A Berlin exhibition highlights the GDR’s (German Democratic Republic) personality cult around Joseph Stalin and commemorates the victims of his dictatorship. For the exhibition, Militzer & Münch transported a two-ton bronze statue of the Soviet dictator from Mongolia to Berlin.
During the GDR era, a statue of Joseph Stalin stood in East Berlin until 1961, when it vanished in unresolved circumstances. In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, historians recently discovered an identical bronze statue from the same series. The Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial assigned Militzer & Münch with the complete transport.
“When transporting a five-meter, two-ton statue, every step in the process has to be done correctly,” says Sven Wolthusen, Branch Manager of Militzer & Münch Berlin. “To lift the monument onto the truck undamaged, we had to be extremely precise working the crane. We filmed the entire loading process.”
The bronze statue travelled the 8,000 kilometer distance from Ulaanbaatar to Berlin in 14 days, transiting Russia, Belarus and Poland. Apart from the usual transport services including customs management, the team was also responsible for erecting the statue. The statue was temporarily positioned for a media event at the Karl-Marx-Allee before being erected at the Hohenschönhausen exhibition, where it will be on display until June 30, 2018.