Relicts of Socialism - The Party's Cadre Factory

In the German Democratic Rebublic - Eastern Germany - the ruling party was the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands, Socialist Unity Party of Germany).
The political system united the principles of a people's republic with the self-conception of a socialist state.
Since the form of government was in this case characterized by one dominating party, it was in fact a party's dictatorship.
The primary political goal of the party - establishing and maintaining a dictatorship of the proletariat - could only be accomplished by controlling and influencing every aspect of society.
One way to realize the indoctrination of the people, was founding party schools in a strong hierarchichal manner. On the lowest level are the community schools, above that are the regional schools and on top either the party's university or the russian communist party's school in Moscow.

This is a regional school of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.
It was founded in 1979.
The complex consists of the boarding school building with 6 floors and 174 two-bed rooms, a canteen with two floors and more than 200 seats and a café with about 120 seats and a four-floor lecturing building with a 500-seat auditorium.
After the German reunification, the building was sold to the city and used as a school building for the school for public administration until the year 2000 when it was finally abandoned.
In January of 2013, a large part of the school became a victim of a large fire. There is almost nothing left of the lecturing building.

Post-War Separation - The Abandoned Airfield (Part 3)

During World War II, a lot of different fighter suqadrons as well as administrative offices and training units were stationed here.
In April of 1945, the last units left the airfield before it was taken by U.S. forces on May 1, 1945.
On July 1, 1945, the Americans gave control over the airport to the Red Army.
Soviet soldiers moved into the barracks of the airfield.
The area was seperated into a military and an industrial part, the landing strip became farming ground and the technical facilites were used for industrial production and storage.
After the cold war had ended in 1991, the last Soviet units (an anti-aircraft missile regiment) left the remaining military part of the airfield in 1993. Since then, most of the buildings have been demolished. What's left is exposed to the elements and gradually reclaimed by nature.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Home of the Stuka - The Abandoned Airfield (Part 2)

As I've said in the first post about the abandoned airfield, Fokker moved his production facilities to the Netherlands in 1919, and the airfield became quiet.
It was kept as an auxiliary airfield during the 1920s and then expanded to a larger airport in 1932.
In 1934, the still secret "Fighter Group S." was founded here which in April 1935 was renamed to "Sturzkampfgeschwader S." (Dive Bomber Squadron S.). Also in 1935, next to the airport, the facilities of the "Luftzeugamt S." (Aircraft Administration S.) were built, an agency that received aircraft from the factories for the installation of military equipment.
From here, the aircraft were delivered to operational units, schools or support units.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Fokker's Remains - The Abandoned Airfield

That really was quite a tour yesterday.
We visited six locations, managed to enter five of those and found four of them "good enough" to stay a while and take some pictures.
Overall a trip of about 13 hours.
The first location were the remains of an abandoned airfield in eastern Germany.
The airfield was founded on this site in 1912.
At the time, Fokker had his construction facilities in Berlin, but moved them here in 1913. On this site, about 2.000 Fokker airplanes were built before and during World War I. Among these was the famous Fokker Dr.I - the triplane which Manfred von Richthofen was flying during 19 of his 80 aerial victories.

After World War I, Fokker moved his facilities to the Netherlands and things became quiet around the airfield...

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Ghost Hotel Revisited

For a workshop, I had to travel to the eastern part of Germany, and since I already was in the area and the weather was great, a colleague and I decided to make a quick stop at the abandoned hotel.
I have to say, the last time I was there, the atmosphere was much more eerie. The weather was bleak a year ago, I think it was even raining a little bit.

The spa hotel was built in 1910, but the beginning of World War I led to a decline in tourism. The hotel was sold to a new owner and after a time of success in the 1920s, the hotel went bankrupt during the recession in 1931.
It was confiscated by the German Air Force in 1944 and used as a military hospital.
Since 1956, the hotel was used as a club house for the local sports club and was the sold again in 1984. Since 1990, the hotel has been abandoned.

The sunshine today made for some nice inside pictures, although I wouldn't recommend going in there to anyone. There are huge holes in the wooden floors and there are hardly any safe spots left to step on.

Anyway, it was nice to go back there, but I think it was my final visit in this location, as there is really nothing left to see anymore.