West Berlin’s Soviet Heritage – The Tiergarten Soviet War Memorial

The preliminary final of my photo series “East Germany’s Soviet Heritage” is dedicated to a paradox, that is the first of Berlin’s big Soviet commemorative sites as well as the only Soviet War Memorial on the territory of West Berlin. The monument was guarded by Red Army soldiers around the clock and is located within sight of Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag.… Read More

East Germany’s Soviet Heritage – Löwen-Adler barracks and the Elstal Olympic Village

When hearing of the Olympic Village for the 1936 Berlin Games, then people quickly think about Hitler, the Nazis as well as their making a cult out of Hindenburg, the former WW I hero and later President of the Reich. However also the Soviet Army lodged itself in strategically well located Elstal and its Löwen-Adler Kaserne military barracks, leaving a very interesting melange behind as in the Olympic Village not only a terrific abandoned swimming pool can be seen, but also a mix of clearly recognizable Nazi elements neighbouring with typical Soviet iconography… Read More

Gasometer – Berlin-Schöneberg’s steel skeleton

Hip and cool Berlin can be pretty shallow as with having a highest elevation of only ~100 metres it’s generally got a very flat topography. And since German megalomania once also regulated the maximum height for residential buildings, it is very easy to overlook whole Berlin when standing on elevated places.… Read More

Moscow Metro – Queen of Undergrounds

I can still feel the New Year’s party on Red Square in my bones; the very square that was said to be entirely closed if one would believe the words of western media. Well, I had quite a great midnight, enjoyed the fireworks and ice-skating together with Russians, Georgians and Armenians before going underground to captue the whole Moscow Metro.… Read More

Cuba Calling, a Pay Phone Photo Story

Nowadays Cuba has plenty of things in common with post-communist Berlin, the Berlin shortly after the wall fell down. It won’t take much time until the appearance of Havana or Trinidad will change thoroughly as big money flocks onto the island in the Caribbean implicating massive changes. One of the mirrors reflecting such a change are the countless pay phones.… Read More

Kolmanskop Ghost Town – Diamond Fever in the Namib Desert

Against the background of the imperial endeavours of Great Britain and France, Germany’s colonial adventures started late. One of those liaisons, that even today sparks a yern to see distant places, is German South-West Africa, nowadays Namibia, where at the turn of the century diamonds got found. The story of that boom tells Kolmanskop; the once richest settlement of Africa existed only to wring the gem stones from the desert but is now an abandoned ghost town being reconquered by the sand of the Namib… Read More

Lüderitz – Germany at the Edge of Namib Desert

A city in the middle of nowhere, being surrounded by millions of tons of desert sand and directly at the shore of the Atlantic. A city that braving the elements preserves the architectonic heritage of the Wilhelmine era and standing for world-class oysters. All that is Lüderitz, located at the ocean on Namibia’s west coast… Read More

East Germany’s Soviet Heritage – Soviet eyrie Sperenberg

“Heather of the Mark, Sand of the Mark” – that is what Brandenburg State’s anthem is all about and to the south of Berlin, in Sperenberg you can find plenty of it as meanwhile nature took over from once deployed Soviet airmen. Being built by GDR for its big brother and comrade in arms, the Russians used the airfield until 1994.… Read More