Posted on 05/08/2012 7:38:49 PM PDT by SWAMPSNIPER
Photographer Stefan Koppelkamm first photographed East Germany in 1990 after the fall of the Berlin Wall but before the reunification. He revisited the same locations a decade later, and rephotographed them from exactly the same viewpoints to document the drastic social and economic transformations that came about during the time between the photos.
(Excerpt) Read more at petapixel.com ...
I don’t understand people who can’t see the difference.
I was in East Berlin for a few hours or so in 1980. They were still doing reconstruction of bombed sites then, 35 years after the end of WWII. BTW, today is the 67th Anniversary of V-E Day.
Yes, indeed, freedom makes an amazing difference.
/johnny
The “before” pictures look like Detroit. I don’t think there will be any “after” pictures for Detroit.
Beautiful. Thanks for posting that.
I had heard this in the 1980s - the East German government didn’t bother cleaning up the war mess. This is great to see - shove it in the FACE of leftists. They had 45 years to clean it up and didn’t bother.
As an Army brat, I had an occasion to take a tour into East Berlin (they were allowed then, for some reason ... no pictures allowed) in either 1960 or 1961 (I was 15 at the time) and found the place very depressing and desolate.
That is what the photos made me think of as well.
It’s great, but it’s not completely clear. Text says 1 decade apart, title says plural decades apart
My friend's brother still lived over in the East. When he visited he found the family had a ration ticket of 1 gallon of paint per year. They were saving them up hoping that paint would be once again on the market. I believe they lived in the town where modern paint was invented.
The only excuse for the GDR is that the Russians assigned tasks to them to do (industrially) and they did them, and the people who lived there simply didn't count.
You probably don't know it but even the most modern office buildings for party officials in Russia itself had wooden door lintels and doors. They look pretty enough, some were carved ~ but finding a metal lintel or door was difficult because ALL metal production went first to the Military.
And that meant ALL. One of the reasons older pictures of metal incorporated in Russian, and East-Bloc architecture looks like it's been rehabilitated from somewhere else.
East Germany looked about the same as it did in 1945.
Europeans have had a lot of war over the centuries and are well versed in how you deal with it. For the GDR it was just a case of waiting until the foreign occupiers left.
The Ernst Thaelman Factory in Suhl did some good work
communism produces sloth and corruption....as the society crumbles so does the infrastructure.
capitalism (even just a little bit of it) offers freedom and choice and inspires innovation and industriousness
The Trabaunt. Just like Obama’s Chevy Volt.
It is interesting to note that the Germans have tried to preserve and restore their historic buildings.
I tried celebrating by pulling one of these moves and promptly got the cops called on me. < |:(~
Even Worse!
All the people you see in that photograph are dead now.
From a socialist paradise to a decadent capitalist nightmare in just two decades. /S
Well, good.
'Cuz I wasn't about to kiss no really old people nohow.
“Freedom makes an amazing difference.”
Oh Yeah! Thanks for the post SWAMPSNIPER.
I lived in Warsaw for two years (1981-83)and then moved to West Berlin for four years and traveled to East Berlin often. Big difference.
The Russkies were not kind to the Satellite country’s.
Oh, that’s a thought.
That pride of ownership makes a difference. Who is going to waste the effort to maintain community property when they have no stake in the investment?
Compare and contrast with Detroit over the same time period.
Yeah, the rape went on for years after the war, it just took different forms as time went on..
Thanks for posting.
If you have not seen this movie, you must rent it. It's in the list of my five favorite movies of all-time.
it’s the same with all of the former Eastern Bloc including Russia — a centralized economy cannot manage the complexity of an industrialized world. The communists had massive shortages of everything including paint.
When you consider how Warsaw was in 1945, it’s amazing they were able to rebuild it at all. Today, it looks very modern, except for that monstrosity known as the “Palace of Culture and Science.”
Correct. The Soviets occupied them and made them pay the costs of the occupation.
you should see the pictures of Warsaw after the war (the Nazis first destroyed 30% of it in 1939 and then levelled the rest in 1944. The entire city was pure rubble, except the former Jewish ghetto which the Nazis burned to the ground (literally)
I liked that movie but THIS ONE, Is AWESOME. Cagney at his best. Funny as hell called one, two , Three.... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055256/
it’s horrifying when you think that they have progressed and we are regressing...
One, Two, Three was just marvy! ;)
One of the greatest comedic performances ever.
“You’re back in the SS.....small salary!”
So many great lines in that movie.
Another fun Cold War era movie based in Berlin, was called “Gotcha!”. Linda Fiorentino was so hot in that movie.
It certainly shows what happens when human beings are given the freedom of choice, from what they’d like to think and say down to what food the’d like to eat or not. You can never truly know what freedom means until it is taken away from you.
I can’t believe people who thought the other one was better.
They had the old plans, but according to the Poles I knew, they could never match the workmanship of the old city. It is still a beautiful place now. Krakow is even better because it did not suffer the damage that Warsaw did.
The last time I was back there was 1999. The differences were striking compared to the days of Martial Law when I was living there. Everthing has changed for the better after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Re the “Palace of Culture and Science.”--the ugly Soviet/Stalinist architecture, layer cake like buildings that were all over Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union:
There was the joke, "What is the best place to get the best view of Warsaw? Answer: "On top of the Palace of Culture and Science because you could not see the Palace of Culture and Science."
Yes, think of the black bloc commies who prefer “column A” for some idiotic reason.
As the Devo song said, however, some people don't want Freedom of Choice, they want "Freedom From Choice."
Is that a Makarov?
I couldn’t hit the side of a barn with the one I have.
“Are we not men’’?
One of my wife’s cousins grew up in the East - when he graduated from school the kids had only two choices for ‘professions’ that year: Hairdresser or Baker. He refused because he wanted to be a dentist and spent three years in jail at STASI HQ, until he was traded for someone the West had caught. Today, he’s doing well - as a dentist.
THAT is what occurs to you to say when you see that photo?
Get help.
My mom isn’t in that photo - but she does tell the story of being with a few girlfriends on VJ day (Dad was in the Pacific), and being a bit scared out on the streets of Alameda(?), California. It was too rowdy for their Midwestern roots - so they celebrated in their shared apartment. She’ll be 94 this summer - with a memory better than mine!
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