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It’s good to see that this video brought back some memories for you. Certainly nothing like this exists any more, nor does communism in its “purist“ form. That’s proof that the concept failed.

Thanks! I was back in East Germany in 1991 and 1992 and took more video of various tramways then. I could easily post them, but if you look at my Stuttgart Trams 1984 video which has been there for months, with less than 400 views if that is the result I will get, it’s not worth my bother of preparing them.

tressteleg Thanks for your reply. I understand uploaders work very hard providing videos for often poor support. However I will for my part subscribe to your channel and I hope over time you may be able to share your unique records. Thanks again for your contribution and dedication to KZfaq.

If you could name a few former DDR cities whose trams have been poorly covered from 1991/2, I’ll see what I have and do one as a test.

@@tressteleg1 Thanks again for your correspondence. I don't know exactly which cities are not covered in this period. Any films covering such as Leipzig, Dresden or East Berlin itself would be interesting-as would those from any part of DDR. Thank you for your pursuit of this topic. I look forward to enjoying your excellent channel. Best wishes and gratitude-Tom.

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meier1211 😊👍

Frank Kopke It is nice That you enjoyed the Movie. And I especially agree with you about street running, something that sets trams apart from trains, generally.

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Vielen Danke! 👍

The tractors in the street were actually in Potsdam, outside Berlin where I never went in 1975.

Thanks for the correction; I saw tractors in many DDR cities in the 1980s; Rostock, Halle, Karl Marx stadt, Zwickau, Erfurt, Berlin to name a few. Quite what they were doing in a town centre always eluded me.

Maybe taking food to the markets, maybe just a trip to the dentist. I doubt if many farmers had a motorcar as well. 😊

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Also in Woltersdorf.

None from the DDR until 1991. But I have some closed West German movie from 1975 including the END and Neunkirchen if there is any interest.

It is an interesting glimpse of life under Communism. It’s a pity so few will bother to watch the video as most fans are too parochial. I have met former residents of that era. One told me that officially the guards around the Berlin Wall were to stop an invasion from the West, but of course it was to keep the ‘Osties’ in. Another told me that they saw themselves as being in the ‘Wolrd’s Largest Prison’. They could leave the DDR for holidays - in other Communist countries. However upon reaching retirement age, they were allowed to migrate to the west if they wanted to, but I gather without any assets. As said in the movie, that visit was December 1975. I tried to go there again in 1989 but the DDR office in Melbourne told me that trams were the same everywhere so I had no need to go the East Germany. So I went to Hungary instead. But I did get in in 1990 and 1991 after the wall was down but by then it looked like any other European country, more or less.

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It was all shot with Kodak Standard 8 movie film. Colour film worked best on sunny days, something a bit rare in Europe in November. Some days were rather bleak. Where necessary I corrected the colour as best I could with iMovie.

@@tressteleg1 Yes it looks very surreal. Blue skies in otherwise grey and bleak environments. Like in a dream. Very nice!

Thanks! If you are interested in the film technology, I think there are more scenes with better colours in ‘Stuttgart Trams 1975 & 81’ or ‘Melbourne Trams 1965 - 1983 Silent Movie Digital Remake’

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Das Wort ist also weitreichend, interessant. ^^

Danke 👍👍

it was a plesure for me to watch your video!

The W class, especially the W2 version, are not the most attractive trams ever built. I still put them ahead of any 4 wheeler but well behind Tatra PCCs.

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The Duwag tram builder in West Germany also started off with three car trams in the early 1950s. These eventually transformed into articulated tram sets. Riga, One of the few Soviet bloc countries that use trolley poles, although sadly not for much longer it seems.

@@tressteleg1 Trolley poles are more complicated solution than pantographs used for trains and trams in other places and they are more prone to accidental separation from power line or breakage. In Riga trolley poles was used because we also have trolleybuses and in old days there was no convenient solution for tram and trolleybus power line crossings without risk to short power line to ground wire in trolleybus power line. Nowadays this issue is solved and all new articulated trams in Riga have only pantographs. New trolleybuses in Riga have also onboard diesel engines for backup power and automated pole retraction system. Was caught by surprise when noticed them driving around in places without overhead wires.

I feel that it is the opposite. For six years I drove trams with trolley poles or pantographs in Melbourne. While it is true that polle come off the wire more easily, they rarely damage anything. The polleis put back on the wire and you continue. When a pantograph goes wrong, it is often disaster. One day I was driving a pantograph tram into the depot. I noticed all the wires in the yard suddenly bounce up and down. I checked my pantograph, and it was standing on its age. Luckily it was the entry to the depot so the repair men came and rescued it. Nevertheless an expensive paragraph head had to be thrown away and replaced. With my model trams, trolley poles follow the wire much more easily if there is any unevenness. See my Gold Coast Model Trams videos.

​@@tressteleg1 I believe that pantographs in trams are often chosen by same criteria why they are used in trains: less chance of accidental disconnection if overhead wiring is placed properly, connecting and disconnecting is easy done from cabin by hydraulic or electric actuators and doesn't require direction change when tram must move backwards. Heads are expensive, but live longer. Trolley poles are convenient for trolleybuses where larger movement freedom is required, two wire overhead connection is much easier to handle with two separately moving poles and cars are not particularly long. I believe that trolley poles for long articulated trams would be quite a nightmare for drivers. Heard stories about broken pantographs. Seems they break much less, but if they do that, then often with collateral damage to wiring due to their design. Particularly I didn't heard about such disasters with new Riga trams involved though such things happened earlier in Liepaja city for older Soviet era trams with weaker pantograph design. However poles may do quite a mayhem. Seen teared down tram and trolleybus wires in Riga several times. Because poles have notably larger movement freedom, in some circumstances they may become very dangerous. In my secondary school days witnessed a stunt made by Tatra T3 tram pole when pole end on first car stuck in wire crossing. Because tram was still in moving, stuck pole teared off tram wires in both sides in 50+ meters. When it come free, pole sprung upwards, separated from base, made spectacular loop and through second tram car front window disappeared inside car. Luckily it was Sunday morning, car was half empty, all passengers sat near windows or stood end of car and nobody got hurt. For working day morning or evening consequences would be dire. Another stuck pole event was nearly fatal for me. 24 years ago trolleybus pole near me separated from wire, pole end stuck in wires, then freed and swung around with full force, coming only some centimeters from my head. If I would went a little faster in that moment, we would never talk at today.

KrotowX It is unfortunate about those incidents especially the one involving you. I don’t have time to go into a detailed reply. I am getting too many comments to reply to these days. I don’t know if Riga trams use the same trolley heads as trolleybuses, but swivel heads are much larger heads than non-swivelling ones as used in Melbourne. These narrower heads are much less likely to wedge into overhead fittings. In six years, I don’t think I saw any disasters to the overhead from trolley poles, but certainly did with pantographs. Nevertheless with conductors being phased out on trams, paragraphs made life easier for the drivers.

Alles gut! In ordnung! Bitte screiben ‘Video von tressteleg1’. 😊

@@tressteleg1 Vielen Dank! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mpd1fZCXvdnapmg.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bbGoYLCcvtmofaM.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fKd6jbKXxLbTmKs.html

Stupid notes? If you refer to my captions you should realise that most of my viewers are NOT Germans so I like to let them know a bit about what they are watching. How do you prepare your videos?

I did not want to insult - only some examples may disturbing some "natives"

Maybe if you watch some of my non-German videos you may appreciate those comments better. You may be surprised to know that Australian electric tramways had stopped using trailers by about 1910. We used much bigger bogie cars, sometimes couple, instead. So the trailer exchange at Eisenach would be totally confusing to everyone here.

I was only there a couple of days, rode the line some of the way fairly early in the morning and the passengers looked just like ordinary commuters to me.

@@tressteleg1 It was likely part of the regular traffic that I mentioned above. It supposedly still operates as a timetabled service today.

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As stated in the video, Eisenach closed a few weeks later while the Metre gauge line in the title photo closed long ago. I think all the rest are still going with newer trams and track extensions. Naumberg is hanging on by a whisker. Communism certainly saved lines which the west would have closed, even if little else of good came from that system of government.

I don’t think shame or anything would be a factor, certainly with tram fans. But who knows how many people who knew those days have watched this video? I was at least able to get local help with place names.

@@tressteleg1 I suspect that living in the DDR genuine transport spotters were thin on the ground and wouldn't have been welcomed by the authorities. As I said I suspect that most former DDR citizens would rather forget which accounts for the absence of comments here from them. Different for us Westerners of course. We can enjoy and reminisce fondly for something we never experienced. When I was in Berlin I visited the Stasi museum. It was a disquieting experience. It seemed that EVERYONE was informing on everyone else (even within families) and the Stasi were more than happy for them to do so. It's not the same thing of course but I recently showed my 95 year old mother a youtube video of Glasgow trams taken in 1959 which I absolutely loved. My mother who is mentally alert looked at it for a few seconds and said "yes I remember" before making it clear she didn't want to watch any more at which point I was reminded what a tough time she had in Glasgow the late 40s and 50s bring up 6 children without their father. And yes I enjoyed the DDR video also.

It is a complex problem. I have had West German tramway friends since 1975, and they had East German experiences which gave me some insight into the situation. Rail fans are simply born, and cannot be changed by the government, but in places like the DDR would have come across places where they must not take photographs like military barracks, probably railway stations etc.Provided they were not too blatant, they could carry on the hobby. The West would like everybody to believe life in the DDR was a complete misery. I’m no Communist but I don’t believe so. Everybody had a job. The State made sure of that, even if it may not be the job you really want to do. Prices like rent and food were strictly fixed. But of course they were not free to just walk out of the country until they were retirement age! In fact they had plenty of money as there was not much to buy in the shops which were run by two government-owned agencies. The so-called merge of west and east after the Berlin Wall came down was in fact a western takeover. Inefficient old factories were closed down rather than upgraded and this threw very large numbers of people onto the unemployment queues. In Dresden 1975 I went to a model railway exhibition made up of Eastern Bloc manufactured models which was amazingly good and equal to the best standard anywhere. I still have a model of a double deck pair of articulated passenger cars which were without doubt made in the DDR. While the East today is certainly better off than under Communism in many respects, I can see a certain nostalgia for the safe old days. The average people were not Communists. They just lived under a Communist government.

This channel is probably just too unknown amongst Germans to have large numbers of "Easterners" or even "Westerners" around. I am from the western side, though I was just 7 years old when the Eastern block ended. The DDR did have transport spotters. In theory it was forbidden to take pictures from trains (since they were regarded as objects of military interest), however a lot of existing pictures (even made by "western" transport enthusiasts) from that time show that the gouvernment didn't care too much about that. Taking pictures of trams and other city-bound public transport was tendentially unproblematic, though there were a few exceptions (most notable the "Berlin-fringe" tram lines (today rts. 87, 88, 89), which had border controls, since West-Germans were only permitted to visit Berlin without a visa, and not the rest of the DDR), and of course photographers near military or other "important" facilities. And especially with people from the east there are a lot of people who have good memories from those times ("Not everything was bad back then"). They all had jobs, enough to eat and were somewhat respected amongst each other. The "re-uniting" was a take-over by the western part, and most of the industry was shut down within one year(!). Of course, their industry was on the brink of collapse (there are several theories how much longer the DDR could have lived without the re-uniting, ranging from "less than 3 years" to "perhaps until around 2000"), and even the theory that without a "last-minute-loan" in 1987 it would have collapsed earlier. The industry was mainly on the level of the 50s/60s, it was inefficient, outdated and polluting, and the interest in their products wained slowly. But still, the take-over was a bit quick. We still have the tropes of the "Besser-Wessi" ("Better-Westener"/"Know-it-all-Westerner") vs. the "Jammer-Ossi" ("Crybaby-Easterner") from those times. Some people have been unemployed since then, and especially in the beginning there was a lot of unemployment (up to 40% in some of the eastern parts in the beginning). The new, far-right party "AfD" also has most of its biggest successes in the eastern part (including a bunch of directly elected polititians, which exclusivly hail from the eastern part), mostly due to dissatisfaction. There are still no big companies hailing from the east (though there are some mid-sized ones, like Jenoptik or Leuna). They probably expected the DDR to continue with the same safe jobs, no foreigners, but now paid with strong D-Marks and being able to travel whereever they pleased. What they got was the entire economical and social development of 45 years of the west within one year, and many of them found themselves at the lower end of that development... So, well, I guess, if there are any "Easterners" watching this (and reading my comment), I will get flaming responses about my post. I guess I myself am fitting the "Besser-Wessi"-trope to some extent ;-)

@@sepruecom Very interesting especially coming from an "insider". Thank you.

Oh Dear! How could you say such a thing? 😄😄

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Quite accurate. Communist regimes always lagged 20+ years behind West. If you have no competition, why bother about so negligible things as good looking environment and consumer products. China who switched to market economy after Mao Zedong is the only exclusion.

@@KrotowX patently wrong, the truth is, East Germany has always been poorer than Western Germany, it was before WW2 and it was before WW1 as well. It always had smaller cities, smaller population, less industry and was more agricultural than western Germany. However, under socialism Eastern Germany actually grew more than Western Germany (600% vs. 400%) thanks to the planned economy, although that was obviously not enough to "beat" Western Germany given its huge headstart. Finally, Eastern Germany has been capitalist for 30 years now and, guess what, it's becoming shittier by the day to live there, so...

@@redwillrise Well, before 19 century Germany even wasn't a single country and people from northern states even couldn't directly understand language of people from southern states and vice versa. Industry mostly appeared in places with abundance of natural resources so no surprise why other part of country was mostly agricultural. No doubt that DDR after WW2 and separated by Soviets required to build their industry from scratch. I would argue about those percents. Amount of factories or production is nothing if your production can't compete with other manufacturers due to quality issues, having obsoleted tech etc. That same planned economy become a cause of stagnation in innovation and research. Why bother if because of lack of concurrency people will buy that same crap. DDR was lucky that other Eastern Bloc countries had even worse situation with that so it was a chance to export to them. For example tech from DDR in USSR was considered superior which was quite correct, especially for consumer items. No surprise that after Eastern Bloc dissolving former tech gods realized themselves being left behind West for 20+ years in nearly all aspects of life. Not very inspiring feeling to turn into obsoleted untermensches in one day. Only way how to get along is learning and innovation. And I admit that not all are capable to do that or at least not fast enough. Obsoleted industry unfortunately was gone - changing it would cost much more than razing to ground and building something new instead. In fact obsoleted infrastructure was the least problem, people was the most serious issue. Particularly former Western Germany side was in vain too because they didn't realized how deep changes with their folks happened under Soviets during two generations. That can't be fixed with money only, it take time for at least two next generations. I believe, reunion could be done better to give people chance to avoid falling into deep poverty without end. Unfortunately this happened not only in DDR. Other Eastern Bloc countries and former Soviet republics was struck even harder. Here in Latvia after 3 occupations and 45 years under Soviets with 46% immigrants from eastern USSR republics (mostly Russians) it was the same and we had no Western Latvia who would invest in our development. It was quite a hangover over all Central and Eastern Europe. One is clear anyway - communism is not an answer and never was. In order to get something to redistribute, it must be created at first. Question is only about how fair redistribution will happen. So far only Scandinavians managed to do it right AFAIK.

No. In Communist East Germany there were no conductors and possibly no ticket inspectors. Passengers never knew if there was a government informer on the public transport so everyone made sure somebody else witnessed them putting the coins in the fare box, or punching their pre-purchased ticket.

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Typical sarcastic comment from a Westberliner... what does he know about the DDR?

@@TheRichardSpearman "Die 7 Weltwunder der DDR" Google it.

Yes, I see it is a "joke" with a long history. I am glad, looking back, that I was able to visit many parts of the DDR in the 1980s, before the anschluss.

@@TheRichardSpearman Sadly, I couldn´t. Cause I wasn´t born.

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bw53191 If you lookat the trams only, yes. However, we should remember that these tramways in East Germany survived thanks to the lack of individual motorization.

No. The Trabant factory could not make them fast enough :-)

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PT was essential, One major reason being that private ownership of a motorcar was impossible for nearly everybody. Even if you put in an application for a fairly crappy locally made Trabant motorcar, the waiting list was around 10 years long! And of course under communism, everybody had a job, so a means to get there had to be provided by the state.

@@tressteleg1 exactly, no need for a car

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Yes, lucky to get them. I think the line closed within a year or two of my 1975 visit.

@@tressteleg1 nice footage anyway. I have seen the Gothaer when I was a child. Later I lived in this so called 'Stalin Houses' what you can see at 0:25 in Magdeburg at Wilhelm-Pieck-Allee (today Ernst-Reuter-Allee). I still remember the typical loud clack of the power switches from that Tatra T4 trams when they switched of from acceleration. On/off.. No elektronic controll and inverter 😀

Yes, that loud noise was the linebreaker cutting traction power to the motors. Most newer trams in Melbourne had them prior to the new electronic era.

👍 Paint did not cost a real lot but hides many sins.

@@tressteleg1 the GDR was a so called "Mangelwirtschaft" - it wasn´t that easy to get colours all the time if required - and it wasn´t cheap at all. A major problem was that very few owns the house they live in - so people living in neither the "Owners" (e.g. community, city, company) took care a lot - the advantage of cheap rents escalate in absence of investment for renovation. 2bnd thing - the social Program to build new modern houses (so called Plattenbau) sucks a lot of material already not available for "normal" citizen.

Thanks

Ja, Faust alles grau!

Christmas was certainly celebrated in the DDR but without any (open) reference to Jesus Christ as religion was essentially banned. Things changed when The Wall came down in 1989.

@@tressteleg1 Gewiss wurde Weihnachten in der DDR gefeiert, jedoch ohne (offenen) Bezug auf Jesus Christus, da Religion grundsätzlich verboten war. - Lassen wir doch mal die Kirche im Dorf. Unsinn, Religion war nicht grundsätzlich verboten und wie hier sehen dürfen, gab ganz selbstverständlich den Weihnachtsmann.

👍 Meisten verstehe-ich. Danke.

Don't you mean the USA???

What has the USA got to do with it? The over-commercialism of Christmas?

We were in the DDR 14/11/75 to 2/12 😄

I convert the film to digital format using a Wolverine converter. It scans two frames per second and the output is at 30 frames per second according to the maker. I reduce the speed to 54% which brings it down to 16 frames per second which is the speed of standard eight movie.. I believe this was done accurately. The surest way to judge the speed of a video is by watching people walking. If there are any specific time points you want me to look at, just name them please.

It wasn’t entirely hopeless there. Everyone had a job, house, medical access etc and the prices of goods were fixed, all by the government. The people earned ‘plenty’ of money. But there was almost no ‘luxury’ items to buy in the shops. It took 10 years to get the Trabbi or telephone you ordered, and the Stasi were listening in anyway. But I went to a Model railway Exhibition in Dresden and the Standard was excellent. I even bought a 2 section articulated model of their double deck suburban trains. No doubt most people are better off now.

Yes, because during Hitler's time the Gestapo never spied on, tortured or murdered Germans with 'defeatist' attitudes. It was much better under Hitler.

It's really funny talking about "the stasi around every corner". The stasi had cassette recorders and typewriters. What do you think western governments get up to with the internet, moblie phones? Those Alexa microphones everyone thinks is a good idea to put in the living room? The persons of interest is the same in both cases: those who would destabilize those in power. If you are a normal person you are too boring to spy on. That goes for any country.

@@kyle8952 I can imagine in what German thoroughness would turn if Stasi would appear and operate at today with all technical possibilities available now. Orwell's 1984 would be a kindergarten in comparison. Particularly because of that I'm very skeptical against any kind of mass private information collecting for greater good with unclear purpose. Because if authorities become oppression type they have all what they want if they want to know anything about particular person. China and Russia for example. State turning to authoritarian regime is quite easy at today even in democracies. And then way back is long and hard and somewhere even impossible. "normal person is too boring to spy on" is not so true anymore. China already presented their "citizen perks" tied to all automatically collected information about particular person. You can turn into "persona non grata" quite easy and then have implications and limitations for your activities like ban to travel, denial of services etc. for a long time.

@@tressteleg1 Free medical access. Now how much do you pay per month for health insurance, 150 Euros?

Lowlife detected. In post-USSR we also have a bunch of soviet lovers like you. But make no mistake - under any communist regimes the only real freedom you have is to die in name of regime. However I agree that after Nazi horrors Germans themselves crippled their national pride beyond recognition. Stop being ashamed of being Germans or it will end very bad for all Europe again.

@@KrotowX I never liked communism even idea was good but it was creation of jews based on judaism only to serve jews. German will cease exist without nationalism but that doesn't mean ressurect fascism. Starting point is folks musik , tradition which was banned by americans. Even it was marching military song I love my "Erika" Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein und das heißt: Erika. Heiß von hunderttausend kleinen Bienelein wird umschwärmt Erika denn ihr Herz ist voller Süßigkeit, zarter Duft entströmt dem Blütenkleid. Auf der Heide blüht ein kleines Blümelein und das heißt: Erika.

Take it somewhere else peacher. Not everyone cares about your particular version of a religion, or a religion on the first place. In a fucking historical video no less.

Now compare with 1975 New York City and ask that question again.

Welgeldiguniekalias In 1975 in New York there was no wall as there was around West Berlin and no barrier as there was between East and West Germany to prevent people from leaving,. It is estimated that 3.5 million people emigrated from East Germany until the wall was built in 1961. Only a failed state has to build barriers to keep people from emigrating, which, by the way, is a right guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which East Germany was a signatory to. Another sign of a failed state is the use of a secret police force to enforce ideological conformity. The ratio of Stasi officers and informants in East Germany to the population was higher than the ratio of Gestapo agents and informers in the Third Reich. The purpose is to impose on the people a constant state of fear and terror so that they would not dream of opposing the leadership. So if I had a choice, I would choose New York.

@@historybuff0393 In the 1950s, people were emigrating from Europe en masse, this is not unique to the eastern block. Also, from the victim's point of view it really doesn't matter if you get stabbed to death on the subway by a thug in freedom, or shot to death by a border guard in a totalitarian state. You're still dead.

Welgeldiguniekalias The people who fled East Germany and other Eastern Bloc countries did so for better economic opportunities and/or to escape political oppression. Countries like West Germany, France, Denmark, etc. allowed their citizens to emigrate freely, and didn't have to put up barriers to prevent them from doing so. Crimes such as murder happen in every country in the world, but state-sponsored oppression against its own citizens is another matter entirely. We don't approve of it in countries such as Nazi Germany and Franco's Spain, so why do we approve of it in countries like East Germany?

Now compare those to Shenzen