Eisenhuettenstadt pronunciation in German.ogg) is a city in Brandenburg, Germany. It is located on the Oder river in the district of Oder-Spree. Population: 35,884 (as of December 31, 2004).

Eisenhüttenstadt lies in the Berlin-Warsaw glacial valley and it is surrounded by pine forests and terminal moraine hills.

Eisenhüttenstadt was founded in 1950, and given the name Stalinstadt three years later in honor of Joseph Stalin. It was advertised as the "first socialist city on German soil." Like other new socialist cities, such as Nowa Huta in Poland, it followed the example of Magnitogorsk in the Soviet Union and was built alongside a new steelworks. In the first years the architecture was strongly influenced by the Stalinistic town construction principles, and the architecture is strongly neo-classicist in style, although Plattenbau prefabrication is predominant among later buildings.

As a consequence of destalinization, the November 13, 1961, and merged with the neighboring town of Fürstenberg and the village of Schönfließ.

Fürstenberg was founded around 1250 by the Wettin Markgraf Heinrich der Erlauchte. At the beginning of the 19th century the development of Fürstenberg gained momentum because of the connection to the railway line from Berlin to Breslau and the construction of the Oder-Spree Canal. In the Nazi era armament works and chemical plants were built around Fürstenberg. The necessary workforce was recuited from the POW camp STALAG III B. The town was liberated in 1945 by Soviet troops. After the war the armament works was Soviet Union as war reparations.

After German reunification, closure of the ironworks was discussed, but did not occur. Instead, the state-run ironworks was privatized as EKO Stahl AG, now EKO Stahl GmbH, which is now a member of the Arcelor Group, the world's largest steel company.

Famous Persons

• Paul van Dyk
• Udo Beyer

External links

• Official site of the city of Eisenhüttenstadt
• Dokumentationszentrum Alftagskultur der DDR = DDR-Museum
• Wikihüttenstadt, the local lexicon
• Eisenhüttenstadt Blog
• Logbuch Eisenhüttenstadt, die Stahl(in)stadt

Socialist planned cities | Towns in Brandenburg | Eisenhüttenstadt | Eisenhüttenstadt | Eisenhüttenstadt | Eisenhüttenstadt