CHAPTER 8 Constructing a Socialist Landmark: The Berlin Television Tower Heather Gumbert In October 1952 representatives of the East German Postal Ministry sought permission to build a television antenna on the rooftop of one of the new apartment buildings that soon would line the premier East Ger- man boulevard, Stalinallee. Still under construction, Stalinallee was con- ceived as the centerpiece of a new, socialist East Berlin. The move was crucial for the Postal Ministry’s plans to develop television technology for the German Democratic Republic (GDR): television technicians had been trying to erect a transmitting antenna that would improve transmis- sion and reception of television signals in Berlin for several months. A newly built high-rise apartment building on Stalinallee seemed the per- fect location. But East Berlin’s Chief Architect Hermann Henselmann rejected the request as “out of the question.” The building in question could easily house the equipment, but “the antenna would completely destroy the architectural view and the harmony of the overall view of the Stalinallee” (MPF-BRF 1952). What is more, the antenna would interfere with the reception of radio signals. Unlike radio, television did not yet t into the socialist master plan. Almost a decade and several failed attempts later, postal authorities tried again to build a tower in Berlin, but this time their project met with success. By the early 1960s television had emerged as one of the most important political tools of the Socialist Unity Party’s campaign to build socialism in the GDR. In 1964 the SED approved plans for an enor- mous transmission tower that would rival existing towers throughout the world and located it between Alexanderplatz and Marx-Engels-Platz, at the very intersection of East Berlin’s cultural, economic, and governmen- tal centers of power. The tower, with its broadcasting transmitters, ob-