157-653: The City Tunnel is a twin-bore railway tunnel for the city-centre S-Bahn in Leipzig . It links Leipzig Hauptbahnhof with the central Markt station , Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz station and Bayerischer Bahnhof . Construction began in July 2003. The first bore was structurally completed in March 2008, the second in October 2008. The tunnel and new tracks linking it with the rest of the network were opened for commercial service on 15 December 2013,
314-639: A communist party , before being democratized and liberalized in 1989 as a result of the pressure against communist governments brought by the Revolutions of 1989 . This paved the way for East Germany's reunification with the West. Unlike the government of West Germany, the SED did not see its state as the successor to the German Reich (1871–1945) and abolished the goal of unification in the constitution ( 1974 ). The SED-ruled GDR
471-485: A cost-benefit analysis in 1998, a planning application was issued. In 2000 planning approval was granted. In the autumn of 2001, Saxony invited DB to be the owner of the City Tunnel project. The company was therefore expected to build the tunnel on its own financial risk. After the completion of a financing agreement in the spring of 2002 the invitation of the individual building sub-contracts took place. On 9 July 2003,
628-688: A legal fiction , and the Soviet sector of Berlin became fully integrated into the GDR. The deepening Cold War conflict between the Western Powers and the Soviet Union over the unresolved status of West Berlin led to the Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 12 May 1949). The Soviet army initiated the blockade by halting all Allied rail, road, and water traffic to and from West Berlin. The Allies countered
785-418: A 140m long entrance ramp was built from the direction of Dresden with a 675m long tunnel under part of the station. The tunnel ended 8.5 m in front of the station building under the inner city ring road . Beneath the current tram and bus stops, underground platforms 22 and 23 of some 40m in length were built. An extension below the ring road was planned and prepared to a length of 100m. The construction work
942-469: A 65-m Tunnel Boring Machines . The start of the tunnel boring machine work was in the pit at Bayerischen Bahnhof, from where they worked towards the Central Station. There it was dismantled and re-built at Bayerischen Bahnhof, after which it started a second time. At Bayerischen Bahnhof and at all other stops between, three slurry walls were constructed. The slurry was mixed with cement and hardened in
1099-454: A few sections of the Berlin Wall were opened, resulting in thousands of East Germans crossing freely into West Berlin and West Germany for the first time in nearly 30 years. Krenz resigned a month later, and the SED opened negotiations with the leaders of the incipient Democratic movement, Neues Forum , to schedule free elections and begin the process of democratization. As part of this process,
1256-616: A free and fair election was held in the country, and international negotiations between the four former Allied countries and the two German states commenced. The negotiations led to the signing of the Final Settlement treaty , which replaced the Potsdam Agreement on the status and borders of a future, reunited Germany. The GDR ceased to exist when its five states ("Länder") joined the Federal Republic of Germany under Article 23 of
1413-673: A house of study) in Leipzig to provide different forms of studies to Jewish students who were prohibited from attending any institutions in Germany. Jewish studies were emphasized and much of the Jewish community of Leipzig became involved. Like all other cities claimed by the Nazis, Leipzig was subject to aryanisation . Beginning in 1933 and increasing in 1939, Jewish business owners were forced to give up their possessions and stores. This eventually intensified to
1570-621: A labour protest, the action soon included the general populace, and on 17 June similar protests occurred throughout the GDR, with more than a million people striking in some 700 cities and towns. Fearing anti-communist counter-revolution , on 18 June 1953 the government of the GDR enlisted the Soviet Occupation Forces to aid the police in ending the riot; some fifty people were killed and 10,000 were jailed (see Uprising of 1953 in East Germany ). The German war reparations owed to
1727-537: A picnic near the border at Sopron (near Hungary's border with Austria). The local Sopron organizers knew nothing of possible GDR refugees, but envisaged a local party with Austrian and Hungarian participation. But with the mass exodus at the Pan-European Picnic, the subsequent hesitant behavior of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany and the non-intervention of the Soviet Union broke the dams. Thus
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#17328441186851884-587: A primary goal of ridding East Germany of all traces of Nazism . It is estimated that between 180,000 and 250,000 people were sentenced to imprisonment on political grounds. In the Yalta and Potsdam conferences of 1945, the Allies established their joint military occupation and administration of Germany via the Allied Control Council (ACC), a four-power (US, UK, USSR, France) military government effective until
2041-585: A significant role in precipitating the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, mainly through demonstrations starting from St. Nicholas Church . The immediate effects of the reunification of Germany included the collapse of the local economy (which had come to depend on highly polluting heavy industry ), severe unemployment, and urban blight. By the early 2000s the trend had reversed, and since then Leipzig has undergone some significant changes, including urban and economic rejuvenation, and modernisation of
2198-666: A socialist political constitution establishing its control of the Anti-Fascist National Front of the German Democratic Republic (NF, Nationale Front der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik ), an omnibus alliance of every party and mass organisation in East Germany. The NF was established to stand for election to the Volkskammer ( People's Chamber ), the East German parliament. The first and only president of
2355-563: A total of 63 Ortsteile (localities). Some of these correspond to outlying villages which have been annexed by Leipzig. Like many cities in Eastern Germany, Leipzig has an oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ), with significant continental influences due to its inland location. Winters are cold, with an average temperature of around 1 °C (34 °F). Summers are generally warm, averaging at 19 °C (66 °F) with daytime temperatures of 24 °C (75 °F). Precipitation in winter
2512-743: A trade city since at least the time of the Holy Roman Empire . The city sits at the intersection of the Via Regia and the Via Imperii , two important medieval trade routes. Leipzig's trade fair dates back to 1190. Between 1764 and 1945, the city was a centre of publishing. After the Second World War and during the period of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Leipzig remained a major urban centre in East Germany, but its cultural and economic importance declined. Events in Leipzig in 1989 played
2669-488: Is a bilateral Treaty between two States, to which the rules of international law apply and which like any other international treaty possesses validity, it is between two States that are parts of a still existing, albeit incapable of action as not being reorganized, comprehensive State of the Whole of Germany with a single body politic. Travel between the GDR and Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary became visa-free from 1972. From
2826-414: Is about 60 to 80 m wide. The depth depends (among other things) on the type of coverage, the shear strength of the soil and the overlay. A maximal deviation of 20 to 30 mm is anticipated after the second tunnel bore. All buildings that are in the tunnel route and affected, have been examined in advance. (Drilling, geotechnical investigation, Bauakteneinsicht) The crossing under the main railway station
2983-500: Is about half that of the summer. The amount of sunshine differs significantly between winter and summer, with an average of around 51 hours of sunshine in December (1.7 hours per day) compared with 229 hours of sunshine in July (7.4 hours per day). Leipzig was first documented in 1015 in the chronicles of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg as urbs Libzi ( Chronicon , VII, 25) and endowed with city and market privileges in 1165 by Otto
3140-410: Is hoped that shorter intervals and faster connections will allow public transport to carry more passengers and thereby relieve road traffic in the city. In addition, it will bring more passengers directly by rail from Leipzig Hauptbahnhof to the city centre and convert the terminus to a partial through-station. Additionally, it was planned to run one intercity train per hour in each direction through
3297-447: Is in service since 15 December 2013, is operating as follows (December 2019): All lines run with intervals of between 30 minutes and 120 minutes. Due to the high number of trains (regional trains, S-Bahn and ICE) between the main station and Leipzig-Leutzsch, since December 2013 the S1 has operated at 15-minute intervals. For this a supplementary track between Leipzig Messe and Leipzig-Stötteritz
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#17328441186853454-465: Is lost due to old water wells with the collapse of the ground in front of the tunnel boring machine. The coverage varies from eight to sixteen metres. The shortest distance between the building foundation and tunnel roof is under the Petersbogen underground carpark at 2.20 metres. The tunnel was in the ground water at a pressure altitude of approximately 16 m to the bottom of the tunnel. The lining of
3611-409: Is not done by the tunnel boring machine, but by manual digging. There were extensive measures to secure the main railway station against the building work. The plan was to freeze the pit edge and drive through this frozen ground under the station. The plans include two tunnel excavations with a diameter of 2.40 m using compressed air and a cover plate. From this side vertical tubes were inserted to freeze
3768-492: Is now part of the city, Friedrich Schiller wrote his poem " Ode to Joy ". An older spelling of Leipzig in English is Leipsic . The Latin name Lipsia was also used. The name Leipzig is commonly held to derive from lipa , the common Slavic designation for linden trees , making the city's name etymologically related to Lipetsk, Russia and Liepaja, Latvia . Based on medieval attestations like Lipzk (c. 1190),
3925-463: Is one of the oldest symphony orchestras in the world. Several well-known composers lived and worked in Leipzig, including Johann Sebastian Bach (1723 to 1750) and Felix Mendelssohn (1835 to 1847). The University of Music and Theatre "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" was founded in 1843. The Oper Leipzig , one of the most prominent opera houses in Germany, was founded in 1693. During a stay in Gohlis , which
4082-576: Is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony . The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the eighth-largest city in Germany and is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region . The name of the city is usually interpreted as a Slavic term meaning place of linden trees , in line with many other Slavic placenames in the region. Leipzig is located about 150 km (90 mi) southwest of Berlin, in
4239-879: Is the part of the North European Plain in Germany. The city sits on the White Elster , a river that rises in the Czech Republic and flows into the Saale south of Halle. The Pleiße and the Parthe join the White Elster in Leipzig, and the large inland delta-like landscape the three rivers form is called Leipziger Gewässerknoten . The site is characterized by swampy areas such as the Leipzig Riparian Forest ( Leipziger Auenwald ), though there are also some limestone areas to
4396-566: The Republikflucht ("desertion from the republic") to West Germany, further weakening the GDR's economy. Western economic opportunities induced a brain drain . In response, the GDR closed the inner German border , and on the night of 12 August 1961, East German soldiers began erecting the Berlin Wall . In 1971, Ulbricht was removed from leadership after Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev supported his ouster; Erich Honecker replaced him. While
4553-477: The Basic Law , and its capital East Berlin united with West Berlin on 3 October 1990. Several of the GDR's leaders, notably its last communist leader Egon Krenz , were later prosecuted for offenses committed during the GDR era. The official name was Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic), usually abbreviated to DDR (GDR). Both terms were used in East Germany, with increasing usage of
4710-419: The Berlin Wall in 1961. Many people attempting to flee were killed by border guards or booby traps such as landmines . In 1989 numerous social, economic, and political forces in the GDR and abroad, one of the most notable being peaceful protests starting in the city of Leipzig , led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the establishment of a government committed to liberalization. The following year,
4867-705: The East Bloc states. This policy saw the Treaty of Moscow (August 1970), the Treaty of Warsaw (December 1970), the Four Power Agreement on Berlin (September 1971), the Transit Agreement (May 1972), and the Basic Treaty (December 1972), which relinquished any separate claims to an exclusive mandate over Germany as a whole and established normal relations between the two Germanies. Both countries were admitted into
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5024-491: The East German government . The reunification of Germany , however, was at first not good for Leipzig. The centrally planned heavy industry that had become the city's specialty was, in terms of the advanced economy of reunited Germany, almost completely unviable, and closed. Within only six years, 90% of jobs in industry had vanished. As unemployment rocketed, the population fell dramatically; some 100,000 people left Leipzig in
5181-571: The Hallstein Doctrine (1955), West Germany did not establish (formal) diplomatic ties with any country – except the Soviets ;– that recognized East German sovereignty. In the early 1970s, the Ostpolitik ("Eastern Policy") of "Change Through Rapprochement" of the pragmatic government of FRG Chancellor Willy Brandt , established normal diplomatic relations with
5338-569: The Nazi government officially renamed the city Reichsmessestadt Leipzig (Reich Trade Fair City Leipzig). In 1989 Leipzig was dubbed a Hero City ( Heldenstadt ), alluding to the honorary title awarded in the former Soviet Union to certain cities that played a key role in the victory of the Allies during the Second World War, in recognition of the role that the Monday demonstrations there played in
5495-785: The Nuremberg Laws . However, due to the Leipzig Trade Fair and the international attention it garnered, Leipzig was especially cautious about its public image. Despite this, the Leipzig authorities were not afraid to strictly apply and enforce anti-semitic measures. On 20 December 1937, after the Nazis took control of the city, they renamed it Reichsmessestadt Leipzig, meaning the "Imperial Trade Fair City Leipzig". In early 1938, Leipzig saw an increase in Zionism through Jewish citizens. Many of these Zionists attempted to flee before deportations began. On 28 October 1938, Heinrich Himmler ordered
5652-702: The Potsdam Agreement . In the mid-20th century, the city's trade fair assumed renewed importance as a point of contact with the Comecon Eastern Europe economic bloc, of which East Germany was a member. At this time, trade fairs were held at a site in the south of the city, near the Monument to the Battle of the Nations . The planned economy of the German Democratic Republic, however, was not kind to Leipzig. Before
5809-446: The SED general secretary Walter Ulbricht assumed most executive authority. Socialist leader Otto Grotewohl (1894–1964) became prime minister until his death. The government of East Germany denounced West German failures in accomplishing denazification and renounced ties to the Nazi past, imprisoning many former Nazis and preventing them from holding government positions. The SED set
5966-576: The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the Soviet-controlled zone. However, the SED quickly transformed into a full-fledged Communist party as the more independent-minded Social Democrats were pushed out. The Potsdam Agreement committed the Soviets to support a democratic form of government in Germany, though the Soviets' understanding of democracy was radically different from that of
6123-542: The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), formed on 21 April 1946 from the merger between the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The two former parties were notorious rivals when they were active before the Nazis consolidated all power and criminalized them, and official East German and Soviet histories portrayed this merger as a voluntary pooling of efforts by
6280-722: The United Nations and the Helsinki Final Act . This assessment of the Basic Treaty was confirmed in a decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in 1973; the German Democratic Republic is in the international-law sense a State and as such a subject of international law. This finding is independent of recognition in international law of the German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Germany. Such recognition has not only never been formally pronounced by
6437-426: The de facto and de jure government, but also the sole de jure legitimate representative of a dormant "Germany as whole". The two Germanies each relinquished any claim to represent the other internationally; which they acknowledged as necessarily implying a mutual recognition of each other as both capable of representing their own populations de jure in participating in international bodies and agreements, such as
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6594-634: The elections of October 1946 . The SED government nationalised infrastructure and industrial plants. In March 1948 the German Economic Commission ( Deutsche Wirtschaftskomission –DWK) under its chairman Heinrich Rau assumed administrative authority in the Soviet occupation zone, thus becoming the predecessor of an East German government. On 7 October 1949 the SED established the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic – GDR), based on
6751-662: The equestrian statue of Frederick the Great was removed from East Berlin. Instead, the SED focused on the progressive heritage of German history, including Thomas Müntzer 's role in the German Peasants' War of 1524–1525 and the role played by the heroes of the class struggle during Prussia's industrialization. Other notable figures and reformers from Prussian history such as Karl Freiherr vom Stein (1757–1831), Karl August von Hardenberg (1750–1822), Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835), and Gerhard von Scharnhorst (1755–1813) were upheld by
6908-455: The shock-therapy style of privatization , the artificially high rate of exchange offered for the Ostmark , and the speed with which the entire process was implemented did not leave room for East German enterprises to adapt. There were four periods in East German political history. These included: 1949–1961, which saw the building of socialism; 1961–1970 after the Berlin Wall closed off escape
7065-502: The 'state anti-fascism' of the GDR gave way to the 'state anti-communism' of the FRG. From then on, the dominant interpretation of GDR history, based on the concept of totalitarianism, led to the equivalence of communism and Nazism. Historian Anne-Kathleen Tillack-Graf shows, with the help of the newspaper Neues Deutschland , how the national memorials of Buchenwald , Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück were politically instrumentalised in
7222-617: The 1990s, the majority of West German historians described the Normandy landings in June 1944 as an "invasion", exonerated the Wehrmacht of its responsibility for the genocide of the Jews and fabricated the myth of a diplomatic corps that "did not know". On the contrary, Auschwitz was never a taboo in the GDR. The Nazis' crimes were the subject of extensive film, theatre and literary productions. In 1991, 16% of
7379-486: The American Consulate was closed, and its building became a temporary place of stay for Americans and Allied refugees from Serbia , Romania and Japan . During the 1930s and 1940s, music was prominent throughout Leipzig. Many students attended Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy College of Music and Theatre (then named Landeskonservatorium.) However, in 1944, it was closed due to World War II . It re-opened soon after
7536-739: The FRG. While in West Germany, a work of memory on the resurgence of Nazism was carried out, this was not the case in the East. Indeed, as Axel Dossmann, professor of history at the University of Jena , notes, "this phenomenon was completely hidden. For the state-SED (the East German communist party), it was impossible to admit the existence of neo-Nazis, since the foundation of the GDR was to be an anti-fascist state. The Stasi kept an eye on them, but they were considered to be outsiders or thick-skinned bullies. These young people grew up hearing double talk. At school, it
7693-415: The Federal Republic of Germany but on the contrary repeatedly explicitly rejected. If the conduct of the Federal Republic of Germany towards the German Democratic Republic is assessed in the light of its détente policy, in particular, the conclusion of the Treaty as de facto recognition, then it can only be understood as de facto recognition of a special kind. The special feature of this Treaty is that while it
7850-417: The Federal Republic of Germany, while East and West Berlin united as a third city-state (in the same manner as Bremen and Hamburg ). On 1 July, a currency union preceded the political union: the "Ostmark" was abolished, and the Western German "Deutsche Mark" became the common currency. Although the Volkskammer 's declaration of accession to the Federal Republic had initiated the process of reunification,
8007-651: The GDR was established in East Germany in October 1949. The emergence of the two sovereign states solidified the 1945 division of Germany. On 10 March 1952, (in what would become known as the " Stalin Note ") the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , Joseph Stalin , issued a proposal to reunify Germany with a policy of neutrality, with no conditions on economic policies and with guarantees for "the rights of man and basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, press, religious persuasion, political conviction, and assembly" and free activity of democratic parties and organizations. The West demurred; reunification
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#17328441186858164-420: The GDR, particularly during the celebrations of the liberation of the concentration camps. Although officially built in opposition to the 'fascist world' in West Germany, in 1954, 32% of public administration employees were former members of the Nazi Party . However, in 1961, the share of former NSDAP members among the senior Interior Ministry administration staff was less than 10% in the GDR, compared to 67% in
8321-431: The GDR. SPDA Vice President Wolfgang Thierse , for his part, complained in Die Welt about the rise of the extreme right in the everyday life of the inhabitants of the former GDR, in particular the terrorist group NSU, with the German journalist Odile Benyahia-Kouider explaining that "it is no coincidence that the neo-Nazi party NPD has experienced a renaissance via the East". The historian Sonia Combe observes that until
8478-404: The German Democratic Republic was Wilhelm Pieck . However, after 1950, political power in East Germany was held by the First Secretary of the SED, Walter Ulbricht . On 16 June 1953, workers constructing the new Stalinallee boulevard in East Berlin according to the GDR's officially promulgated Sixteen Principles of Urban Design , rioted against a 10% production-quota increase. Initially
8635-442: The German labour movement and the victims of the camps, it was "staged, censored, ordered" and, during the 40 years of the regime, was an instrument of legitimisation, repression and maintenance of power. In May 1989, following widespread public anger over the faking of results of local government elections, many GDR citizens applied for exit visas or left the country contrary to GDR laws. The impetus for this exodus of East Germans
8792-412: The Leipzig-Thekla subcamp who were unable to march were either burned alive, shot or beaten to death by the Gestapo, SS , Volkssturm and German civilians in the Abtnaundorf massacre. Some were rescued by Polish forced laborers of another camp; at least 67 people survived. 84 victims were buried on 27 April 1945, however, the total number of victims remains unknown. During World War II, Leipzig
8949-526: The Polish Consulate and its library. In 1941, the American Consulate was also closed by order of the German authorities. During the war, Leipzig was the location of five subcamps of the Buchenwald concentration camp , in which over 8,000 men, women and children were imprisoned, mostly Polish, Jewish, Soviet and French, but also Italian, Czech and Belgian. In April 1945, most surviving prisoners were sent on death marches to various destinations in Saxony and German-occupied Czechoslovakia , whereas prisoners of
9106-410: The Rich . Leipzig Trade Fair , started in the Middle Ages , has become an event of international importance and is the oldest surviving trade fair in the world. This encouraged the growth of the Leipzig merchant bourgeoisie . There are records of commercial fishing operations on the river Pleiße that, most likely, refer to Leipzig dating back to 1305, when the Margrave Dietrich the Younger granted
9263-406: The SED as examples and role models. The communist regime of the GDR based its legitimacy on the struggle of anti-fascist militants. A form of resistance "cult" was established in the Buchenwald camp memorial site, with the creation of a museum in 1958, and the annual celebration of the Buchenwald oath taken on 19 April 1945 by the prisoners who pledged to fight for peace and freedom. In the 1990s,
9420-477: The SED eliminated the clause in the East German constitution guaranteeing the Communists leadership of the state. The change was approved in the Volkskammer on 1 December 1989 by a vote of 420 to 0. East Germany held its last election in March 1990 . The winner was Alliance for Germany , a coalition headed by the East German branch of West Germany's Christian Democratic Union , which advocated speedy reunification. Negotiations ( 2+4 Talks) were held involving
9577-400: The Second World War, Leipzig had developed a mixture of industry, creative business (notably publishing), and services (including legal services). During the period of the German Democratic Republic, services became the concern of the state, concentrated in East Berlin ; creative business moved to West Germany ; and Leipzig was left only with heavy industry. To make matters worse, this industry
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#17328441186859734-403: The Soviets administered their zone without regard to the policies implemented in the other zones. The Soviets withdrew from the ACC in 1948; subsequently, as the other three zones were increasingly unified and granted self-government, the Soviet administration instituted a separate socialist government in its zone. Seven years after the Allies' 1945 Potsdam Agreement on common German policies,
9891-409: The Soviets impoverished the Soviet Zone of Occupation and severely weakened the East German economy. In the 1945–46 period the Soviets confiscated and transported to the USSR approximately 33% of the industrial plant and by the early 1950s had extracted some US$ 10 billion in reparations in agricultural and industrial products. The poverty of East Germany, induced or deepened by reparations, provoked
10048-492: The Soviets with the Berlin Airlift (1948–49) of food, fuel, and supplies to West Berlin. On 21 April 1946 the Communist Party of Germany ( Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands – KPD) and the part of the Social Democratic Party of Germany ( Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands – SPD) in the Soviet zone merged to form the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED – Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands ), which then won
10205-439: The Soviets, its economy became the most successful in the Eastern Bloc . Before its establishment, the country's territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the Berlin Declaration abolishing German sovereignty in World War II . The Potsdam Agreement established the Soviet-occupied zone , bounded on the east by the Oder-Neiße line . The GDR was dominated by the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED),
10362-408: The State of Saxony (€182.02 million), by the European Union ( ERDF programme , €168.73 million), the Federal Government (€191.73 million), Deutsche Bahn (€16.36 million) and the City of Leipzig (€12.78 million). This agreement covered many issues, including the refurbishment of the stations and the electrification of several sections. At the end of 2001 it was expected that
10519-426: The Swedish-led side. On 24 December 1701, when Franz Conrad Romanus was mayor, an oil-fueled street lighting system was introduced. The city employed light guards who had to follow a specific schedule to ensure the punctual lighting of the 700 lanterns. The Leipzig region was the arena of the 1813 Battle of Leipzig between Napoleonic France and an allied coalition of Prussia , Russia , Austria and Sweden. It
10676-428: The USSR via the Stalin Note (10 March 1952) proposed German reunification and superpower disengagement from Central Europe, which the three Western Allies (the United States, France, the United Kingdom) rejected. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin , a Communist proponent of reunification, died in early March 1953. Similarly, Lavrenty Beria , the First Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR, pursued German reunification, but he
10833-406: The Ulbricht government had experimented with liberal reforms, the Honecker government reversed them. The new government introduced a new East German Constitution which defined the German Democratic Republic as a "republic of workers and peasants". Initially, East Germany claimed an exclusive mandate for all of Germany, a claim supported by most of the Communist bloc. It claimed that West Germany
10990-407: The United Nations on 18 September 1973. This also increased the number of countries recognizing East Germany to 55, including the US, UK and France, though these three still refused to recognize East Berlin as the capital, and insisted on a specific provision in the UN resolution accepting the two Germanies into the UN to that effect. Following the Ostpolitik, the West German view was that East Germany
11147-433: The United States (US), the United Kingdom (UK), and the Soviet Union (USSR), agreed on dividing a defeated Nazi Germany into occupation zones , and on dividing Berlin, the German capital, among the Allied powers as well. Initially, this meant the formation of three zones of occupation, i.e., American, British, and Soviet. Later, a French zone was carved out of the US and British zones. The ruling communist party, known as
11304-573: The West more accessible than ever before, 30,000 East Germans made the crossing via Czechoslovakia in the first two days alone. To try to stem the outward flow of the population, the SED proposed a law loosening travel restrictions. When the Volkskammer rejected it on 5 November, the Cabinet and Politburo of the GDR resigned. This left only one avenue open for Krenz and the SED: completely abolishing travel restrictions between East and West. On 9 November 1989,
11461-564: The abbreviated form, especially since East Germany considered West Germans and West Berliners to be foreigners following the promulgation of its second constitution in 1968. West Germans, the western media and statesmen initially avoided the official name and its abbreviation, instead using terms like Ostzone (Eastern Zone), Sowjetische Besatzungszone (Soviet Occupation Zone; often abbreviated to SBZ ) and sogenannte DDR or "so-called GDR". The centre of political power in East Berlin
11618-500: The act of reunification itself (with its many specific terms, conditions and qualifications, some of which involved amendments to the West German Basic Law) was achieved constitutionally by the subsequent Unification Treaty of 31 August 1990 – that is, through a binding agreement between the former Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic, now recognising each other as separate sovereign states in international law. The treaty
11775-474: The actual backup of the building. The soil is compacted and any gaps there may be filled. In a second phase, the land in some places is controlled by additional increased pumping. The elevation is to compensate for reductions occurring under certain circumstances during the tunneling. At the time the bore of the City Tunnel tubes the buildings in the vicinity of the bore be monitored. With precise technique smallest movements are registered. Accurate to 0.25 mm,
11932-499: The area within the boundaries of the Federal Republic of Germany. However, this use was not always consistent and West Berliners frequently used the term Westdeutschland to denote the Federal Republic. Before World War II, Ostdeutschland (eastern Germany) was used to describe all the territories east of the Elbe ( East Elbia ), as reflected in the works of sociologist Max Weber and political theorist Carl Schmitt . Explaining
12089-700: The barrier of the Eastern Bloc was broken. Tens of thousands of East Germans, alerted by the media, made their way to Hungary, which was no longer ready to keep its borders completely closed or force its border troops to open fire on escapees. The GDR leadership in East Berlin did not dare to completely lock down their own country's borders. The next major turning point in the exodus came on 10 September 1989, when Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Horn announced that his country would no longer restrict movement from Hungary into Austria. Within two days, 22,000 East Germans crossed into Austria; tens of thousands more did so in
12246-579: The beginning, the newly formed GDR tried to establish its own separate identity. Because of the imperial and military legacy of Prussia , the SED repudiated continuity between Prussia and the GDR. The SED destroyed a number of symbolic relics of the former Prussian aristocracy ; Junker manor-houses were torn down, the Berliner Stadtschloß was razed and the Palace of the Republic was built in its place, and
12403-672: The border on the Iron Curtain . In particular, it tested whether Moscow would give the Soviet troops stationed in Hungary the command to intervene. Extensive advertising for the planned picnic was made by the Paneuropean Union through posters and flyers among the GDR holidaymakers in Hungary. The Austrian branch of the Paneuropean Union , which was then headed by Karl von Habsburg , distributed thousands of brochures inviting GDR citizens to
12560-417: The building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. The idea of opening the border at a ceremony came from Otto von Habsburg , who proposed it to Miklós Németh , then Hungarian Prime Minister, who promoted the idea. The patrons of the picnic, Habsburg and Hungarian Minister of State Imre Pozsgay , who did not attend the event, saw the planned event as an opportunity to test Mikhail Gorbachev 's reaction to an opening of
12717-572: The buildings hit, a firestorm occurred. This prompted firefighters to rush to the city; however, they were unable to control the fires. Unlike the firebombing of the neighbouring city of Dresden , this was a largely conventional bombing with high explosives rather than incendiaries. The resultant pattern of loss was a patchwork, rather than wholesale loss of its centre, but was nevertheless extensive. The Allied ground advance into Germany reached Leipzig in late April 1945. The U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and U.S. 69th Infantry Division fought their way into
12874-598: The capital. However, the Western Allies disputed this recognition, considering the entire city of Berlin to be occupied territory governed by the Allied Control Council . According to Margarete Feinstein, East Berlin's status as the capital was largely unrecognized by the West and by most Third World countries. In practice, the ACC's authority was rendered moot by the Cold War , East Berlin's status as occupied territory largely became
13031-489: The centrepiece of the S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland ( S-Bahn Central Germany ) public transit system, Germany's largest S-Bahn network, with a system length of 802 km (498 mi). Leipzig has long been a major centre for music, including classical and modern dark wave . The Thomanerchor (English: St. Thomas Choir of Leipzig), a boys' choir, was founded in 1212. The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra , established in 1743,
13188-576: The city on 18 April and completed its capture after fierce urban action, in which fighting was often house-to-house and block-to-block, on 19 April 1945. In April 1945, the Mayor of Leipzig, SS- Gruppenführer Alfred Freyberg , his wife and daughter, together with Deputy Mayor and City Treasurer Ernest Kurt Lisso, his wife, daughter and Volkssturm Major and former Mayor Walter Dönicke, all committed suicide in Leipzig City Hall. The United States turned
13345-519: The city over to the Red Army as it pulled back from the line of contact with Soviet forces in July 1945 to the designated occupation zone boundaries. Leipzig became one of the major cities of the German Democratic Republic ( East Germany ). Following the end of World War II in 1945, Leipzig saw a slow return of Jews to the city. They were joined by large numbers of German refugees who had been expelled from Central and Eastern Europe in accordance with
13502-492: The city. Another, somewhat old-fashioned epithet is Pleiß-Athen ( Athens on the Pleiße River ), hinting at Leipzig's long academic and literary tradition, as the seat of one of the oldest German universities and a centre of the book trade. It is also referred to as "Little Paris" ( Klein-Paris ) after Johann Wolfgang Goethe 's Faust I , which is partly set in the famous Leipzig restaurant Auerbachs Keller . In 1937
13659-422: The construction began with the official groundbreaking. At the start of the construction process, the tunnel was planned to be in operation by late 2009. Initial activities mainly consisted of ground investigations and the relocation of services. The construction of the underground stations began in early 2005. At the end of March 2005 preparations for building the platform area of the main station began. This space
13816-582: The country's de facto capital. It also bordered the three sectors occupied by the United States , United Kingdom , and France known collectively as West Berlin ( de facto part of the FRG). Emigration to the West was a significant problem as many emigrants were well-educated young people; such emigration weakened the state economically. In response, the GDR government fortified its inner German border and later built
13973-614: The current tunnel, no longer ran in the direction of the Dresden route, but rather in the direction of Magdeburg and Berlin. Stations were planned under the Western Hall of the Hauptbahnhof and under the city-centre Markt. Due to the expected high financial and technical effort, the plans were not realized before the end of the GDR . The tunnel is used by 6 out of 7 S-Bahn Mitteldeutschland lines. It
14130-571: The date of the timetable change in December 2013. From South to North In addition to the four underground stations of the City Tunnel, the shells of the new stations Leipzig MDR and Leipzig Nord - Berliner Brücke were completed in January 2011. The northern ramp to the entrance of the tunnel is 600 m long and has a slope of 40 ‰ It was planned that each hour and in each direction, there would be up to ten S-Bahn, two regional trains and one express (as of July 2007). The S-Bahn network , which
14287-569: The deportation of Polish Jews from Leipzig to Poland. The Polish Consulate sheltered 1,300 Polish Jews, preventing their deportation. On 9 November 1938, as part of Kristallnacht , in Gottschedstrasse , synagogues and businesses were set on fire. Only a couple of days later, on 11 November 1938, many Jews in the Leipzig area were deported to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp. As World War II came to an end, much of Leipzig
14444-449: The early 1970s, West Germany maintained that East Germany was an illegally constituted state. It argued that the GDR was a Soviet puppet-state, and frequently referred to it as the "Soviet occupation zone". West Germany's allies shared this position until 1973. East Germany was recognized primarily by socialist countries and by the Arab bloc , along with some "scattered sympathizers". According to
14601-661: The eastern one for the Royal Saxon State Railways and the western one for the Prussian state railways . In the 19th century, Leipzig was a centre of the German and Saxon liberal movements. The first German labor party , the General German Workers' Association ( Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein , ADAV) was founded in Leipzig on 23 May 1863 by Ferdinand Lassalle ; about 600 workers from across Germany travelled to
14758-491: The entrance of the tunnel, redevelopment work at the corner of Windmühlen- and Grünewaldstraße was delayed. That would allow a curve to be built with a suitable arc for long-distance trains. The plan foresaw an S-Bahn route and a mainline railway tunnel in the direction of Munich. The latter was dropped a few years later due to the division of Germany . By 1967 three variants for the S-Bahn tunnel had been developed which, together with
14915-527: The estimated total costs had risen by the end of November 2009 to 893 million euro, the state auditors of Saxony reviewed the project. At the end of February 2010, a further cost increase to 960 million Euros was announced. According to the State of Saxony, this remains the expected total cost (as of September 2010). The federal share provided is limited, in line with the framework agreement, to 191.73 million euro (plus wage and price increases). With
15072-541: The excavation began of the second bore on 9 May 2008. On 31 October 2008, the tunnel boring of the tunnel ended with the completion of the second bore. Ahead of the expected opening in December 2013, activities centred on the interior fitting-out of the tunnel and railway stations. In mid-February 2009, the contract to develop the five stations was advertised throughout Europe. The contract ran from February 2010 to November 2011. The tender has been divided between two companies. The two 1438-m-long tunnels were largely dug using
15229-610: The exception of the indexation component, the federal share has already been used in full (as of September 2010). The additional costs are mainly supported by the Free State of Saxony and the City of Leipzig, and to a lesser extent, the German Railways. The project has been criticised by various parties because of the high construction costs for the relatively lightly-used Leipzig S-Bahn, for the limited usability by long-distance trains and for
15386-520: The fall of the East German regime. More recently, the city has sometimes been nicknamed Hypezig , the "Boomtown of eastern Germany", or "The better Berlin" ( Das bessere Berlin ) and is celebrated by the media as a hip urban centre for its vibrant lifestyle and creative scene with many startups . Leipzig is located in the Leipzig Bay , the southernmost part of the North German Plain , which
15543-534: The fishing rights to the church and convent of St Thomas. There were a number of monasteries in and around the city, including a Franciscan monastery after which the Barfußgäßchen (Barefoot Alley) is named and a monastery of Irish monks ( Jacobskirche , destroyed in 1544) near the present day Ranstädter Steinweg (the old Via Regia ). The University of Leipzig was founded in 1409 and Leipzig developed into an important centre of German law and of
15700-409: The following weeks. Many other GDR citizens demonstrated against the ruling party , especially in the city of Leipzig . The Leipzig demonstrations became a weekly occurrence, with a turnout of 10,000 people at the first demonstration on 2 October, peaking at an estimated 300,000 by the end of the month. The protests were surpassed in East Berlin, where half a million demonstrators turned out against
15857-535: The foundation on the new railway. Leipzig expanded rapidly to more than 700,000 inhabitants. Huge Gründerzeit areas were built, which mostly survived both war and post-war demolition. With the opening of a fifth production hall in 1907, the Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei became the largest cotton mill company on the continent, housing over 240,000 spindles. Yearly production surpassed 5 million kilograms of yarn. During World War I , in 1917,
16014-420: The full integration of the German Democratic Republic into the Federal Republic of Germany. Because of the resulting deindustrialization in the former East Germany, the causes of the failure of this integration continue to be debated. Some western commentators claim that the depressed eastern economy is a natural aftereffect of a demonstrably inefficient command economy . But many East German critics contend that
16171-508: The ground were built and the ground was frozen into a waterproof layer. In order to prevent settlement of more than 30 millimeters at the tunnel grout shafts have been built. Of these, were generated as necessary, heave of the soil by high-pressure injections. Partially, the soil was already previously raised by a few millimetres in order to reduce the final setting depth. Under the Petersstrasse an about 250 m long supply tunnel from GDR times
16328-423: The implementation of the City Tunnel. On 18 March 2003, they approved the project formally. On 6 January 2010 a correction notice to the tender for the Leipzig train network was issued, announcing that the start of the new train service would be delayed for another year until the timetable change in December 2013. The 2002 framework agreement foresaw the total project cost as €571.62 million, financed by funds from
16485-412: The influence of the more prosperous West, against which East Germans continually measured their own nation. The notable transformations instituted by the communist regime were particularly evident in the abolition of capitalism, the overhaul of industrial and agricultural sectors, the militarization of society, and the political orientation of both the educational system and the media. On the other hand,
16642-417: The internal impact of the GDR government from the perspective of German history in the long term, historian Gerhard A. Ritter (2002) has argued that the East German state was defined by two dominant forces – Soviet communism on the one hand, and German traditions filtered through the interwar experiences of German communists on the other. Throughout its existence GDR consistently grappled with
16799-518: The intersection of the ancient roads known as the Via Regia (King's highway), which traversed Germany in an east–west direction, and the Via Imperii (Imperial highway), a north–south road. Leipzig was a walled city in the Middle Ages and the current "ring" road around the historic centre of the city follows the line of the old city walls. Since 1992 Leipzig has been divided administratively into ten Stadtbezirke (boroughs), which in turn contain
16956-498: The long-lasting construction work in the city centre, with its associated obstruction and loss of revenue. When constructing Leipzig Hauptbahnhof, the Saxon State Railway had planned a tunnel to Bayerischer Bahnhof. In 1913 and 1915, a 710m long section below tracks 22 and 23 was created before the work came to a halt due to World War I and a lack of funds. As part of the modernisation of the railway station, this tunnel section
17113-568: The new regime made relatively few changes in the historically independent domains of the sciences, the engineering professions, the Protestant churches, and in many bourgeois lifestyles. Social policy, says Ritter, became a critical legitimization tool in the last decades and mixed socialist and traditional elements about equally. At the Yalta Conference during World War II, the Allies , i.e.,
17270-407: The north of the city. The landscape is mostly flat, though there is also some evidence of moraine and drumlins . Although there are some forest parks within the city limits, the area surrounding Leipzig is relatively unforested. During the 20th century, there were several open-pit mines in the region, many of which have been converted to lakes. Also see: Neuseenland Leipzig is also situated at
17427-454: The original Slavic name of the city has been reconstructed as *Lipьsko , which is also reflected in similar forms in neighbouring modern Slavic languages (Sorbian/Polish Lipsk , Czech Lipsko ). This has, however, been questioned by more recent onomastic research based on the very oldest forms like Libzi (c. 1015). Due to the etymology mentioned above, Lindenstadt or Stadt der Linden (City of Linden Trees) are common poetic epithets for
17584-412: The point where Nazi officials were strong enough to evict the Jews from their own homes. They also had the power to force many of the Jews living in the city to sell their houses. Many people who sold their homes emigrated elsewhere, outside of Leipzig. Others moved to Judenhäuser, which were smaller houses that acted as ghettos, housing large groups of people. The Jews of Leipzig were greatly affected by
17741-409: The population in West Germany and 6% in East Germany had antisemitic prejudices. In 1994, 40% of West Germans and 22% of East Germans felt that too much emphasis was placed on the genocide of the Jews. Historian Ulrich Pfeil , nevertheless, recalls the fact that anti-fascist commemoration in the GDR had "a hagiographic and indoctrination character". As in the case of the memory of the protagonists of
17898-501: The press to support local and state militias, patriotic wartime mobilization, humanitarian relief and postwar commemorative practices and rituals. When it was made a terminus of the first German long-distance railway to Dresden (the capital of Saxony) in 1839, Leipzig became a hub of Central European railway traffic, with Leipzig Hauptbahnhof the largest terminal station by area in Europe. The railway station has two grand entrance halls,
18055-663: The publishing industry in Germany, resulting, in the 19th and 20th centuries, with the Reichsgericht (Imperial Court of Justice) and the German National Library being located here. During the Thirty Years' War , two battles took place in Breitenfeld , about 8 km (5 mi) outside Leipzig city walls. The first Battle of Breitenfeld took place in 1631 and the second in 1642. Both battles resulted in victories for
18212-526: The regime on 4 November. Kurt Masur , conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra , led local negotiations with the government and held town meetings in the concert hall. The demonstrations eventually led Erich Honecker to resign in October; he was replaced by a slightly more moderate communist, Egon Krenz . The massive demonstration in East Berlin on 4 November coincided with Czechoslovakia formally opening its border to West Germany. With
18369-576: The remaining 18 Jews still in Leipzig were deported from Leipzig to Auschwitz. According to records of the two waves of deportations to Auschwitz there were no survivors. According to records of the Theresienstadt deportation, only 53 Jews survived. During the German invasion of Poland at the start of World War II , in September 1939, the Gestapo carried out arrests of prominent local Poles , and seized
18526-468: The restoration of German sovereignty. In eastern Germany, the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ – Sowjetische Besatzungszone ) comprised the five states ( Länder ) of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern , Brandenburg , Saxony , Saxony-Anhalt , and Thuringia . Disagreements over the policies to be followed in the occupied zones quickly led to a breakdown in cooperation between the four powers, and
18683-563: The risky crossing into Austria but remained instead in Hungary or claimed asylum in West German embassies in Prague or Budapest . The opening of a border gate between Austria and Hungary at the Pan-European Picnic on 19 August 1989 then set in motion a chain reaction leading to the end of the GDR and disintegration of the Eastern Bloc. It was the largest mass escape from East Germany since
18840-451: The ruling party for the entire duration of the East German state. It had close ties with the Soviets, which maintained military forces in East Germany until the dissolution of the Soviet regime in 1991 ( Russia continued to maintain forces in the territory of the former East Germany until 1994), with the purpose of countering NATO bases in West Germany. As West Germany was reorganized and gained independence from its occupiers (1945–1949),
18997-408: The slot. This mass then formed a waterproof wall through which the tunnel boring machines could run without the surrounding water and rock penetrating. The tunnel has an excavated diameter of nine metres and was driven by a fluid-based plate. This generates a positive pressure that prevented the ingress of water and rock into the tunnel. Using this approach, however, there is a danger that the pressure
19154-513: The socialist parties and symbolic of the new friendship of German socialists after defeating their common enemy; however, there is much evidence that the merger was more troubled than commonly portrayed, and that the Soviet occupation authorities applied great pressure on the SPD's eastern branch to merge with the KPD, and the communists, who held a majority, had virtually total control over policy. The SED remained
19311-533: The southernmost part of the North German Plain (the Leipzig Bay ), at the confluence of the White Elster and its tributaries Pleiße and Parthe , that form an extensive inland delta in the city known as Leipziger Gewässerknoten [ de ] , along which Leipzig Riverside Forest , Europe's largest intra-city riparian forest has developed. Leipzig is at the centre of Neuseenland ( new lake district ), consisting of several artificial lakes created from former lignite open-pit mines . Leipzig has been
19468-532: The ten years after reunification, and vacant and derelict housing became an urgent problem. German Democratic Republic in Europe (dark grey) East Germany ( German : Ostdeutschland , [ˈɔstˌdɔʏtʃlant] ), officially known as the German Democratic Republic ( GDR ; Deutsche Demokratische Republik , [ˈdɔʏtʃə demoˈkʁaːtɪʃə ʁepuˈbliːk] , DDR ),
19625-512: The total cost would amount to 1.04 billion DM. DM 240 million would come from the EU Structural Fund. Additional safety measures led to increased costs. In 2006, the ERDF funding allocated at the end of the funding period was reduced from 168.73 to 127.59. million Euro, which was spent in its entirety. For the 2007-2013 funding period, a further follow-up funding application was submitted, but
19782-883: The transport infrastructure. Leipzig is home to one of the oldest universities in Europe ( Leipzig University ). It is the main seat of the German National Library (the second is Frankfurt ), the seat of the German Music Archive , as well as of the German Federal Administrative Court . Leipzig Zoo is one of the most modern zoos in Europe and as of 2018 ranks first in Germany and second in Europe. Leipzig's late-19th-century Gründerzeit architecture consists of around 12,500 buildings. The city's central railway terminus Leipzig Hauptbahnhof is, at 83,460 square metres (898,400 sq ft), Europe's largest railway station measured by floor area. Since Leipzig City Tunnel came into operation in 2013, it has formed
19939-508: The tunnel boring machine called Leonie began (with a ceremony at the Bayerischer Bahnhof) to symbolically bore the first tunnel. The tunnel's godmother is Angelika Meeth-Milbradt, wife of then Prime Minister of Saxony Georg Milbradt The excavation began on 15 January 2007 and on 10 March 2008 reached the railway station, so completing the first bore. After the return of the tunnel boring machine to Bayerischer Bahnhof in late March 2008,
20096-514: The tunnel is possible. A connection between Leipzig Hauptbahnhof and Bayerischer Bahnhof was first considered in 1892. The implementation was planned as an underground railway, running parallel to the two mainline tracks from Borsdorf via the Hauptbahnhof and the Bayerischer Bahnhof and on to Connewitz and Gaschwitz. It would be powered by a Third Rail system. During the construction of the main station (started in 1909), between 1913 and 1914
20253-405: The tunnel was carried out with seven re-enforced concrete segments , which form a tunnel ring, which are 40 cm thick and a keystone. For the two tunnels approximately 13,000 segments were required. When tunnelling in soft ground it is expected that the tunnel will sag due to soil loss (sagging of the soil after tunnelling or mining operations) which cannot be avoided completely. The lower tray
20410-590: The tunnel. However, until December 2012 the electrified route ended in Reichenbach im Vogtland . Therefore, the states of Saxony and Bavaria, the Federal Government and DB were planning to continue rail electrification first to Hof , and later on to Regensburg and Nuremberg . The section to Hof was fully electrified by 15 December 2013. Early in 2002, the Saxony State Government gave support for
20567-475: The two German states and the former Allies , which led to agreement on the conditions for German unification. By a two-thirds vote in the Volkskammer on 23 August 1990, the German Democratic Republic declared its accession to the Federal Republic of Germany. The five original East German states that had been abolished in the 1952 redistricting were restored. On 3 October 1990, the five states officially joined
20724-566: The units can monitor the structural elements of buildings. For the case that the uplift not the actually occurring reduction can compensate, further cement is pressed into the ground and kept the buildings at a constant level. Even after the completion of the excavation, the houses are still monitored regularly and, if carried further injections. Leipzig Leipzig ( / ˈ l aɪ p s ɪ ɡ , - s ɪ x / , LYPE -sig, -sikh ; German: [ˈlaɪptsɪç] ; Upper Saxon : Leibz'sch ; Upper Sorbian : Lipsk )
20881-413: The war ended in 1945. On 22 May 1930, Carl Friedrich Goerdeler was elected mayor of Leipzig. He later became an opponent of the Nazi regime . He resigned in 1937 when, in his absence, his Nazi deputy ordered the destruction of the city's statue of Felix Mendelssohn . On Kristallnacht in 1938, the 1855 Moorish Revival Leipzig synagogue , one of the city's most architecturally significant buildings,
21038-472: Was repeatedly struck by Allied bombing raids , beginning in 1943 and lasting until 1945. The first raid occurred on the morning of 4 December 1943, when 442 bombers of the Royal Air Force (RAF) dropped a total amount of almost 1,400 tons of explosives and incendiaries on the city, destroying large parts of the city centre. This bombing was the largest up to that time. Due to the close proximity of many of
21195-516: Was a de facto government within a single German nation and a de jure state organisation of parts of Germany outside the Federal Republic. The Federal Republic continued to maintain that it could not within its own structures recognize the GDR de jure as a sovereign state under international law; but it fully acknowledged that, within the structures of international law, the GDR was an independent sovereign state. By distinction, West Germany then viewed itself as being within its own boundaries, not only
21352-455: Was a country in Central Europe from its formation on 7 October 1949 until its reunification with West Germany on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally viewed as a communist state and described itself as a socialist "workers' and peasants' state". The economy of the country was centrally planned and state-owned . Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to
21509-628: Was a period of stability and consolidation; 1971–1985 was termed the Honecker Era, and saw closer ties with West Germany; and 1985–1990 saw the decline and extinction of East Germany. The ruling political party in East Germany was the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands ( Socialist Unity Party of Germany , SED). It was created in 1946 through the Soviet-directed merger of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and
21666-446: Was an illegally-constituted puppet state of NATO. However, from the 1960s onward, East Germany began recognizing itself as a separate country from West Germany and shared the legacy of the united German state of 1871–1945 . This was formalized in 1974 when the reunification clause was removed from the revised East German constitution. West Germany, in contrast, maintained that it was the only legitimate government of Germany. From 1949 to
21823-400: Was applied. For it are in different places pits, the so-called CGV-shafts arranged. Overall, the method consists of four phases. First, dug wells or pits at appropriate points, be created from which horizontal wells. This can be, according to a length of up to 70 m. In the horizontal drilling valve tubes are installed. Through these tubes is finally pressed cement into the ground. This will start
21980-415: Was created for the following excavation. In December 2006, the construction of the ramps at the main station was interrupted after cracks were found in neighbouring station buildings. Between 17 February and 25 March 2007 two auxiliary bridges of 105 m were built as part of the construction in the Central Station. In addition 1,400 metres of track and eight sets of points were rebuilt. On 11 January 2007
22137-572: Was deliberately destroyed. Goerdeler was later executed by the Nazis on 2 February 1945. Several thousand forced labourers were stationed in Leipzig during the Second World War. Beginning in 1933, many Jewish citizens of Leipzig were members of the Gemeinde , a large Jewish religious community spread throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In October 1935, the Gemeinde helped found the Lehrhaus (English:
22294-550: Was destroyed. Following the war, the Communist Party of Germany provided aid for the reconstruction of the city. In 1933, a census recorded that over 11,000 Jews were living in Leipzig. In the 1939 census, the number had fallen to roughly 4,500, and by January 1942 only 2,000 remained. In that month, these 2,000 Jews began to be deported. On 13 July 1942, 170 Jews were deported from Leipzig to Auschwitz concentration camp . On 19 September 1942, 440 Jews were deported from Leipzig to Theresienstadt concentration camp . On 18 June 1943,
22451-549: Was excavated in 1997 and demolished within the station hall area. In the early 1990s the plans for a public transport tunnel through central Leipzig, which had existed for decades, were presented together with the results of new planning in 1995. In 1996 the DB and the Land of Saxony, expressed their support for the project. In the same year the Land, City Planning and DB AG Company founded the planning company S-Bahn Tunnel Leipzig GmbH . Following
22608-402: Was extremely polluting, making Leipzig an even less attractive city to live in. Between 1950 and the end of the German Democratic Republic, the population of Leipzig fell from 600,000 to 500,000. In October 1989, after prayers for peace at St. Nicholas Church , established in 1983 as part of the peace movement, the Monday demonstrations started as the most prominent mass protest against
22765-534: Was forbidden to talk about the Third Reich and, at home, their grandparents told them how, thanks to Hitler , we had the first motorways." On 17 October 1987, thirty or so skinheads violently threw themselves into a crowd of 2,000 people at a rock concert in the Zionskirche without the police intervening. In 1990, the writer Freya Klier received a death threat for writing an essay on antisemitism and xenophobia in
22922-437: Was introduced. Since December 2017, the S1 is operating in a 30 minutes-interval between Miltitzer Allee and Stötteritz, the services Messe-Stötteritz has been replaced by the new S6. Before construction, capacity was limited to eleven S-Bahn trains, two regional express trains and one express train per hour in each direction. Critics have expressed doubts that a more appropriate mixed mode of regional and long-distance traffic in
23079-401: Was not approved (February 2011). The contractor's representatives DEGES expected the costs in December 2006 to amount to 585 million euro. A risk analysis by Deutsche Bahn saw at that time possible additional costs of up to 73 million euro. In December 2007, the additional cost was estimated at 133 million euro, so that the expected total cost will be 705 million €. After
23236-521: Was not then a priority for the leadership of West Germany, and the NATO powers declined the proposal, asserting that Germany should be able to join NATO and that such a negotiation with the Soviet Union would be seen as a capitulation. In 1949 the Soviets turned control of East Germany over to the SED , headed by Wilhelm Pieck (1876–1960), who became President of the GDR and held the office until his death, while
23393-460: Was often described as a Soviet satellite state ; historians described it as an authoritarian regime. Geographically the GDR bordered the Baltic Sea to the north, Poland to the east, Czechoslovakia to the southeast, and West Germany to the southwest and west. Internally, the GDR also bordered the Soviet sector of Allied-occupied Berlin , known as East Berlin , which was also administered as
23550-478: Was removed from power that same year before he could act on the matter. His successor, Nikita Khrushchev , rejected reunification as equivalent to returning East Germany for annexation to the West; hence reunification was off the table until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. East Germany regarded East Berlin as its capital, and the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc diplomatically recognized East Berlin as
23707-407: Was suspended during World War I and was not resumed thereafter. During World War II the tunnel and underground stop were converted to provide air-raid shelters . During the bombing raid on Leipzig on 7 July 1944, there were two explosions that destroyed the tunnel at two places and thus divided it into three parts. During reconstruction of the main station, the area around the second impact point
23864-578: Was the largest battle in Europe before the First World War and the coalition victory ended Napoleon 's presence in Germany and would ultimately lead to his first exile on Elba . The Monument to the Battle of the Nations celebrating the centenary of this event was completed in 1913. In addition to stimulating German nationalism, the war had a major impact in mobilizing a civic spirit in numerous volunteer activities. Many volunteer militias and civic associations were formed, and collaborated with churches and
24021-457: Was the removal of the electrified fence along Hungary 's border with Austria on 2 May 1989. Although formally the Hungarian frontier was still closed, many East Germans took the opportunity to enter Hungary via Czechoslovakia , and then make the illegal crossing from Hungary to Austria and to West Germany beyond. By July, 25,000 East Germans had crossed into Hungary; most of them did not attempt
24178-575: Was then voted into effect prior to the agreed date for Unification by both the Volkskammer and the Bundestag by the constitutionally required two-thirds majorities, effecting on the one hand the extinction of the GDR, and on the other the agreed amendments to the Basic Law of the Federal Republic. The great economic and socio-political inequalities between the former Germanies required government subsidies for
24335-589: Was used for the injection. It begins and ends at St. Peter's bow on the market. All the buildings in Petersstrasse can be achieved. Of the Verpressschächten holes were made, terminating at the buildings. These holes are provided as needed and then with Verpressrohren Verpressgut is introduced under high pressure. The Verpressgut is composed of binder and water. Here, the Compensations-grouting process
24492-499: Was walled-in, and the platform under the east portico converted into the DEFA-Zeitkino Cinema and was used for this purpose until 1992. During the redevelopment of the main railway station in the years 1995 to 2000, parts of the tunnels under the station were demolished. The tunnel below the apron and the first few metres of the station hall were closed, but remained preserved. Shortly after World War II, in 1946, planning for an underground city crossing restarted. In order to accommodate
24649-440: Was – in the West – referred to as Pankow (the seat of command of the Soviet forces in Germany was in Karlshorst , a district in the East of Berlin). Over time, however, the abbreviation "DDR" was also increasingly used colloquially by West Germans and West German media. When used by West Germans, Westdeutschland ( West Germany ) was a term almost always in reference to the geographic region of Western Germany and not to
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