East Germany. Then and now.

[AgX]

But in contrast to most of the West the GDR cling to the railways as major freight and people transport system.
And tracks and stations in the West that already had been demolished could not go decrepit over the decades.

One reason behind sticking to the railways was of course the lack on natural resourses. And their brown coal could be better used in making electricity or even steam for locos than feeding cars and trucks. But there also was a different view on the time factor in transport. As a result the road system was far behind its western counterparts.

 

[AgX]

The advantages of the GDR concerning a worldmarket were their highly skilled people and their low wage costs. But in a market becoming more complicated technicswise and with an accelerating product-replacement they failed on many markets to use that advantages best.

As already indicated above: in these cases the GDR economic system had to serve two complete different markets (home-and world-market).

 

[AgX]

Harald Hauswald, documentarist of 80s East-Berlin

Today it has been announced that his archive of 200,000 is going to be digitalized by state grant.



Hauswald doing colour:



As these two videos show there may be two versions made by him of the very same scene, a colour and a B&W one. Published were the B&W ones...

 

[AgX]

Here is a "ruins"-video:

Leipzig 1990:



You want Leipzig without ruins? West-german documentary from 1987 on Leipzig international trade fair:



Or this east-german documentary from 1974 (first video, starts with the trade fair too):

 

[AgX]

The money not spent on many old inner city housings in the GDR was spent in projects as these.
Such worked well in the 70s. In whole Europe. Today in Europe many of these complexes are failing.

start at 11:50min

 

[Alan Johnson]

This survey appears to suggest that recently things have started to improve economically in East Germany:
https://www.tag-ag.com/fileadmin/content/Wohnungsmarktbericht/TAG_Wohnungsmarktbericht_2016_EN.PDF

 

[ced]

Nice thanks!
Here is something found after looking at the above. A simulated 2 way photographic train trip through the devasted city in '47.