From Chemnitz to Reichenbach in 1991, photographs of former East Germany
In March 1991, after spending a few days photographing Prague, I set off again towards France, travelling through former East Germany, which had been reunited with West Germany only a few months earlier. I stopped in Chemnitz, then Zwickau and Reichenbach im Vogtland. The photographs made during this journey show a region still deeply marked by the GDR, while the first signs of the new economic system were beginning to appear.
From Prague into former East Germany
After my photographic stay in Prague in March 1991, I got back into the Renault 5 I had hired in Paris and headed towards Germany.
German reunification was still very recent. Travelling through the former GDR, I discovered for the first time towns and cities whose architecture, shops, cars and infrastructure had changed very little since the disappearance of the East German regime.
I was travelling without a specific assignment. I photographed whatever caught my attention along the way, using the Nikon F and 18mm lens that I often used at the time for my personal black-and-white work.
Chemnitz, only a few months after Karl-Marx-Stadt
I spent the night in Chemnitz, a city that only a short time earlier had still been called Karl-Marx-Stadt.
The following morning, I walked through the city with my camera. References to the GDR period were still everywhere.
A tram still served a stop on Karl-Marx-Allee. Driver, passengers, street furniture and architecture form an everyday scene that would probably have looked almost identical only a few months earlier.
Tram on Karl-Marx-Allee, Chemnitz, former East Germany, March 1991 – Photo: © Sebastien Desnoulez
The monumental memorial to Karl Marx remained one of the most visible landmarks in the city centre. I photographed it with a wide-angle lens, in front of the façade bearing the words “Workers of the world, unite!” in several languages.
Karl Marx Monument in Chemnitz, former Karl-Marx-Stadt, March 1991 – Photo: © Sebastien Desnoulez
Official architecture was only part of what interested me. I also photographed ordinary streets, industrial buildings and cars.
Trabants were still everywhere. In one street, one of them was parked with a trailer made from another Trabant, in front of several buildings whose façades showed the effects of maintenance postponed for many years.
Trabant in a street in Chemnitz, former East Germany, March 1991 – Photo: © Sebastien Desnoulez
Elsewhere, an old petrol station, an almost deserted railway station or a façade advertising bicycles and knitting machines offered another view of the city: an industrial and urban environment still largely inherited from the previous decades.
Zwickau and the Trabant factory
I then continued towards Zwickau, a city closely associated with the history of the Trabant.
The car was still part of everyday life in eastern Germany. Trabants could be seen in the streets, outside apartment buildings and in car parks.
I stopped outside the Sachsenring factory, where the Trabant was still being produced in 1991.
The site still carried the brand’s visual identity, and a large sign proclaimed “Gute Fahrt mit Trabant”. Overhead pipes, industrial buildings and cars visible behind the fences provide a very direct view of the factory.
Sachsenring Trabant factory in Zwickau, former East Germany, March 1991 – Photo: © Sebastien Desnoulez
Only a few years earlier, the Trabant had been one of the emblematic cars of the GDR. In March 1991, it was still everywhere, but Western cars were beginning to appear and the industrial system that had produced it was also entering a period of rapid transformation.
Zwickau town centre was not in particularly good shape either. In this urban landscape still strongly marked by the GDR, I noticed a brand-new Commerzbank branch, with its large yellow sign standing out sharply against the surrounding buildings.
At the time, I saw it as one of the most visible signs of the race by West German companies to establish themselves in the new federal states, a form of economic “colonisation” of the former GDR unfolding at great speed after reunification.
Today, I regret not having photographed the branch. With smartphones, we would probably instinctively record this kind of detail. In 1991, every photograph meant taking out the camera, using a frame on a roll of film and thinking about the final result. In the grey, misty light, shooting Fujichrome 100 ISO, the photograph would probably have looked rather dull, so I simply did not press the shutter.
Thirty-five years later, it is precisely the kind of photograph that would have acquired particular documentary value.
A stop in Reichenbach im Vogtland
After Zwickau, I continued westwards.
While driving through Reichenbach im Vogtland, some of the façades struck me enough to make me stop and take the time to photograph them.
I have no memory of having planned this stop. It was probably the streets themselves that made me get out of the car.
Shops could still be identified in badly deteriorated buildings. An old bakery still carried the words “Dresdner Bäckerei”, while the upper floors appeared to be in very poor condition.
Trabant in Reichenbach im Vogtland, March 1991 – Photo: © Sebastien Desnoulez
A little further on, a street sign reads Obere Dunkelgasse. The almost faded sign of a former salon can still be seen on the façade.
The walls are badly deteriorated, but several of the buildings are clearly still in use. Cars are parked outside the houses and residents are moving through the streets.
Obere Dunkelgasse in Reichenbach im Vogtland, former East Germany, March 1991 – Photo: © Sebastien Desnoulez
I also photographed the Restaurant Wartburg, food shops and several Trabants driving or parked in front of these buildings.
These photographs were not intended as an inventory of poverty or urban decay in the former GDR. I simply photographed what I discovered while travelling through the town: inhabited streets whose condition contrasted strongly with the Western European cities I knew at the time.
Photographing a period of transition without knowing it
When I made these photographs, I was above all photographing what I saw.
As in Prague a few days earlier, I was drawn to cars, shops, signs, infrastructure and people within their surroundings.
With hindsight, these details have acquired a different significance.
In Chemnitz, symbols of the GDR still occupied a considerable place in the urban landscape. In Zwickau, the Trabant was still associated with a factory and an entire automotive culture. In Reichenbach, the façades and small shops reveal another, much more everyday reality.
At the same time, the first signs of the Western economy were already appearing. Over the following years, these towns and cities, their shops, their cars and much of their architecture would change rapidly.
Returning to eastern Germany in 1998
I returned to the former East Germany in 1998, in a very different context.
This time, I was there for testing followed by a GT and Formula 3000 race at the Oschersleben circuit. Between days at the track, I again made a few photographs in the streets.
I also have several photographs taken in Magdeburg, where, if my memory is correct, our hotel was located. I particularly remember a broad central avenue combining road traffic, trams, long apartment blocks and shops at ground-floor level.
Those photographs from 1998 may one day make it possible to measure some of the changes that had taken place in only seven years since my first visit in 1991.
About the author
Sebastien Desnoulez is a photographer, author and image maker based in Paris. His work spans architectural photography, landscape photography and travel photography, with particular attention to composition, lines, light, blur and visual accidents. Trained in photography in the mid-1980s, he covered Formula 1 and reported from around the world before developing a fine art photography practice built around the tension between graphic rigour and visual instability. He also shares his technical experience through practical articles for passionate photographers, drawing on a strong visual culture acquired in both film and digital photography.
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