Eisenhüttenstadt

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The title of this article contains the character ü. Where it is unavailable or not desired, the name may be represented as Eisenhuettenstadt.

Coordinates: 52°9′N 14°40′E

Eisenhüttenstadt


Country	Germany
State	Brandenburg
District	Oder-Spree
Population	35,388 (2005)
Area	63.40 km²
Population density	558 /km²
Elevation	40 m
Coordinates	52°9′ N 14°40′ E
Postal code	15890
Area code	03364
Licence plate code	LOS
Mayor	Rainer Werner (SPD)
Website	eisenhuettenstadt.de

Eisenhüttenstadt (literally "ironworks city" in German; pronunciation) is a city in Brandenburg, Germany. It is located on the Oder river in the district of Oder-Spree. Population: 35,884 (as of December 31, 2004). It is colloquially known as "Hütte" in the city and surrounding region.

Eisenhüttenstadt lies in the Berlin-Warsaw glacial valley and it is surrounded by pine forests and terminal moraine hills.

Eisenhüttenstadt was founded in 1950, and given the name Stalinstadt three years later in honor of Joseph Stalin. It was advertised as the "first socialist city on German soil". Like other new socialist cities, such as Nowa Huta in Poland, it followed the example of Magnitogorsk in the Soviet Union and was built alongside a new steelworks. In the first years the architecture was strongly influenced by the Stalinistic town construction principles, and the architecture is strongly neo-classicist in style, although Plattenbau prefabrication is predominant among later buildings.

As a consequence of destalinization, it was renamed Eisenhüttenstadt on November 13, 1961, and merged with the neighbouring town of Fürstenberg and the village of Schönfließ.

Fürstenberg was founded around 1250 by the Wettin Markgraf Heinrich der Erlauchte. At the beginning of the 19th century the development of Fürstenberg gained momentum because of the connection to the railway line from Berlin to Breslau and the construction of the Oder-Spree Canal. In the Nazi era armament works and chemical plants were built around Fürstenberg. The necessary workforce was recruited from the POW camp STALAG III B. The town was taken in 1945 by Soviet troops, and the POW workers were liberated. After the war the armament works was claimed by the Soviet Union as war reparations.

After German reunification, closure of the ironworks was discussed, but did not occur. Instead, the state-run ironworks was privatized as EKO Stahl AG, now Arcelor Eisenhüttenstadt, as it belongs to the world's largest steel company.