Cottbus

Some of it was like this or still had that grey 1960-1970's communist style architecture that looked as if it hadn't been kept up for years. Towards the outskirts though things were changing. There was a Walmart and things looked much better out that way. But in the downtown area where I stayed there was a fence around the hotel and parking lot and the hotel's receptionist recommended that I not venture out after dark. All in all, not a very nice place.

While these pictures may not be an accurate representation of Cottbus, it is very typical of what you find in most of the industrial districts of East Germany cities (and even scattered throughout the countryside). Everywhere you go you find sagging and dilapidated factories that look like they came straight from the 1890's (although most would have been rebuilt following the war). Their windows are broken, their dark red brick are stained with soot and covered with graffiti, and their doors hang open. It looks like it is too late to save most of these buildings because the weather has already done so much damage. Even if they could be renovated, there are no funds to do so and no tenant in sight to start manufacturing products and employing the local population again. It seems think most will simply fall in, a casualty of the cold war.

After reunification, many of the East Germany factories were closed down because they were outdated and inefficient. Under communism in the 1970-1980's East Germany did not have the funds to invest in upgrading and modernizing their factories as is done in the west on a continual basis so they could not compete with industry in the west when the wall fell. Because of socialism, which guaranteed a job for most everyone, the factories employed more workers than were needed. East German workers were also perceived by West Germany as being lazy and not having a strong work ethic (which is strange coming from a country with a work week less than forty hours, a month or more of paid vacation and numerous public holidays). There also seems to have been a good bit of anti-eastern bias in closing so many factories in the east. Perhaps the West Germans didn't want to have to compete against their former adversary so they closed down their factories and created a welfare state. All this resulted in high unemployment rates (50% in the early 1990's) and a surreal post-industrial landscape of abandoned buildings. Even today the unemployment rate in some of the former East German states is 20%.

Abandoned factory in Cottbus

Abandoned factory in Cottbus

See bottom of page for Cottbus links

Further Information:

• Links
  • Cottbus Homepage
  • Cottbus Information