16. A small island off the coast of Cuba, Ernst Thälmann Island was renamed (and possibly gifted) to East Germany by Castro as a symbolic show of friendship during the Cold War
Known historically as Cayo Blanco del Sur, Ernst Thälmann Island, measuring 15 kilometers in length and 500 meters wide, is an island in the Gulf of Cazones located off of the southwestern coast of Cuba. During a state visit by Erich Honecker, the General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany – the leader of East Germany – in 1972, the Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, renamed the island in honor of Ernst Thälmann: the leader of the Community Party of Germany during the Weimar Republic, who was imprisoned without trial after the seizure of power by the Nazi Party and shot on Hitler’s orders at Buchenwald concentration camp on August 18, 1944.
One of the beaches on the island was renamed to “Playa República Democrática Alemana” – German Democratic Republic Beach – on the twenty-eighth anniversary of Thälmann’s execution a public ceremony was held unveiling a bust of the German revolutionary. According to those in attendance, during this ceremony ownership of the island was formally transferred to East Germany. However, in the aftermath of German reunification, when reporters attempted to visit the island they were denied entry and Cuban sovereignty was reasserted. Germany has not attempted to press its claim on the island, but it nonetheless retains the name given in their honor.