The Concrete Playground: Met the last lost Elephant

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Remnants of a socialist-era local recreation area have survived within a landscape in the Mansfeld region that was artificially created 170 years ago. The former "Pioneer Railway" is running again, the open-air stage is falling apart, and a concrete zoo stands its ground. The "Elephant", made from concrete

In its heyday, the elephant was as popular as it was notorious. Children loved the reinforced-concrete animal, whose trunk served as a slide. Parents, however, dreaded the aftermath of prolonged sliding sessions: the rough concrete abraded shoe soles, scraped children's knees, and frequently caused painfully grazed elbows.

A Pony

Things didn't improve after German reunification, when safety inspectors swept across the country and took the only species of elephant native to East Germany out of service en masse.

The rotten stage

Only a few examples of the "trunk slide"—conceived 60 years ago by Dresden sculptor Johannes Peschel—survived (such as in Neubrandenburg or Eisenach, where the reinforced-concrete Dumbo was granted provisional heritage status following public protests against a planned demolition).

A handmade bear

In the former industrial Mansfeld region, however, the area's last sliding trunk has simply retreated into the invisibility of the dense undergrowth of general oblivion.

Inside the backstage area

The old Mansfeld recreation area

The Vatterode concrete elephant—a delicate, modernist creation by Halle-based sculptor Otto Leibe, who left behind numerous animal sculptures in stone and metal—stands here between a weathered picnic spot and a large-scale open-air stage.

The place is lost since 30 years

Crumbling, rusting, and long since stripped of its windows, the stage bears witness to an era when the heart of Mansfeld’s open-air culture beat right here beside the pond every summer.

The former Bar upstairs

On the path to the ruin—topped by a roof of hyperbolic paraboloid shells developed by Halle engineer Herbert Müller—one encounters Leibe’s entire menagerie. A pony, crocodile, bear, and turtle stand alongside the elephant; back in the GDR era, there were more than a dozen of these in the area. However, these playground structures—mostly installed in the late 1960s—gradually disappeared everywhere following the arrival of safety-certified competitors from the West.

The former bar area in the open-air stage

Only in the Mansfeld region has a final specimen of the "trunk-slide" elephant species survived. It stands on the banks of the Vatterode pond like a monument to the days when this body of water—created 150 years ago to supply a mill—was the hub of a local recreation area for the workers and staff of the state-owned Mansfeld Combine.

 "We absolutely want to save the animals; they belong to us." Marlitt Wiele, Mayor of Vatterode

The VEB Walzwerk Hettstedt (Hettstedt Rolling Mill) invested a significant sum in East German marks to establish and expand this small holiday paradise by the man-made mini-lake—a site designated as a "local recreation area for miners and smelter workers."

Initially just a meadow for a few tents, the large industrial combine developed the site into a "gem of recreation" for employees and their families. Cabins were built, a terrace café and the "Mansfeld-Caravelle" boat-restaurant were added, and vacationing miners could take boats and pedalos out onto the lake.

An open-air stage was inaugurated as early as 1965; over the following years, its regular performers included the choir of the Stasi guard regiment "Feliks Dzerzhinsky" as well as rock and folk bands.

Two years later, a "Pioneer Railway" was constructed, followed in the late 1970s by a miner-themed children's village featuring a slide shaped like a mine headframe—though nothing of that structure remains today.

This stands in contrast to the narrow-gauge railway, which had originally been assembled from genuine underground personnel transport cars. Although it was shut down in 2008, it resumed operations in 2016 and has been running ever since—at least on specific operating days.

Mayor Marlitt Wiele is proud of the site, yet she worries about the fate of the last "Mansfeld Elephant." Ideally, she would like to bring the Leibe zoo figures into the village and set them up near the kindergarten.

"We already have sponsors, and many people would surely donate to make the project happen." Wiele herself slid down the "Elephant" as a child; today she says, "We want to save the animals—after all, they belong to us." The local politician has now successfully won over the state heritage preservation authorities with this cause.

The State Heritage Office notes that few examples of this typical GDR street furniture remain, making the Vatterode ensemble interesting for that reason alone. It is now official: the last Mansfeld "Elephant" has been formally added to the state's list of heritage monuments.

›› The park railway by the pond: www.parkeisenbahn-vatterode.de

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