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"Prosperity for All", Obereichsfeld, March 1990: Polling place at the Heiligenstadt city council [14/16]

OBJECT INFORMATION

Info

March 18 1990
Heiligenstadt, city council, today town hall
Created By: Bernd Schmidt

License: Creative Commons License

From the Set

Exhibition theme: The Transformation of the GDR
Election of the People's Chamber on 18 March 1990

Depicts

age, city hall, election, election worker, group of people, polling station, Volkskammer election

Context

hope, inner German border, religion, Volkskammer election, wealth

People/Organizations

Kohl, Helmut Josef Michael

Other items in this set

Memory

"In the run-up to the elections to the Volkskammer on 18 March 1990, and after many years under West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, one of my great hopes was that a new electorate would also bring about political change in the Federal Republic. There were people on both sides who felt this way and it was a unifying factor. But there were many questions. Who would the new voters elect? What did our new fellow citizens think and feel? Were they enthusiastic about their first free elections or apprehensive about the latest developments? Or would they fail to show up at the polling stations? Would things go smoothly for this new Germany or would something go wrong?

The border dividing Germany cut through the historic town of Eichsfeld, splitting it into Obereichsfeld, which belonged to the GDR; and Eichsfeld, which was in Lower Saxony. The predominantly Catholic town of Eichsfeld had always found its identity in its strong faith, and in the years of the division there had been a deep-rooted scepticism towards the communist system on both sides of the border. During the elections to the Volkskammer in 1990, I was able to take photos, even inside the polling station, without having to identify or explain myself."

Bernd Schmidt (Göttingen)