Celebration with Sunday shopping Lister Meile is 50 years old
Hanover. The band played a snappy piece. Conductor Ernst Müller had composed the “Lister Mile March” especially for the big event. More than 1,000 people applauded when Lord Mayor Herbert Schmalstieg pulled the covering cloth off the street sign on that Thursday, November 16, 1972. On the following weekend, Hanover celebrated its new Lister Mile with a lavish district festival.
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The popular promenade was created 50 years ago in the course of a major upheaval. In a way, it was a by-product of the subway construction: “As a child, I jumped onto the back of the trams that drove past our front door,” says bookseller Dirk Eberitzsch (“Leuenhagen & Paris”). “Later I was allowed to walk through the tunnels of the subway construction site,” recalled the 58-year-old, “of course it was exciting for us children.”
District with a new face: The Lister Mile in the spring of 1973 – view from the Sedanstrasse underground station in the direction of the main train station.
© Source: Historical Museum Hanover
Noise and dirt in subway construction
The adults often only share this euphoria to a limited extent. “The subway construction was not a fun time,” says his father, senior bookseller Klaus Eberitzsch. The 84-year-old looks at the Lister Mile in front of the family business. At that time, rams and drills drove huge tunnels into the ground.
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Noise and dirt accompanies the work. Customers hardly came into the shops, delivery traffic suffered, the houses lost in value, sometimes dramatically. “The site fence is practically right in front of our shop,” says Klaus Eberitzsch, “the shaft goes down two meters in front of the door.”
The Lister Mile around 1973: On the left, an advertisement for Aloys Bunge men’s clothing.
© Source: Historical Museum Hanover
The underground line A from Raschplatz via Sedanstrasse to Lister Platz was to be around 1,400 meters long. “Technically, it was highly demanding to build tunnels in such narrow streets,” says Klaus Scheelhaase. “It was so narrow at Lister Platz that we didn’t have to lay the two tracks next to each other, but on top of each other.” The agile 90-year-old was brought to Hanover as a young civil engineer in 1967 by city building officer Rudolf Hillebrecht – for the largest and most expensive building project that the city had ever seen.
Turning point in underground railway construction: the Alte Celler Heerstraße during construction work.
© Source: hist. MuseumHannover
In fact, there was required during the construction of the A line. The ground conditions prove to be difficult; In 1970, cracks as thick as a finger opened up on houses, and some facades slipped off. In the early Celler Straße, buildings are stabilized with steel corset supports. Tenants of apartments and shops were temporarily evicted, and the business of Stuhl-Rogge on Weissekreuzplatz literally hung in the air.
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Noise, dirt and restrictions: On the corner of Alte Celler Heerstraße and Drostestraße, a house facade had to be supported during the subway construction.
© Source: hist. MuseumHannover
Citizen Participation Project
The urban planning vision envisaged upgrading the area “behind the train station” bordered by the city; the construction of the passerelle was intended to connect the separate worlds with each other – and a pedestrian zone was planned in the area of today’s Lister Meile. Many viewed these newfangled promenades with skepticism, as did the planned street cafés (“You don’t sit on the street in Hanover!”). And anyway, the whole subway was a red rag for many.
Supported house facades: The old Celler Heerstraße, later Lister Meile, during the construction of the subway.
© Source: hist. MuseumHannover
“But there were also business people who recognized that they would benefit from it in the long term,” says Scheelhaase. At the time, he opted for a new form of citizen proximity: he personally visited the owners on a regular basis. His subway construction team organized street inspections and site visits, circulars were sent out and the greatest possible transparency was ensured at residents’ meetings.
Major construction site: Construction equipment marked “Lister Meile”.
© Source: Gerhard Stoletzki
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“We didn’t want to act from above, but rather involve the local people,” says the 90-year-old. To this day, Scheelhaase is proud that there was not a single large demonstration against the subway construction and no lengthy lawsuits.
“We wanted to involve the local people”: Klaus Scheelhaase, head of subway construction.
© Source: Simon Benne
“I don’t know if something like this would still be possible today,” says Klaus Eberitzsch. At that time, the bookseller founded an initiative that later gave rise to the “Aktion Lister Meile” association, which is still active today. Eberitzsch often spoke to the subway office – and one day Scheelhaase came up with an idea: the newly designed street consisting of the previous Celler Heerstraße and the old Celler Heerstraße should also have a new, concise name.
A street festival to mark the opening: On November 18, 1972, people celebrated “their” new Lister Mile.
© Source: hist. MuseumHannover
Name Search Competition
“We need a name for the new center between Raschplatz and Lister Platz that people could identify with,” says Scheelhaase. The association organized for a nationwide competition. At the beginning of February 1971, members of a jury made up of council, administration and residents bent over a mountain of 600 entries in the basement of the old town hall. A proposal had even been received from Leninstrasse in Pritzwalk in the GDR.
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A big celebration: On November 18, 1972, people celebrated on the Lister Meile, which had been given this name shortly before.
© Source: hist. MuseumHannover
Some of the letters included extremely original alternatives. The Lister Meile could just as easily have been called Tele-Viertel because of the television tower. Or Fernode. Oderstadt 70. Rapid axis. citizen pasture. Frisian town. gold pit. antiquity. neutral center. danger zone. In front of the tail. Or Ra-Wei-Li-Ein-Bum, pieced together from abbreviations of place and street names. In the end, however, Lister Meile was awarded the contract – according to tradition, a city planner is said to have hand-modified the “Green Meile” proposal that was sent in at short notice.
“We wouldn’t have made it without the new name”: Bookseller Klaus Eberitzsch.
© Source: Simon Benne
Of course, the unveiling of the street sign the following year was not enough. “It was difficult at first,” says Eberitzsch. “The trees were still small, there weren’t any cafés yet, and a lot of the shops only came up gradually.” It took a long time for the Lister Meile to become what it is – especially since the construction of the subway still dragged on for years.
Obstetricians from the “Lister Meile”: Klaus Scheelhaase (left) and Klaus Eberitzsch.
© Source: Simon Benne
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Elaborate advertising campaigns, Sunday shopping and the legendary Lister Mile festivals, to which tens of thousands of people came between 1972 and 1977 – the tradition was then revived in the 1990s – helped to establish the Mile in Hanover’s consciousness. With its many owner-managed shops, this found its balance beyond fancy shops or cheap homes. “The new name was the pivotal point,” says Klaus Eberitzsch. “We couldn’t have done it without him.”