Stalin-Allee/Karl-Marx-Allee

The Karl-Marx-Allee leads from Alexanderplatz via Strausberger Platz to Frankfurter Tor, where it merges into Frankfurter Allee. It is one of the eight arterial roads that lead in a radial system from the historic center of Berlin out of the city.

Today you can find here many different shops, designer shops, galleries, cafes, bars and clubs as well as the legendary Café Moscow and the cinema International.

In 1961, the street received its current name after the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx. In 1949, the Große Frankfurter Straße had been renamed Stalinallee on the occasion of Josef Stalin's 70th birthday.

The dead-straight boulevard is characterized by its apartment blocks from the 1950s with up to 14 stories. It was built in the style of Socialist Classicism, a style imported by the Soviet Union to all its socialist brother states. The buildings had been designed as workers' palaces, a demonstration of socialist engineering.

The monumentally wide Karl-Marx-Allee was explicitly not only for road traffic, it was also used annually for demonstration processions and honorary parades.