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Home Towns - Potsdam, Germany Star Borough

This site is part of our Potsdam, Germany site. Click the left turn sign to get back to the Potsdam Start Site. If you came here from our Vacation 2010 sites, click the green traffic light to return.

The borough "Am Stern" (German for "At The Star") was built between 1970 and 1980 and consists of about 7.400 panel-flats, all in buildings made from prefabri-cated slabs. It was Potsdam's largest borough built during the East Germany years. And during those years, the town was pretty proud of this accomplishment, as this post card to the right (thank you, Steffen!) indicates. The area was named after the Great Star, a nearby intersection of 16 hunting trails.

Normally, the "Star" would be a residential area like any other, if it weren't for a certain appartment, in which Volker spent part of his teen-years and the last easy-going years of his childhood - between first divorce and second marriage.

Volker's family moved here in 1976 and has been living here now for more than 30 years. At the peak, nine people, belonging to four generations (Grandmother, Mother, Father, three kids, two in-laws and one grand-daughter) shared the 800 square feet. Currently, Volker's mother and brother hold the fort.

The "Star" is not named after a celestial body, but after a star-shaped intersection of originally 16 trails, but the town has picked up on the star-theme and most of the streets and squares are named after Astronauts and Astronomers. Center is the Kepler Square, named after 15th century German astronomer Johannes Kepler. Volker especially enjoyed the two large murals at the square.

Front of the library - painted at a time when Pluto (far right) was still a planet. ... And of course, a family friendly town also has a lot of playgrounds for children of all ages...

This statue of Baron Münchhausen's famous ride on a cannonball is located in front of a day care, which was the last work place of Volker's dad.

Here are a couple of pictures, borrowed from photographer Bernd Wagner. The picture to the right shows the Digger-Lake, which was created digging up sand for the concrete slabs.

And here are some more of our own pictures...

Using the right window (thanks, Elli and Leo), one can see all the way to downtown Potsdam with St. Nicholas Church (center) and the "Hairpin" (right).

This site is part of our Potsdam, Germany site. Click the left turn sign to get back to the Potsdam Start Site. If you came here from our Vacation 2010 sites, click the green traffic light to return.

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