The Berlin U-Bahn station Magdalenenstraße, on the city’s U5 line, does not have any advertising hoardings along its walls. Instead, it features a remarkable series of hand-painted murals depicting scenes from German labour history, created by the German painter Wolfgang Frankenstein.

The murals were commissioned and installed by the East German government in 1986, as part of their official celebrations of the 750th anniversary of the founding of the city of Berlin in 1237. There were two parallel sets of celebrations that year — one in East Berlin, and one in West Berlin.

Magdalenenstraße was formerly part of the East Berlin transport network, and the murals have stayed on the walls throughout the last three decades, despite the disappearance of their Stalinist patrons into the dustbin of history after the Wende.

There are twenty paintings — ten on each wall — in roughly chronological order. The murals are a strange blend of expressionist art and obsolete propaganda, and their presence in this otherwise-unremarkable train station gives an almost elegiac atmosphere to the bustle of rush-hour traffic. Images of all the paintings are below, with brief notes — click to view larger versions on Flickr.

Die Weber (The Weavers)

The first painting in the series is also the first of several to depict historically ‘proletarian’ workers — in this case, weavers at a loom. Weaving was one of the professions which was famously transformed by the industrial revolution, and a discussion of weaving was used as an explanatory device by Karl Marx in Das Kapital.

März 1848 (March 1848)

The second painting refers to the revolutions of 1848, specifically the March revolutions in the German states. These democratic revolutions across Europe coincided with the publishing of the Communist Manifesto.

Bergarbeit (Mining)

Historically, mining was central to the industrial revolution. Politically, it was also still an important ‘prestige’ industry in the East Germany of the 1980s.

Hegel vom Kopf auf die Füsse Gestellt (Hegel Turned from his Head onto his Feet, or, Hegel Turned Right Side Up)

The title is a somewhat oblique reference to the concept of dialectical materialism, the foundational philosophical dogma of Marxism-Leninism (and, as such, an official state doctrine of East Germany).

Mechanisierung (Mechanisation)

Another reference to the industrial revolution and Marxist theory.

Pariser Kommune (The Paris Commune)

The title refers to the Paris Commune of 1871, generally recognised as the first explicitly socialist uprising in world history.

Kriegsausbruch 1914 (Outbreak of War 1914)

The beginning of World War I in 1914.

Erster Weltkrieg (First World War)

The Great War — at the time, the most destructive war in human history.

Oktober Revolution (October Revolution)

The Bolshevik revolution in Petrograd in 1917 — the birth of the Soviet Union, and one of the turning points of the twentieth century.

November 1918

The painting refers to the German revolution of 1918-1919, which was initiated by the Kiel mutiny, brought down the Kaiser, brought and end to the First World War, and led to the Spartacist uprising of 1919.

Fabrikarbeit (Factory Work)

More proletarian workers.

Streik (Strike)

The early years of the Weimar Republic were marked by labour unrest, strikes, hyperinflation, paramilitarism and political instability.

Reichstagsbrand (Reichstag Fire)

The Reichstag Fire of 1933 served as the pretext for the establishment of Nazi political dominance of Germany and the suppression of communist activity.

Bücherverbrennung (Book Burning)

The mural refers to the Nazi book burnings of 1933, when thousands of ‘un-German’ books were destroyed.

Buchenwald

Buchenwald was one of the first, and one of the largest, of the Nazi concentration camps in Germany.

Zweiter Weltkrieg (Second World War)

The Second World War. The mural gives prominence to fighter planes, in contrast to the infantry soldiers of the First World War mural.

Berlin 1945

The city of Berlin was largely destroyed by the Battle of Berlin at the end of World War II.

Aufbau (Building)

The last three murals refer to historical events which overlap with the actual existence of the East German state, and as such are more overtly propagandistic than the earlier paintings. Aufbau refers to the rebuilding which took place after the war — possibly as an allusion to the East German national anthem, Auferstanden Aus Ruinen (Risen from Ruins).

Gegen Atomtod (Against Nuclear Death)

One of the standard lines of Soviet and East German propaganda in the 1980s was a professed opposition to nuclear weapons.

Friedensdemonstration (Peace Demonstration)

In keeping with the party line on peace, many state-sponsored peace demonstrations took place in East Germany in the 1980s (and despite the noble aspiration, these were mostly cynical exercises in state-controlled messaging). The final mural alludes to these demonstrations.