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Picture: Book about 'weird tractors' of the GDR photos by Erasmus Schröter » Filename: BookTraktoren4x7405.jpg

Four images of 'weird tractors' - improvised farm vehicles built by private farmers in East Germany using parts taken from all kinds of other vehicles.


More about this book

Read my review of the Do Not Refreeze exhibition of East German photographers, including Erasmus Schröter.

Even in the midst of the stagnation of Communist rule, German ingenuity found its expression in these amazing vehicles made by farmers who operated outside the collectivised agricultural system. Buying a tractor wasn't an option as they were unavailable and unaffordable, so instead farmers built their own tractors using whatever parts they could find or build for themselves.

The book 'Das andere Traktorenbuch' rougly translated as: 'The Book of Unusual Tractors' - features the photographs of influential east German photographer Erasmus Schröter, whom I met in Manchester in April 2007.

Erasmus Schröter's photos are superbly posed and lit. They were taken with a medium format camera.

I studied the history of post war Germany as part of my degree at Trinity College Dublin 1976-1981. My dissertation was on the development of the novel in the GDR.

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