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Chemie AG Bitterfeld, August 1990: Outside a brewery in Bitterfeld [4/6]

OBJECT INFORMATION

Info

August 7 1990
Bitterfeld
Created By: Bernd Schmidt

License: Creative Commons License

Depicts

Beer, bicycle, building, group of people, ladder, trade (business and industry), workers

Context

Bild (newspaper), deterioration, industry, pollution, scepticism, train, workers

Places

Bitterfeld

Other items in this set

Memory

"Once, when visiting the chemical industrial centre of Bitterfeld, I was keen to see the place for myself; to make my own impression of a place that had such a bad reputation for being so heavily polluted.

Someone working there told me that a reporter from the Bildzeitung newspaper had been two days previously. He had offered the employee DM 200 to film and photograph the interior – 'in there, where it smoulders'. The whole plant was really totally dilapidated.

While I was talking photos of the Chemie AG plant, two engine drivers stopped and climbed up onto the boundary wall. We chatted for a little while. I was much affected by the deep mistrust and strong prejudices these two expressed towards the West. For example, they asked me if it was true that tenants in the West had their tenancy agreements terminated each year. We were so engrossed in our conversation that none of us noticed the engine – and with it, their jobs – slowly roll away."

Bernd Schmidt (Göttingen)

Original Caption

"Brewery employees open a little shop as a factory outlet. 'We're having problems with sales. We can't keep up with Western beer. That's why we're opening a shop and selling it directly. We have enough drinkers here - they've already drunk so much. That's why everything's also all gone to the dogs here.'"