Marching under Red Flags.The Berlin Zeughaus as the scene of a political stage act on 1 May 1946

More than 500,000 people participated in the first May Day demonstration of the post-war period in Berlin, according to a positive assessment in Neues Deutschland, the central organ of the SED. On 3 May 1946, the newspaper reported that workers from all districts of the city came together to march in columns to the Berlin Lustgarten (pleasure garden). The photographer Abraham Pisarek documented this impressive unitary demonstration, which as such was a highly political event. Our trainee Lisa Sophie Gebhard talks about the background of Pisarek’s photo of the demonstration, at the head of which marched the first party executive of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).