German parliamentary commissioner calls for anti-Lenin campaign

Germany’s parliamentary commissioner has called for renaming streets bearing the names of Vladimir Lenin and Cold War–era socialist leaders.

Streets in multiple cities still carry the names of politicians from Soviet-aligned East Germany, which reunified with pro-US West Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Evelyn Zupke, the Bundestag’s commissioner representing former East German political prisoners, told the newspaper Bild that names associated with the socialist past should be removed from public spaces.

“Thirty-five years after reunification, no street should be named after Lenin, Otto Grotewohl, or Wilhelm Pieck. Naming a street is an expression of appreciation by our democratic society today. These individuals, however, symbolize the suffering of thousands of victims,” she said on Saturday. Zupke added that changing the names “would send the right signal on the 35th anniversary of German unity.”