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Picture: Das andere Traktorenbuch - The Book of Unusual Tractors » Filename: BookTraktoren7505.jpg

Das andere Traktorenbuch is about the home made farm vehicles built by private farmers in east Germany during the years of Communism (1948-1989).


More about this book

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

Photos by Bernd Hiepe and Erasmus Schröter along with text by Franz Josef Görtz document these remarkable vehicles built under very difficult circumstances.

This photo is typical of many in the book. Taken with a medium format camera and carefully set up and posed, the farmer is pictured aboard his pride and joy, together with pet cat, farmyard animals and a strategically placed chicken.

East Germany lagged far behind the West in things automotive. The Trabant was the most common car. People had to wait up to 15 years to buy one. Most agriculture had been forcibly collectivised in the 1950s, but some farmers remained outside the state system tending small farms in their own ownership.

Tractors were beyond the reach of most private farmers, so they made their own, taking parts from any available source. The private farmers of East Germany were far more efficient than the wasteful state collectives and produced greater quantities of food in relation to their land area. That was due in part to the initiative and ingenuity of the farmers in building these amazing vehicles, which helped them in their daily work.

This book provides a remarkable document of those vehicles, which since the fall of Communism in 1989, have mostly disappeared.

About the photos

This image is from the portfolio of Aidan O'Rourke photographer writer website publisher. Most images are copyright Aidan O'Rourke and may be available as prints or high resolution files. Some images are by other artists, and are published with their approval, or are included in reviews of their work.

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