East Germany, before and after...

[billc]

Here is a photo gallery by a photographer who took photos of East Germany just after the wall fell, and then went back this century to see how they had changed. Quite amazing...

http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-59943.html

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Crumbling facades: A courtyard on Markt Strasse in Erfurt, 1991. Photographer Stefan Koppelkamm travelled through East Germany just after the Berlin Wall fell.

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Stefan Koppelkamm​

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He returned to the same places 10 years later. The same courtyard in Erfurt in May 2003. Now with a cafe, the building is hardly recognizable.

Amazing what a little freedom will do for a country.




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[granfire]

well, yeah, having people in charge who don't think it decadent to own houses (the people, not themselves, now) does wonders.

But the real dynamo in the deal is money.

Out in the country you can still find things like this:
http://www.gutshaeuser.de/gutshaeuser_a/altenlinden.html
A handyman's special. Abundantly so.

 

[elder999]

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Stefan Koppelkamm​

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[/CENTER]
Amazing what a little freedom will do for a country.




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That's not "freedom," billi-it's paint. :lol:

 

[granfire]

At lest he linked a reputable magazine....at least it was 20 years ago....

 

[billc]

Well granfire, I found the article through this one from pajamasmedia...

http://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2012/05/02/a-photo-essay-rebuttal-to-may-day/

The streets were mostly empty of cars. Now and then a miserable little Trabant would shudder past, sounding like an unmuffled lawnmower in need of a tuneup, and smelling like burning rubber and oil. The buildings were riddled with bullet holes — not from recent crimes, but from the war, which had ended almost 40 years prior. There were piles of rubble everywhere, just as old. Nobody smiled, not even during the parade. And don’t ask about the clothes they wore. The soldiers looked as snappy as soldiers everywhere do, but the civilians looked like they’d been handed rejects from Goodwill.
We’d been required to exchange 25 perfectly good West German marks for 25 perfectly worthless East German marks, even though the official exchange rate should have gotten us three for one. The unofficial exchange rate was closer to 80-to-1. We had also been told that we would not be permitted to bring any East German marks back out with us. The dollar was trading for about 2.70 Deutschmarks during the trip, so we’d traded about 10 dollars worth of U.S. currency to get about three dollars worth of Commie Dollars — at the official rate. Unofficially, we each had about 12 cents in our pockets.
Nobody figured there would be any problem spending 12 cents over the course of a day.
We were wrong.

Try as we might, we could not spend 25 East German marks — 12 cents! — in a day. Food was cheap, but revolting. They couldn’t even get soft-serve ice cream right. It drooped out of the machine in a shade of pink which was probably meant to look cheerful, but instead made you think of off-brand attic insulation.
And there really wasn’t anything else to buy, other than a few stamped-tin souvenir trinkets. Everybody came back to the checkpoint still carrying tiny, worthless bills, and coins which weren’t much more substantial in your hand than the trinkets. The man at the desk relented and let us bring home his country’s worthless Monopoly money as our only souvenirs of the trip.
Later, Doc Kalmar — our German teacher and tour guide — told us all something very simple and very profound. “That was the wealthiest city in the wealthiest communist country in the world.”

Wow, if only someone had told the East Germans that all they really needed was a little paint, why, they wouldn't have had to tear down the wall...

 

[granfire]

:lfao:

Bless you, Honey!

I know you are trying to help me combat the anxiety of 2012 and the impending doom. After all I am finding myself agreeing with you.

:lol:

 

[billc]

And not to disapoint you granfire...

East Berlin was the height of Communist achievement. That was their shining city on a hill — a place where a bunch of rowdy teenage boys found it impossible to spend a dime each. And every other communist city in the world was even worse off. Typically, much worse.
Now go look through Koppelkamm’s entire photo essay with that in mind. Remember, too, just how quickly capitalism was able to repair decades of communist mismanagement. These photos weren’t taken decades apart. Some of them show the difference less than ten years could make. Just ten years to lift 17 million people out of 40 years of grinding poverty.
One last thing. We’re hurting. We’ve been hurting. But if 17 million Germans could recover from almost half a century of Soviet oppression, think of how quickly we can recover from four years of Democrats.

 

[granfire]

And not to disapoint you granfire...

I might just have to hug you.

However, while 'lifted out of poverty' sounds good, but the East German people were not poor. They are German after all.
They just had nothing to spend their money on. And I am sure they would fall down and laugh hysterically if they knew how the rich Americans camp out in front of a store for days to buy a certain toy going on sale....standing in line was dubbed 'socialistic waiting community' out east.
BTW, before you go into it deeper, I was in a city, about an hour away from the inner German border when it fell. The following week I hosted a couple that came to visit their son who had left the country the hard way via Hungary in 1989.

Aside from 'lifting the people out of poverty' the political leadership of the time managed to nearly bankrupt the nation over the reunification.
A small part was to convert a currency that was hardly worth 1/6th of the Mark to 1:1, 1:2 at best.
Along with that I have been told the Federal Republic (AKA West Germany) also footed the bill for the Transit Rubel the East was owing Russia.

In case you don't know, the Transit Rubel was pay money that only had value in trade transactions with the Soviet Union. Not even the other Warsaw pact members wanted it.
(and Chancellor Kohl was most definitely not socialist


(oh, there is also the environmental backlash of 40 years of not caring....all cost a lot of money)

But it is good to see the old parts of a town revitalized.

But it did take them a decade.

 

[Scott T]

I had the pleasure of being in Germany for almost two weeks last summer. Train from Warsaw to Berlin, two days in Berlin then drove from there to Querbach, my family's ancestral home a few miles from Strasbourg, France (beautiful village. Considering looking at property there despite it being overpriced.). Other than the remains of the wall very little evidence remains of the East/West divide in the city or in the country for that matter. Yeah, there's still some Soviet-era architecture in the east but it's all brightly painted so it doesn't look all gloomy (To see comparitive gloom and doom go to Kiev. Beautiful city, but very dark.)

 

[granfire]

I had the pleasure of being in Germany for almost two weeks last summer. Train from Warsaw to Berlin, two days in Berlin then drove from there to Querbach, my family's ancestral home a few miles from Strasbourg, France (beautiful village. Considering looking at property there despite it being overpriced.). Other than the remains of the wall very little evidence remains of the East/West divide in the city or in the country for that matter. Yeah, there's still some Soviet-era architecture in the east but it's all brightly painted so it doesn't look all gloomy (To see comparitive gloom and doom go to Kiev. Beautiful city, but very dark.)

The wall was gone in no time.
I visited Berlin in April of 1990 and it was - with the exception of the few memorial pieces - not a trace left!
But I guess over night it had turned into the most expensive concrete on the planet, why waste a good thing! :lol:

 

[Steve]

I was stationed in Germany from June 89 to June 91. Went to Berlin twice, once before the wall came down, and once after. The difference was altogether staggering. From driving in the first time and then through Dresden and Leipzig the second to checkpoint Charlie.

I really liked that city... One of three places I ever thought I could live happily forever.


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