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Revolutionary forces

“Left, left, left, left – Red Wedding is marching“ resounded throughout the streets of the district during the Weimar Republic. Many places in Wedding are closely linked to the rise of the labour movement. This is where the Social Democratic Party SPD gathered in banqueting halls or in the park Humboldthain, the Communist Party organized its party conference in the restaurant Pharus-Säle on Müllerstraße 142 in 1932. The Wedding district was a stronghold of both parties. Yet reform politicians were not revolutionaries – and vice versa. The idea failed to create a united front unifying Socialists and Communists as a joint force.

Kinderheim Offene Tür  Children’s home

Jugendheim See- Ecke Turiner Straße  Youth centre

Wärmehalle Lütticher Straße 8 Warming hall

Photographs from a photo album aimed at official self-representation of the district office Wedding 1928

Photographer: Georg Wilke (reproductions)

Carl Leid (1867–1935)

1921–1933 Mayor of the Wedding district

Photographer: Georg Wilke (Reproduction)

The reformer

Carl Leid was trained as a craftsman and had already been an active SPD member when he was voted as the first mayor of the Weddding district in 1920. The idea of the Right to the city formulated later by Henri Lefebvre is already recognizable in Leid’s municipal policies. His party advocated that working-class families should live a dignified life in the metropolis, a place shaped by growth and poverty. Reform schools and health centres were built and a shelter for homeless people was developed. Carl Leid and his comrades recognized that the problems of workers were best solved at a local level.

“Mass misery is most apparent here. Who – like myself – has lived in this district for more than 26 years and has emerged from the masses feels the beating pulse of people in distress and is impassioned by the resolve to improve, to help and to make fundamental changes.”

Carl Leid

1921