Spreepark, Germany

Spreepark is an abandoned theme park in Germany, which opened in 1969 and was very popular before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The park originally opened as Kulturpark Plänterwald,  a project of the communist East German government.

After the reunification of Germany, the park was expanded and renamed Spreepark by new owners. It was gradually transformed into a more Western-style amusement park, with visitors paying a one-off entrance fee instead of paying for each individual ride. New attractions and roller coasters were added, and the park entertained 1.5 million visitors a year.

The park was in debt in the late 1990’s; increasing park entry fees and a lack of car parking lead to reducing visitor numbers and signalled the death knell for Spreepark. The park was closed in 2002 after accruing debt of €11 million euros, and the owners left the country. They shipped six of the attractions to Peru and opened a new theme park, which also failed and closed soon after opening.

In 2014 large parts of the park were destroyed when several fires were set across the park.

The most iconic ride remaining at the park is a roller coaster that goes through a large tunnel shaped like a blue roaring cat. The Ferris Wheel, complete with rainbow-spectrum carriages, rotates slowly in the wind almost silently. The Viking long-ship nearby sadly has had the dragon head decapitated in recent years. Most of the dinosaur statues are gone and only one graffiti-covered T-Rex lies on the floor, broken and forlorn behind some comically ineffective fencing. The brightly coloured spinning teacup ride remains in relatively good condition. The swan boats and remaining roller coaster cars are now locked away inside a large storage warehouse.

This theme park was one of the first locations I saw images off online, before I decided to explore these places for myself. Seeing the cat roller coaster in person was wonderful! A word of caution to would be visitors. More secure metal fences have now been installed, and guards with dogs patrol both night and day. There is a fine/penalty charge if you are caught, so it is no longer advisable to sneak into the park.