Mural "Praise of Communism" by Ronald Paris

Commissioned in 1969, the artist Ronald Paris was given the clean new wall of the conference room of the GDR Statistics Office. Asked for a mural, he depicted the path to a Communist Society. Despite this rather official-sounding title, the SED were not entirely happy and made a list of 24 changes to be made.

Following its vacation by the Federal Office for the Stasi Documents, the building on the Alexanderplatz now stands empty, awaiting demolition. The only way to save the mural was to remove it - which proved to be no easy task. The weak nature of the mural plastering and the narrow corridors of its home made removing it a very expensive job indeed. Hearing of the proposed demolition, the GDR museum feverishly drew up plans to buy the work of art, paying for its removal and restoration under the leadership of Dorothee Schmidt-Breitung. To quarter it in the Domklause a concave wall had to be constructed especially for the task.

The official opening of the GDR museum extension on 9 October 2010 gave Prof. Ronald Paris the first real opportunity to present his work to a wider public.