Tom`s travels: Eisenhüttenstadt (22/08/2024)

After work, I decided to head east and visit a town on the border with Poland, Eisenhüttenstadt. The town is actually split into two separate towns. The present-day town was in fact founded, together with a huge steel mill, as a socialist model city in 1950 following a decision by the East German Government. It was built next to and around the old town of Fürstenberg, on the Oder River. As the town's population grew rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s, it was renamed Stalinstadt following the death of Joseph Stalin. However, not long after, in 1961, during de-Stalinization, the town was renamed Eisenhüttenstadt. After German reunification in 1990, the state-owned steel works were privatized, and most of its 12,000 employees lost their jobs. Today the city has lost many inhabitants since its heyday and is basically composed of two parts, the Socialist city with its plattenbau buildings and wide long streets and the steelworks to the west, and the old town on the riverside. My aim was to visit the old town and so from the train station located midway between the two parts I headed eastwards. Once I reached the old town though I continued on and walked on top of the Neue Deichbrücke, over the Oder-Spree canal. I reached a small piece of land which I then walked across to eventually reach a small beach on the Oder River. Across, on the other side, in Poland, were the ruins of the Klopot bridge, once a major bridge but destroyed by Germans in 1945 to try to stop the Soviet advance. At that point, I turned around and headed back into town. Once I reached the old town, I first tried visiting the church of St Nikolai, built in the 14th century in a gothic brick style, but unfortunately found it closed. I thus continued on, walking along the main street sided by some old tenement house, and eventually reached the main square. Originally dating to the founding of the city, it first burned in a fire in the 16th century and was again refurbished around 1900 in a neo-renaissance style. Nowadays it is not used as a town hall as the current building is located in the more modern socialist part of the city. After a round through the old town, I decided to head back, eventually getting to the train station for my ride home.