If you want to find a Lenin statue in West Berlin, you must walk between trucks and factories in the industrial park south of Neukölln. It feels like Lenin is left out of the city but, somehow, I believe that he is in the right place. Far away from the tourists and close to the people who work in Berlin.
This is the only statue of Lenin in West-Berlin, and it can be found in the parking lot of a transport company in an industrial park in Neukölln.
The company is called Zapf Umzüge, and I’m still not sure about how it managed to get where it is. From 2001 to 2016, this Lenin statue was in Kreuzberg but, since Zapf moved to Neukölln, they brought the statue with them.
But how did this Lenin Statue Come to be the Only Lenin Statue in West Berlin?
There are a lot of theories about this Lenin statue that sits peacefully in an industrial park in Neukölln. The first theory that I read says that Zapf was hired to transport this Lenin statue to be destroyed but Klaus Zapf, the owner of the transport company, sympathized with the communist ideology and decided to buy the Communist symbol and save it from destruction.
Another story says that te company received the statue as a guarantee for a loan from a Russian businessman who never paid him back. The Russian businessman never paid the money back, and Klaus Zapf decided to keep the statue as a souvenir.
The third story is a kind of mashup of both of them. Somebody got a deal, and the Lenin statue was used as a guarantee and after not receiving back the money, this person decided to get rid of the icon. Klaus Zapf heard about the story and decided to buy it and expose it in front of his company as a reminder of the past of Eastern Germany.
I’m still not sure which story I would like to believe, but I don’t think it matters that much. For me, what is fascinating is that there is a Lenin statue on a parking lot in Neukölln and that you can go there and visit it.
If you want to see it with your own eyes, follow the map below and be prepared to walk for a while since the place is in the middle of nowhere.
And, since you’re already there, you should try to see a memorial to the last person that was shot trying to cross the Berlin Wall. One more before you go, if you want to explore Berlin looking for traces of Lenin, we have the perfect article for you.
Lenin Statue in the parking lot at Zapf Umzüge AG
Nobelstraße 66, 12057
Berlin-Neukölln
