In 1955, based on a decision by the Leipzig city council, the existing parks
Johannapark,
Scheibenholzpark,
König-Albert-Park and
Palmengarten were combined and given the name
Central Culture Park "Clara Zetkin". In addition to the formal amalgamation, the park was further developed in the spirit of the culture park movement of the time by incorporating cultural and sports facilities. It is probably the first large plant in Germany that was designed according to these aspects and thus served as a role model. The
groundbreaking ceremony took place on 8 January 1955, and the park was inaugurated as early as 1 May 1955, which in the sense of the propaganda of the time was praised as "fulfillment of the electoral mandate to the
Volkskammer deputy Paul Fröhlich (1913–1970 / First Secretary of the
Bezirksleitung Leipzig of the
Socialist Unity Party of Germany), which he had received from Leipzig workers". Most of the cultural and sporting facilities were built in the years following the opening. These included an
outdoor theater, a café,
event pavilions, a large children's
playground with a snack pavilion, the building of the Leipzig
Chess Center, the
Dahlia Terrace, an open-air
bowling alley and, at times, a training tower for
GST parachutists. On 3 July 1967, on the occasion of Clara Zetkin's 110th birthday, the
bronze statue of the Clara Zetkin memorial, a work by the sculptor
Walter Arnold (1909-1979), was unveiled at the southern tip of Johannapark, at the former site of the
Otto von Bismarck memorial. In 2010, after receiving a
petition, the city administration of Leipzig mandated a commission to check whether the parts of the park should be renamed to their original names and whether the name Clara-Zetkin-Park should be completely revoked. This led to a wave of protests. In April 2011, the city council decided that the names of the
Central cultural park "Clara Zetkin" and
Volkspark im Scheibenholz should be canceled and that the previous sub-areas of
Palmengarten,
Klingerhain,
Johannapark and
Richard-Wagner-Hain would get their old names back. Since then, the former
König-Albert-Park (later
Albertpark) has been called
Clara-Zetkin-Park together with the previous
Scheibenholzpark, because this name has caught on with the population. By the act of renaming the Clara Zetkin memorial is no longer in
Clara Zetkin Park, but in
Johanna Park. == Usage ==