Abandoned East Berlin Theme Park

‘The Spreepark was an entertainment park in the formerly GDR-controlled East Berlin, opened in 1969.

‘On 18 January 2002, (the park’s owner) Norbert Witte, together with his family and closest coworkers moved to Lima in Peru. They shipped six attractions (Fliegender Teppich, Butterfly, Spider, Baby-Flug, Wild River and Jet Star) in 20 ship containers, having been allowed to do so by the authorities who believed they were being sent for repair. In August 2002 the park was declared completely insolvent. Debts at a level of €11,000,000 remained and the area was allowed to fall into disrepair.

‘Norbert Witte failed in his attempt to run a “Lunapark” in Lima. On 19 May 2004 he was sentenced to seven years in jail for attempting to smuggle 180 kg of cocainewith a value of £14 million from Peru to Germany in the masts of the “flying carpet” ride.’

- Wikipedia

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This capsule was curated by Lena Grohnert

Images: tip-berlin; Jens Fersterra; Schizophonia; focusfeatures; outnow; a nipic; CxOxS

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A.M.M. Michaux

July 27, 2011 at 1:47 pm · Reply

the Speepark actually opens for special occasion. here are pictures from the HAU festival last May:
http://transitionalmemory.blogspot.com/2011/05/samstag-im-spreepark.html

qka

July 27, 2011 at 3:17 pm · Reply

In picture #8, the Titanic inflatable is, well, still inflated. Those inflatables need their fans to run constantly or else they deflate. That, and you can see someone is on it. Unless this was during an event such as described by A.M.M. Michaux above?

Diego

July 27, 2011 at 6:00 pm · Reply

The park -or parts of it- was featured in the movie “Hanna” starred by Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett and Saorsie Ronan.

July 27, 2011 at 7:15 pm · Reply

@ qka,
the picture #8 was actually taken during the event a few weeks ago. My friend took it herself. Could be that it’s even her little son, who is on it.
The park was open till July 17th this year, but unfortunately it was not as exciting as people thought it would be. Most of the area wasn’t open for the public.