Karl Marx Monument

The largest Karl Marx bust outside the former Soviet Union

The monument is harder to ignore than almost anything else in Germany. The head sits on a massive granite plinth just off the Brückenstraße, facing away from the old town with an expression that German newspapers have variously described as stern, melancholy, and quietly amused. The inscription on the rear — in German, French, English, and Russian — is from the Communist Manifesto: "Workers of all lands, unite."

It has become one of the most photographed objects in Saxony, a pilgrimage site for the historically curious and a genuine piece of public art that outlasted the ideology it was meant to embody. The surrounding square and the broad pedestrian zone make for easy viewing from multiple angles. Come in the evening when the light is low and the bronze goes dark against the sky.

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A story
The 7-metre bronze head was commissioned in 1953, the year the city was renamed Karl-Marx-Stadt. Sculptor Lev Kerbel created it in Moscow; it took three years to cast and arrived in 14 pieces. When reunification came in 1990 and the city reclaimed its old name, a referendum was held on whether to keep the monument. Chemnitz voted to keep it — a decision that says something interesting about the city's relationship with its own past.