40 Years of Partnership between Saarlouis and Eisenhüttenstadt

An Unusual Partnership

In 1986 – three years before the fall of the Wall – Saarlouis in Saarland and Eisenhüttenstadt in Brandenburg formed a city partnership. What sounds natural today was a political gesture back then: one of the few active East-West German city ties established in the late phase of the GDR. Forty years later, this date is being honored with a special exhibition.

Exhibition at the Municipal Museum

On Saturday, May 23, 2026, at 11:00 AM, the Eisenhüttenstadt Municipal Museum will open a special exhibition titled "40 Years Saarlouis – Eisenhüttenstadt." It will showcase photographs, documents, letters, and memorabilia from 40 years of mutual visits, student exchanges, club contacts, and political gestures. A search for traces in two very different cities that have become each other's second home.

Eisenhüttenstadt – Socialist Planned City

Eisenhüttenstadt, in the Oder-Spree district, is Brandenburg's youngest city. Originally planned on a drawing board in 1950 under the name "Stalinstadt" – as a socialist residential and industrial city centered around the former Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost (Eastern Iron and Steel Works Combine) – the city is today one of the best-preserved examples of socialist urban planning in Europe. Residential complexes I to VII, the city center on the main boulevard, and the GDR Everyday Culture Documentation Center make Eisenhüttenstadt an unusual place of learning.

Saarlouis – Fortress and Industry

Saarlouis in Saarland, founded in 1680 by Louis XIV, carries a very different history: a French fortress city, later a German industrial city with a large Ford plant. This contrast – a socialist planned city and a baroque fortress city – is part of what makes the partnership particularly exciting. The 2026 exhibition uses this contrast as an occasion to tell German urban history from two perspectives.