Ernst Thälmann Stadium

The Ernst Thälmann Stadium was a central sports venue in Potsdam. It was a combined football and athletics stadium. The stadium was built in 1948/1949, existed for about 50 years and was demolished in 1999.
During the Second World War, the air raid on Potsdam caused extensive destruction in the city centre. The Lustgarten and the neighboring Potsdam City Palace suffered severe damage. In the discussion that began after the war on the question of "demolition or reconstruction?", supporters of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany advocated demolition. During the conflict, the SED-controlled German People's Police initiated the "beginning of the end of the castle grounds" in 1948 with the construction of the Ernst Thälmann Stadium. From October 1948, People's Police, volunteers and members of the SG People's Police Potsdam built the stadium on the site of the destroyed Lustgarten. Rubble of Potsdam's city centre formed the basis for spectator walls and superstructures. It was named after Ernst Thälmann, the chairman of the Communist Party of Germany, who was murdered in the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944. Guests at the opening ceremony on 3 July 1949 were Thälmann's successor as KPD chairman, SED chairman Wilhelm Pieck, who later became president of the GDR, and Rosa Thälmann, Thälmann's widow. The facility is said to have been the first major new stadium construction in Germany after the end of the war. 20,000 spectators came to the opening. The sports facility had spectator stands, technical facilities, a grass pitch and a 400-metre cinder track. It had a capacity of 15,000 people.

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