“‘Dürfen Kommunisten träumen?’ (‘May Communists Dream?’) was the central question for a series of sixteen paintings installed in the entrance hall of the Palast der Republik (Palace of the Republic) in East Berlin. In response to a phrase attributed to Lenin, sixteen leading artists of the GDR, including Bernhard Heisig and Wolfgang Mattheuer, were each invited to create a painting relating to this question. The very fact that sixteen different responses to a single question could be displayed side by side was the essence of this group. The pieces presented a wide range of interpretations – from utopian visions of socialism to critical reflections on the political system. Among them, Walter Womacka’s Wenn Kommunisten träumen … (When Communists Dream …) stood out as a work that directly answered the question through its title and was later reproduced as a postage stamp.
Opened in 1976, the Palast der Republik combined parliamentary functions with thirteen restaurants and cafés, a bowling alley, and even a casino under one roof. Open every day from 10 am until midnight and accessible to everyone free of charge, it was quite literally a ‘People’s Palace.’ However, after German reunification, the Palast was closed. Due to asbestos contamination, it was demolished between 2006 and 2008. On the same site, the Humboldt Forum was constructed in 2020 as a reconstruction of the Prussian royal palace that had been demolished by the GDR government in 1950. The ‘People’s Palace’ disappeared, and the ‘King’s Palace’ returned. The sixteen paintings were transferred to the collection of the German Historical Museum (Deutsches Historisches Museum, DHM), where they remain out of the public view. Our proposal for the future is: Take the sixteen paintings out of storage, put them on display somewhere in Berlin, and then decide what should happen to them. The place we propose is the Spielberg (Play Hill) inside Ernst-Thälmann-Park. This playground is situated at the corner of Danziger Strasse and Greifswalder Strasse.
Thälmann was the chairman of the German Communist Party (KPD). He was killed by the Nazis, and the GDR later incorporated him into its founding myth as an anti-fascist martyr. The park itself was built by the GDR in 1987 for the 750th anniversary of Berlin, to showcase its socialist dream. This happened at exactly the time when perestroika had begun in the Soviet Union, and the authority of the state was beginning to waver. Perhaps this park was the very place where the state itself tried to answer its own question, ֲMay communists dream?’, by force, saying ‘Yes, you may, you must dream’. We bring that question back to this very place.
The Spielberg in Ernst-Thälmann-Park was built in 1986, on the site of a small gas tank that had been dismantled between 1936 and 1954. It is made of three rings, one inside the other: a hill shaped like a ring, a ring-shaped sandbox around it, and a round green space at the centre. The hill has a slide, and the green space contains a fountain and some plants. This ring shape is intended to evoke the round base on which the old gas tank once stood.
The sixteen paintings will be placed in secure protective cases and arranged in a circle along the outer ring of the Spielberg. We will hold a gathering there, where people can look at the paintings, talk about them, and decide what should happen to them. This park already has a huge Thälmann monument, and even now, more than thirty years after reunification, people still do not agree on whether it should be removed or kept. In 2022, the district held a public discussion about what to do with it. Our gathering is not a ceremony that starts from nothing. It simply continues and broadens the decades-long discussion that this park has already been having about how to deal with the memory of communism. Surrounded by the sixteen paintings, the whole Spielberg becomes an agora. The main participants here are the citizens who gather on this hill. Should the sixteen paintings remain at the Spielberg permanently? Is there another permanent location that would suit them better? Should they be scattered across Berlin, one painting per each neighbourhood, each Kiez? Should they go back into storage? Should they be sold? Should new painters make a new version, under the same title, ‘May Communists Dream?’ Or should they simply be blown up?
The fate of the sixteen paintings will be decided by the people who gather there, through discussion. No method for making this decision has been fixed in advance, so the gathering may end in nothing but chaos. We do not even know how long it will take. Nobody needs to know in advance what the right outcome is. What matters is this: the decision will be made by the citizens who gather there, not by the state or experts. Perhaps communists can only dream when nothing is certain, beyond any predetermined plan or programme.”
Akira Takayama
