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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Spreepark: An abandoned amusement park in Berlin


Headless dinosaurs, rusty roller coasters and a time-frozen Ferris wheel. This is Spreepark, an abandoned amusement park in Berlin, Germany, in operation between 1969 and 2001. Kutlurpark Plänterwald as it was originally named was built in the north of Plänterwald area of East Berlin, next to the river Spree. It was the only theme park of its kind in the whole of Berlin as well as East Germany. During the communism era it thrived attracting up to a million and half visitors per year.

Worse times came after the fall of the Berlin Wall when the park was sold off to Austrian financier Norbert Witte who renamed it 'Spreepark'. Until 1999, large debts had piled up while the number of the visitors kept dropping. In 2002, Witte decided to close down the park, move together with his family and closest colleagues to Lima, Peru and operate an amusement park there. In 2004 however he was sentenced to seven years in jail for attempting to smuggle 180 kg of cocaine  from Peru to Germany in the masts of the Fliegender Teppich ("flying carpet") ride. In October 2006, a Peruvian court sentenced Wittes' son, Marcel Witte, to 20 years for drug smuggling.

Meanwhile, Spreepark remained closed since 2002 as it had amassed more than 11 million euros (14.7 million US dollars) in debt. From then, the abandoned facilities are attracting tourists and urban explorers. In 2011, scenes for the film Hanna were filmed in the park.





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4 comments:

  1. What is more sad is, the tourist "creatively" decorating the place. It has gotten so popular everyone who fancies themselves "artistic" stamps their shitty art everywhere.
    Yet, this is nothing new globally. So...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think the place has been sold now and is going to be redeveloped.

    ReplyDelete

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