It is bound on the south-west by the river, to the north-west by Karl-Liebknecht-Straße, to the north-east by Spandauer Straße and to the south-east by Rathausstraße obliquely opposite of the Rotes Rathaus.

Before World War II the area now occupied by Marx-Engels-Forum was a densely populated Old Town quarter between the river and Alexanderplatz, named Heilige-Geist-Viertel after Heiligegeiststraße (Holy Ghost Street) which ran across it between Kaiser-Wilhelm-Straße (now Karl-Liebknecht-Straße) and Rathausstraße.

However, this area, including the main post office, was heavily bombed during Allied air attacks in 1944/45 and most of its buildings were reduced to ruins.

Engelhardt said in a letter written within the first six months of the statue’s appearance, “the silence surrounding our work was nearly unbroken.”[2] Soon after, however, the monument to the two leaders became well-liked by the Berlin public.

Its main audience consisted of locals, travelers, artists, and academics, who liked and somewhat pitied the two modest looking figures, at one point even nicknaming them ‘The Pensioners.’[3] After German reunification in 1990, the future of the Marx-Engels Forum became the subject of public controversy.