The dynamiting began on September 6, 1950. Despite official assurances to the contrary, salvageable parts of the palace were not reerected elsewhere, with a single exception. The removal of the ruins took months, but once they were gone the way was clear for construction of a reviewing stand from which Ulbricht and his colleagues could survey their grand demonstrations of proletarian power. While plans for new, monumental buildings came and went (see chapter 5), little changed for years on the site. As the proletarian will became less demonstrative (or as the GDR became more bourgeois), the
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