A visit to a town in Brandenburg divided by a border into the German Frankfurt (Oder) and the Polish Słubice after the WWII. East German history, communist architecture, a border crossing, beautiful landscape, old cinemas, and hopes for a new era.

• Duration: 4 hours
• How long it takes from Berlin: 1 hour 15 minutes by regional train

Just step outside the main railway station, and you can already see the first point of interest: on your right, you find the heritage-listed Kiliansberg housing estate. It was built in 1922/24 to provide apartments for the railway workers. In its courtyard, there is a monument to the railway workers who died in the First World War. But, as of now (September 2020), visitors probably don’t understand to whom the monument is dedicated: the inscription was removed after the Second World War, and there has been no agreement on how and whether to restore it. The winged wheel on the top, however, provides a hint.

We go down to the city center by turning left into Ferdinandstraße, passing by historical buildings in different stages of destruction and restoration.

Leaving Gubener Straße, we see the tallest building in the whole of Brandenburg — der Oderturm (the Oder Tower). It was built in 1968/76, when the city was part of East Germany. Just before it, there is a beautiful old post office with a replica of an old post box at the entrance.

Der Odeturm is now a place of bustling commerce. It is located on a square that could be a central park, but instead, it’s a huge parking lot. The square is called Brunnenplatz (Fountain square), but where is the fountain? A huge fountain was built in the 1970s, but it was so loud, and used so much water, that it had to be demolished in 1992. The locals even called it “Panzersperre” (“anti-tank barrier”). A new, much more humble and playful fountain was added in 2000 on the farther side of the square. It is called Comicbrunnen (Comic fountain), which has a much more pleasant feel to it than Panzersperre, doesn’t it?

By the way, from the platform on Brunnenplatz you can see the two landmarks of the old town: the town hall and the St. Mary’s Church. We will approach them next.

As we immediately notice, the inner city did not survive the Second World War. Several significant buildings do, however, remain. First, the town hall, its medieval character made alive by several restorations. It was probably built in the middle of the 13th century. Opposite, the city library is located in a commercial building from the early 20th century. There is a cute sculpture of a girl reading while petting a dog near the entrance. Do not let “Walter Disney” engraving on the book cover confuse you — the sculpture was donated by local citizens and not by the American conglomerate. It is only there to encourage reading in English.

The St. Mary’s Church was once the city’s main parish church, but it’s used as socio-cultural center now. The inner furnishings were moved to St. Gertraud’s Church, which we didn’t visit. However, there is something worth seeing inside: the windows, installed in the second half of the 14th century. They went missing after the war for several decades, until a Soviet newspaper Literaturnaya Gazeta published a story hinting at the their possible location in Russia in 1991. After protracted negations, finally in 2008 all windows were returned to Frankfurt (Oder).

The next stop is the Viadrina European University, which is a reincarnation of the first university in Brandenburg that was closed and moved to Wrocław in 1811. Viadrian is Latin for “situated at the Oder River”. The new university was opened in 1991. It has a high proportion of foreign students - 25%, compared to 12,9% in Germany overall. One forth of them come from Poland. Several years ago, the university mired in controversy regarding its “Institute for Transcultural Health Sciences” (since closed), which was funded by a producer of homeopathic preparations. The university was criticized both in media and by the officials for teaching material not grounded in science.

Behind the new campus we take the bridge to the Ziegenwerder island (named after the goats of the fisherman). It will take about 50 minutes to walk around the island, pausing to admire the Oder, waive to the Polish side, and trace the Hanseatic river routes in the streams in the park. It is a peaceful place full of curios corners, so I would highly recommend to recharge here before exploring the city further.

Returning to the mainland via the same bridge, we then go into the direction of our ultimate goal - the border crossing to Poland - along the Oder.

We pass der Flutstein (“the flood stone”), thanking 50,000 people who, risking their lives, came to the region in 1997 to avert deaths and damages caused by the Oder flood, contributing to the “reunification of hearts” in the newly united Germany. The stone depicts the rising water levels, from the lowest level at the bottom. On the information plaque nearby you can see the flooded city – the promenade, where we’re standing now, was deep under water. The flood caused even more damage in Poland and Czechia.

Continue further along the promenade, we came to the Friedensglocke (Peace bell), commemorating the agreement on the Oder–Neisse line — the border between Poland and Germany after the Second World War, signed in 1950. The border divided the German city of Frankfurt (Oder): its area Dammvorstadt ended up on the other side and became the Polish city of Słubice.

Now we’re ready to make the border crossing. From the bridge, take a look back at Frankfurt (Oder). The panorama is dominated by the apartment houses erected during the communist era. At its peak in 1989, the population of Frankfurt (Oder) stood at around 87,000 (it took almost 50 years for it to achieve the pre-war level). But after the reunification, thousands lost their jobs because the main employer, VEB Halbleiterwerk Frankfurt (Oder), the largest manufacturer of semiconductor devices in the GDR, did not survive long past the collapse of the communist system. The city population has dramatically shrank to the current 57,000. As a consequence, many of the GDR-era apartment buildings were demolished. If the population level continues to decline, more of them will become empty.

We didn’t spent much time in Słubice, but I can still show several places of interest, all in 10-minute-walk radius from the bridge. From the interaction we went left along the Oder and turned into Mickiewicza street. There are several beautiful old houses, some with wooden balconies. At the next intersection we turned into Jedności Robotniczej, our attention caught by the facade of the run down cinema.

Turns out, it is only the facade that survived. The cinema has a fascinating history. It was opened in the 1920s, in Germany, as Filmpalast Friedrichstraße. Seriously damaged in 1945, it was reopened, now in Poland, in 1947. It was named Kino Piast after a Polish dynasty. The letters forming Piast above the entrance was taken from the original. In the communist era Germans came here to see Hollywood movies forbidden in the GDR. In the 2000s, while the students organized film festivals, the building was sold to a private investor, who was set on demolishing the cinema. Only the facade, put on the heritage list, was protected. The owner requested that the facade be removed from the heritage list, which the Ministry of Culture ultimately declined. Kino Piast is still not used in any way, and no preservation efforts are carried out.

We take Jedności Robotniczej into the direction of the bridge. It is a nice pedestrian zone with beautiful historical buildings. Back to the intersection, we arrive at the Collegium Polonicum - a joint research center of the Viadrina European University in Frankfurt (Oder) and Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (2 hours by train from here). If you turn left after the city library (Biblioteka), you will see a monument to Wikipedia in the center of a small park. The idea of the monument was suggested by a director of Collegium Polonicum. The author is, remarkably, an Armenian sculptor named Mihran Hakobyan, who studied Polish Philology at the Collegium Polonicum.

After taking a short lunch break on the Oder, we return back to Frankfurt (Oder) and head into the direction of the railway station to catch a train to Eisenhüttenstadt (a city that deserves a separate post). We walk along the busy Slubice Straße until we reach the tranquil Lennèpark. Once we exit the park on Heilbronner Straße, we are confronted with a decaying facade of an old cinema. The first impression may be that it was built in East Germany, but, while the surrounding sculptures and mosaics were added in the 1950s, the cinema dates back to 1910. The last filmed was screened here in 1998, as a new multiplex cinema near the Oderturm was constructed. Lichtspieltheater der Jugend stood empty for a long time — but now the city promises to open it again as an art gallery.

On that hopeful note we end our visit to Frankfurt (Oder).