Neustadt-Glewe is a small town in the northern part of former East Germany. Its located between Berlin and Hamburg just off the A24 autobahn so it is a good stopping off point for travelers going between those two cities. When I think of a small-town German life, this is what comes to mind. A clean, quiet town surrounded by farmland where people take evening walks and children ride bicycles. There is quaint downtown with half timbered houses and a canal with locks. The landscape if flat and cultivated for as far as you can see once you leave the town limits. There is a small airport with grass runways at the end of town that is used mostly by gliders and a few small planes. Dornier aircraft were produced here during the war in a factory adjacent to the airstrips. I couldn't find any trace of the factory. Now there is only a dense grove of pines where the factory used to be. There was also a concentration camp for women by the airport that supplied forced labor to the aircraft plant. Nothing but a memorial sign and a thin strip of concrete are left of the camp where 5000 women lived. While much of the town has been renovated since 1989 and the demise of East Germany, you can still see traces of its communist past in the decrepit buildings and public art around town. Some buildings date back to before the war and simply were not kept up. Others were built during the communist era in that distinctive architectural style and are now falling apart. Check out the picture page to see more pictures of the Neustadt-Glewe including a leather factory with an interesting piece of socialist art in front of it. |  Train Station in Neustadt-Glewe
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