Frankfurter Tor

Frankfurter Tor marks the eastern end of Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin-Friedrichshain and is one of the most striking ensembles of East German postwar architecture. Between 1953 and 1956 two flanking residential towers with tall domes rose to designs by Hermann Henselmann, deliberately echoing the architecture of Gendarmenmarkt - the GDR's reply to bourgeois Berlin heritage. The complex was a showpiece of socialist reconstruction, and the wide boulevard served as the parade route for May Day demonstrations. Despite the name, the square does not stand on the historic site of the baroque Frankfurter Tor of the customs wall, which lay roughly 800 metres further west. Beneath the intersection runs the U5 metro. Today the renovated Stalin-era towers are sought-after addresses, and Cafe Sibylle keeps memory of the construction era alive.