplets increased applicants' chances of getting an apartment in Marzahn. See below.

¹⁴⁵ Ibid.

¹⁴⁶ Erbstößer, Lilo, “1 Jahre Danach . . .,” Marzahn Aktuell 2, no. 17, December 21, 1978Google Scholar, 4.

¹⁴⁷ Cyske, Gerd, “Mit der Bummi-Bahn in den Kindergarten,” in Marzahn erzählt, ed. Rohnstock, 25–30, here 28Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁸ Ibid.

¹⁴⁹ Kühl, Volkhard, “Gutes Gedeihen,” Der Neunte 3, no. 5, March 8, 1979Google Scholar, 4.

¹⁵⁰ Niederländer, “ Forschungsbericht,” 38, 35, and 54.

¹⁵¹ BStU MfS HA XX 10008, 14.

¹⁵² BStU MfS HA VIII 5192; Jugendkollektiv des Referates 4 der Abteilung 3, “Dokumentation über den Stadtbezirk Berlin-Marzahn,” 18.

¹⁵³ BStU MfS HA II 31363, “Information zur Gemeinschaftsantennenanlagen.” Domnitz recalls this in “Jetzt packen wir hier alles zusammen,” 41.

¹⁵⁴ BStU MfS HA XX 10008, 67.

¹⁵⁵ Hübner, Nicolaus, and Teresiak, 20 Jahre Marzahn, 69.

¹⁵⁶ See Dörfle, Thomas, Gentrification in Prenzlauer Berg? Milieuwandel eines Berliner Sozialraums seit 1989 (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2010)Google Scholar. See also Grosinski, Klaus, Prenzlauer Berg. Eine Chronik (Berlin: Kulturamt Prenzlauer Berg, Prenzlauer Berg Museum für Heimatgeschichte und Stadtkultur, 2008).Google Scholar