DDR

Examples of abandoned or forgotten sites and buildings in or around Berlin that are left over from the time of the DDR (East Germany).

Kraftwerk Vogelsang

Kraftwerk Vogelsang

Kraftwerk Vogelsang is a powerless power plant. People gave their lives building it and fighting over it. Now that they’re gone, nobody wants it at all.

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Wünsdorf

Wünsdorf

Wünsdorf was the Soviet military forces’ HQ in Germany, Little Moscow, the Forbidden City. The Nazis used it before that for their underground army HQ.

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Zambian Embassy

Zambian Embassy

Berlin’s “lion on the loose” has holed up at the abandoned Zambian embassy. She’s seeking asylum from the CDU. AB got an exclusive interview.

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Niederlehme TSL 44

Niederlehme TSL 44

Niederlehme’s Treib- und Schmierstofflager 44, aka TSL 44, was a former oil and fuel storage facility used by Nazi Germany, then East Germany’s armed forces.

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Vogelsang

Vogelsang

Vogelsang still clings to its nuclear secrets. One sneaky deployment of bad weapons was so damned secret it was even kept from the Soviet soldiers involved.

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Rheinsberg nuclear plant

Rheinsberg nuclear plant

Inside the belly of the beast. Refuse from East Germany’s first nuclear plant will continue to cast a threat long after the DDR itself was shut down.

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Iraqi embassy

Iraqi embassy

They must have just left the Iraqi Embassy to the DDR with no notice. “We’re leaving. Pack your bags and get out!” The party at Saddam’s house was over.

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Flugplatz Schönwalde

Flugplatz Schönwalde

Germany’s Luftwaffe used Flugplatz Schönwalde for the war. The Soviets took over afterward and left their traces after abandoning the airfield in 1992.

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Spreepark!

Spreepark!

The rollercoaster story of East Germany’s only full-time fun park, later called Spreepark, abandoned and left to rot with its dinosaurs in 2001.

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Flugplatz Brand

Flugplatz Brand

Flugplatz Brand was strategically important for the Soviet Air Force. Thankfully its battalions of flying fighters remained on ice for the duration of the Cold War.

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Haus der Statistik

Haus der Statistik

Haus der Statistik looms over Berlin’s Alexanderplatz with STOP WARS across its bow in big red letters. The DDR’s former statistics HQ is right to be angry.

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Stasi Hotel

Stasi Hotel

East Germany checked out right before the Stasi could check in. Their hotel was never completed. Now it’s just a great hulking ruin between the trees.

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