East Germany, Before and After
Just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, photographer Stefan Koppelkamm traveled in East Germany, photographing buildings that had survived both the Second World War and the Communist craze for bulldozing historic structures. Ten years later, he photographed them again. Now Der Speigel has published a sampling of Koppelkamm's work online.
As I've mentioned on Ricochet before, I keep searching for ways of enabling the rising generation to understand--to see--what Communism was like. As the example I reproduce here makes clear, Koppelkamm's work helps. It helps a lot.
I wonder.
Here on Ricochet, are there any Germans--or, for that matter, Hungarians, Poles, Czechs, Romanians, Bulgarians or citizens of the Baltic states--who have before and after stories they would be willing to share?
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Apr '11
Re: East Germany, Before and After
My mother grew up in Beirut during it's "Paris on the Mediterranean" days and these pictures remind me a lot of the before/after/afterer pictures of the city's beauty, destruction, and rebirth. It always heartens me to see cities rebuilt............
Aug '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
tabula rasa
Misthiocracy
tabula rasa
Misthiocracy
The top photo is also 75 per cent more carbon-friendly!
The DDR was truly enlightened. · 26 minutes ago
I assume that's because they had nothing to burn to keep warm and the remainder of the nation's carbon was safely encased in layers of grime. Eco-utopia.
More basic than that. The top photo has 1 automobile. The bottom photo has 4. · 1 minute ago
But, from what I hear, the exhaust from four East German cars could destroy an entire eco-system. · 0 minutes ago
Oh come on, now really! When did four East German cars ever operate at the same time?
Jun '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
Misthiocracy
tabula rasa
Misthiocracy
tabula rasa
Misthiocracy
The top photo is also 75 per cent more carbon-friendly!
The DDR was truly enlightened. · 26 minutes ago
I assume that's because they had nothing to burn to keep warm and the remainder of the nation's carbon was safely encased in layers of grime. Eco-utopia.
More basic than that. The top photo has 1 automobile. The bottom photo has 4. · 1 minute ago
But, from what I hear, the exhaust from four East German cars could destroy an entire eco-system. · 0 minutes ago
Oh come on, now really! When did four East German cars ever operate at the same time? · 8 minutes ago
Uncle! You win. I cannot refute the irrefutable. In fact, the car in picture one looks like it hasn't moved in a decade.
Edited on May 7, 2012 at 11:13pmMay '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
It's a good thought, James, but an incomplete one. Let me finish that for you...
Aug '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
My memories from Berlin in 1992:-bullet-holes in buildings, East and West;-extraordinary contrast between the impoverished East and the rich West;-great arrogance of many West Berliners;-no jay-walking, even when there wasn't a car in sight;-Trabis-searched the city for nightlife, ended up in an Irish bar full of Berliners.
Edited on May 8, 2012 at 12:34amNov '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
tabula rasa
I'm always off-narrative. Yes, the first picture is a beautiful symbol of authenticity and gritty realism. · 2 hours ago
Actually, if you follow Peter's link, that's exactly what the photographer thought:
'But after the first stop he would have preferred to cancel the tour altogether. The buildings had been renovated. "In quite a normal, almost trivial style," said the designer. "The thrill of the first trip was gone." '
Aug '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
So cynical. We should hope that the museums, the better restaurants and some hotels stay open .
Aug '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
EJHill
It's a good thought, James, but an incomplete one. Let me finish that for you... · 2 hours ago
Wow. EJ that is Steynian spookiness.
Love,Melanie Phillips
Aug '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
From '92 to '02, I (an American from San Diego) had the opportunity to visit Tallinn, Estonia and St. Petersburg, Russia frequently - my company had purchased a software development company there, which I worked with (and eventually managed). This gave me the opportunity to travel all over the area, but most especially Estonia. I got to watch the country transform itself from a Soviet satellite into a thriving European country.
One of the most vivid memories I have of that transformation is the elimination of "Stalin architecture" - basically concrete and rusty iron - and the evolution of a vibrant, brightly colored, Estonian humanscape. In my very first visits, the vistas were overwhelmingly depressing - a world devoid of any attractive color, of anything built with beauty even a consideration. Even the very old, once-beautiful buildings had been made ugly by utilitarian modifications that completely ignored any sense of aethetics. I remember seeing purple plastic domes of pay phones (one of the earliest entrepreneurial ventures in Tallinn) and thinking to myself "I don't even like purple, but these are the closest thing to beauty here..."
A few years later, the transformation was well underway, much like the photos above [gack - limit!]...
Aug '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
Lucy Pevensie
'But after the first stop he would have preferred to cancel the tour altogether. The buildings had been renovated. "In quite a normal, almost trivial style," said the designer. "The thrill of the first trip was gone." '
I've never seen "normal" used as a term of contempt before.
Jun '11
Re: East Germany, Before and After
Got to cross into the East.on what turned out to be the last Mauer Tag. Once we got a few blocks from Alexanderplatz the pretense of affluence collapsed...every building looked like the first pic Peter posted.
May '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
We traveled in Slovakia and Hungary last year. In Slovakia, a guide told us, "If you go into restaurants or bars here, you may notice that the waiters don't smile. Some people think they dislike Americans. They don't. After 70 years of communism, we lost the ability to smile. Only just now, some of us are beginning to regain that ability." It was the most tragic thing to imagine a doctrine that is so thoroughly dehumanizing.
Perhaps, if people have been so thoroughly emotionally gutted that they can no longer smile, then why would anyone care about color? Why would anyone bother to clean the walls of a building? It's the night of the living dead....all day, every day.
May '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
A year ago I found myself talking to an elderly man who had escaped from communist Hungary (or was it Romania?) thanks to a relative who had connections in the underground pentecostal movement.
Of course, I asked him what surprised him the most about living in the U.S. The man, who made his living on both sides of the Iron Curtain as a machinist, had an immediate answer. He was amazed that work in the U.S. did not involve oversight by an army of managers, inspectors, and bureaucrats. He asked his new boss how they would make sure that his work was correct, and the boss cheerfully told him that, if he screwed up too many times, they would just fire him.
Simple, straightforward accountability: a thing of beauty.
Aug '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
The Occupy crowd favors less income inequality. Well, East Germany had less income inequality under the communist system than West Germany did under capitalism. And look what it got the East Germans: The whole country was poor. Communism is an amazing system, taking a people inclined toward hard work, education, thriftiness, and technological innovation, and turning them into impoverished wretches.
May '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
Misthiocracy
Detroit 2012.
Edit: Upon further reflection, I take it back.
Unlike Detroit, the buildings are at least still standing in the above photos. · 7 hours ago
Edited 6 hours ago
It's too heartbreaking to look at those Detroit photos.
Apr '11
Re: East Germany, Before and After
Mendel: One of the starkest visual contrasts for those who lived in East Germany iscolor. For some strange reason, the East German government would only allow a very limited number of very faded colors to be used in everyday life.
So houses were unanimously painted a dingy tan, cars were black or a weird ecru, even tablecloths and lineolium were restricted to a few tones such as "DDR green."
Edited 8 hours ago
Interesting. When watching the Special Features for " The Lives of Others" the director who was himself an East German mentioned, that they specifically excluded all red from the color pallet of the movie to try to capture the right ambiance to East Germany.
What I remember of Romanian is that it was incredibly drab throughout Bucharest. Most buildings where a dirty concrete color, and everything seemed stained...but then again much of it still is, but there are more brightly colored and clean buildings now.
What I remember most though about the change from communism is that all of a sudden street vendors started appearing selling ice cream, and we got a color television, and toys. To be fair I was six.
Edited on May 8, 2012 at 6:29amApr '11
Re: East Germany, Before and After
Actually speaking of color I just remembered. In Kindergarten we had play doh (well modeling clay) but what I distinctly remember about it is that it was all one uniform drab gray color. I don't know if it started out that way or if we kids had just mixed all of the colored clay together into one sad lump, but some how thinking back on it it seems to fit.
Oh! Actually I remember another big change, with the fall of communism. Gum! we started getting chewing gum. That's when I first tasted that delicious Juice Fruit taste. I also remember each piece of gum was wrapped with a wrapper that when unfolded had a picture of either a sports car or military vehicle. Every kid was collecting them by the time I left. I am quite certain that started then.
Edited on May 8, 2012 at 4:18pmMay '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
My contribution, from my native, gone Czechoslovakia: before 1989 - the largest, after CCCP (or USSR for you latin-anglophiles) LARGEST producer of main battle tanks like the T-72 and other heavy-duty military equipment: 150 mm field- and AA-guns (radar-slaved, took down many USAF/NAVY-jets over Vietnam) and BMP-s (Russian:Боевая Машина Пехоты)...Fast-forward some 20 years to 2011: Slovakia no. 1. world-wide!, Czechia no.2. (can't stand that stuffy "Czech Republic").In what, you ask? Well CARS, passenger vehicle production per capita! No.3 in the world is South Korea, distant 5th is... Germany, US dismal 11th (Detroit, sweet dreams...), just before Mexico!SlovaKIA (yes, KIA w.7-year guarantee for its CEED, is no.1, and VW with brand-new Up! no.2)and Czechia - ŠKODA (now VW-owned) together produce nearly 2 mill. cars a year! From ca 1,000 MBTanks to 2 mill. people carriers in 20 years - what more illustrates the power of capitalism?
Feb '12
Re: East Germany, Before and After
A well-known Russian rhyme says "Laughter without reason is a sign of a dummy". People in the Soviet Union were always suspicious of those who looked too happy. Another joke was "Those who are unhappy get attention from KGB; those who are happy - from [economic police]"
Aug '10
Re: East Germany, Before and After
Oldo-the-1968-Czech:
... or USSR for you latin-anglophiles ...
Is that like being a white hispanic? ;-)