Josep Renau's restored mosaic The Unity of the Working Classes and Founding of the German Democratic Republic (1974 A vast mosaic depicting Karl Marx and celebrating the founding of East Germany and the “unity of the working class” was officially handed over to the city of Halle by the private foundation that funded its restoration today was completed in 1974 on the external wall of the stairwell of an 11-floor residence for apprentices in Halle-Neustadt a concrete new town built near the city of Halle during the Cold War to house workers at nearby chemical plants Halle-Neustadt’s population has dwindled to around 45,000—approximately half its peak in the 1960s The mosaic is one of the most important public works of art from communist East Germany cumbersomely titled The Unity of the Working Classes and Founding of the German Democratic Republic is 35m high and seven m wide and contains 11,000 tiles It is considered one of the most important surviving public works of art produced in communist East Germany much East German public art has been destroyed It is often dismissed as the remnant of an outdated ideology and deemed unimportant from an art-historical perspective But recent measures to save such works suggest a shift in such attitudes “Even uncomfortable East German cultural heritage shouldn’t just disappear—instead it should be preserved to encourage reflection and debate,” says Philip Kurz the managing director of the Wüstenrot Foundation which provided most of the €600,000 restoration funds The Wüstenrot Foundation has made preserving East German public art a focus of its heritage protection work the foundation completed the reinstallation of a Renau mosaic composed of 70,000 glass fragments in the city of Erfurt Renau was the culture official responsible for overseeing the famous Spanish pavilion at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937 Forced to flee Spain after Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War There he met important exponents of Mexican muralism His first mural commission was in Halle-Neustadt Renau originally proposed an image celebrating the power of nature The newly restored Marx mosaic was one of two monumental murals by the artist in Halle-Neustadt: the other was installed on a nearby canteen and destroyed from 1998 to 1999 By the time the restoration of Unity of the Working Classes and Founding of the German Democratic Republic began in 2022 many of the tiles had been damaged or come loose due to frost and pollution led by the Gustav van Treeck studio in Munich mended tiles where possible and replaced 451 that were too damaged to repair news23 February 2024Early Gerhard Richter mural, painted over in 1979, resurfaces in DresdenPainting in a stairwell and foyer at the German Hygiene Museum is one of the few early works to survive Eastern Germany is the heartland of the Protestant Reformation of Martin Luther but today is one of the most secularized parts of the world says German sociologist Monika Wohlrab-Sahr “East Germans tend to be stubborn secularists,” she said in a presentation at a recent international consultation on “Reformation – Education – Transformation” in Halle about 110 miles (175 kilometres) southwest of Berlin built as a new "socialist city" in East Germany without a church “One has to take this secularized state of mind seriously,” said Wohlrab-Sahr professor of cultural sociology at the University of Leipzig Halle itself is at the centre of a region with a rich Reformation tradition the town where Luther on 31 October 1517 is reputed to have posted his 95 theses denouncing church abuses where Luther was born in 1483 and where he died in 1546 where Luther defended his ideas in a noted theological disputation in 1519 and where two centuries later the composer Johann Sebastian Bach was organist and cantor at the Lutheran church of St Thomas Yet the region is now one of the world’s most non-religious territories Beliefs about God across Time and Countries 52 percent of people in eastern Germany said they did not believe in God – the highest percentage for any of the territories surveyed – compared to 18 percent in Great Britain and 10 percent in western Germany Wohlrab-Sahr pointed to the period of communist rule from 1949 to 1989 as a major reason for the far-reaching secularization of eastern Germany The authorities systematically promoted an atheistic “scientific worldview” and sought to marginalize the influence of the churches the heavily industrialized region of eastern Germany around Halle and Leipzig was also a bastion of secular socialist views from the 19th century onwards Baptism and confirmation are much less popular in eastern than in western Germany many young people in the east take part in a secular youth dedication service called Jugendweihe promoted during the communist period as an alternative to confirmation and which has outlived the end of communism the number of secular burials is increasing with 45 percent of eastern Germans opting for an “anonymous burial” where there is no act of remembrance for the deceased person “The anonymous burial has become a secular ritual that successfully competes with the sturdiest bastion of the churches It is a picture that contrasts sharply with the period of East Germany’s “peaceful revolution” of 1989 Churches – as the main institutions not completely integrated into the state apparatus – were full as they opened their doors to East Germans demanding change in the communist-ruled state Yet with the opening of the Berlin Wall and then German unification in 1990 the churches were no longer needed as outlets for pent-up frustration and the extent of the lack of belief among eastern Germans became apparent “1990 was a huge disappointment for the churches,” Bishop Ilse Junkermann of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany told a panel discussion during the “Reformation – Education – Transformation” consultation “We are on the path to becoming a completely different church.” Several commentators underlined that the population in eastern Germany is not always hostile to Christianity as such “Non-religiosity has been inherited over many generations,” explained Professor Michael Domsgen a theologian at Halle’s Martin Luther University Roman Catholic Deacon Reinhard Feuersträter reported how churches in the region are experimenting with a new “celebration for a turning point in life” for young people opting neither for confirmation nor Jugendweihe more than 650 young people took part in such celebrations it was necessary to find a new language to reach young people “They have to find what I say to be credible,” said Feuersträter “With my church language I am simply not understood.” Participants at the Halle consultation said in a concluding statement they wished “to learn from the experiences of our sisters and brothers in this region as they seek to interpret the Reformation tradition in their society today” Such experiences could provide insights for other places where there is also decreasing identification with religious institutions professor of intercultural theology at Halle university the lack of religiosity in eastern Germany needs to be accepted as the context in which churches there find themselves today “Churches must identify and assume duties within a social context that do not serve the church itself but the people and the society,” says Cyranka “That does not mean that the nonreligious be ascribed a really existing religiosity Rather it means to communicate with others even if that involves addressing them in a religious manner The consultation on “Reformation – Education – Transformation” was a joint project of Bread for the World the Francke Foundations and the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg in cooperation with the World Council of Churches *Stephen Brown is a freelance journalist and author of several publications on the churches in East Germany Please fill in this form if you would like to receive news and updates from the WCC by email Ecumenical CentreKyoto BuildingChemin du Pommier 42CH-1218 Le Grand-Saconnex was drawn to the marginalised and ostracised – the working class Across his more than two dozen documentaries individual lives open onto larger historical forces Yet his work is always animated by a humanist intimacy by Heise’s radically open-minded curiosity about the experiences and outlook of his subjects – how they think and feel He was interested in those who don’t have a voice; ‘Heise makes people talk who are not used to it’ as Mathias Dell observed in an obituary for Die Zeit His films are at once indelible portraits and rich ambivalent documents of modern German history Heise was born in East Berlin to an intellectual family – his father was a Marxist philosopher After cutting his teeth as a director’s assistant at DEFA he enrolled at film school in Babelsberg in the late 1970s but left to avoid expulsion for political reasons Two early documentaries about life in the GDR – including one, Volkspolizei set during a night shift at a police station in central Berlin – did not accord with official visions of East German society and were banned from public viewing He began making radio features in the 1980s hoping the medium would offer more freedom It wasn’t until the fall of the Berlin Wall that Heise could resume his documentary work. Eisenzeit (Iron Age) A continuation of work begun at film school it is a fragmentary account of the trajectories of four troubled boys in Eisenhüttenstadt Two of the four take their own lives; the other two emigrate to the West Their stories are told largely through interviews with their friends and acquaintances Carefully composed montages of mundane locations would become a trademark The fall-out from the unification of Germany – especially its disappointments and unsettling effects – became a major concern of his work film is STAU – Jetzt Geht’s Los (1992) the first in a trilogy which chronicled the lives of a group of neo-Nazi youth and their families over a decade and a half (The practice of long-term observation was something older DEFA filmmakers had specialised in.) Strongly criticized when it came out – the premiere in Berlin was cancelled due to protests – today the documentary seems an invaluable account of the rise of right-wing extremism in the early 1990s a period that came to be known as the ‘Baseballschlägerjahre’ (‘baseball bat years’) due to the regularity of fascist riots and attacks on immigrants and leftists especially in the freshly integrated Eastern Bundesländer a planned city built in the mid-60s to house workers employed in two nearby chemical plants. STAU opens with a shot of a burning car in an empty parking lot Clouds of black smoke billow towards a busy street but nobody seems to care; there is no fire truck or police car in sight and the traffic keeps flowing – a vivid metaphor for social conditions in Neustadt at the time The film develops a divided relationship to its subjects raucous energy from afar as they brawl drunkenly and shout fascist slogans But much of the film is composed of one-on-one interviews: we see the young men in their homes sitting more or less uncomfortably in front of the camera talking about their frustrations and longings Early critics argued that the film gave its protagonists too much control over their self-presentation The documentary certainly displays a lot of patience with its characters We learn about the boredom and listlessness that comes with unemployment about absent fathers and overworked mothers But Heise does not provide clear-cut psychological explanations He is interested in understanding the lives of these alienated young men without making excuses or inviting easy judgements In the austere living rooms of their working-class families the young men are often polite and friendly they do their best to present themselves well often fishing for sympathy and downplaying the radicalism of their beliefs claiming they only carry weapons for self-defence or that ‘Sieg Heil’ is an expression of protest without concrete political meaning His interventions are subtle: ‘Do you know them?’ he asks one youth when he mentions his aversion to ‘the foreigners’ Juxtapositions reveal contradictions: one of the boys is shown talking about his resistance to ‘mixing different cultures’ and then in the next shot is seen enjoying a meal at an Asian restaurant homes in on a couple of the young men and their families After several court cases – two of them for violent assault – Ronny has turned away from the scene although it’s clear that his worldview hasn’t changed No longer getting drunk and beating up leftists he instead reads books by right-wing thinkers Compared to the crude sloganeering we witness in the first part Konrad is eloquent and seems politically sophisticated confidently discussing the construction of a different system ‘with authoritarian elements’ a woman comes into focus for the first time She is recovering from an abusive relationship that ended with her partner’s suicide She was pregnant at 15 and the older of her two sons is now about 8 years old and already showing signs of rebellion Jeanette says looking sadly at his photograph By the time of the final film, Kinder Tommy has dropped out of school and spends his time with a much older neo-Nazi the landscape itself becomes a protagonist: Neustadt’s monumental Neustadt suffered heavily from the economic shock of reunification The derelict buildings and drug trafficking cause many residents to feel unsafe; some blame the increased presence of immigrants. Kinder moves away from the housing estates to the industrial periphery It opens with a tracking shot of the grounds of a huge refinery Heise decided to make the film black and white in the edit In an interview he explained that he had a hard time adapting to the garish colour schemes dominant in Western advertising which by the 2000s had invaded East Germany too The reduction to black and white helped him to concentrate on the essentials: on facial expressions and the texture of the landscapes (‘Black and white creates clarity in the images’) Heise’s last and arguably most accomplished film, Heimat Ist ein Raum aus Zeit (Heimat Is a Space in Time, 2019) tells the history of his own family across the twentieth century it combines materials from the family archive – letters school essays – read in voiceover by Heise himself with footage of contemporary Germany: abandoned buildings and construction sites the crowded square behind the Brandenburg Gate The effect is to transform biography into a kind of collective history. Heimat begins with love letters between Heise’s grandmother We follow their correspondence with her family in Vienna until their deportation in 1942 A slow tracking shot over a historical document shows the names and addresses of the deported; the sequence ends with the words ‘I am travelling today.’ The film continues with the next generation: Heise’s mother Rosemarie corresponds with a lover in West Germany whose love letters are studded with cynicism about the political systems on each side of the divide Ruptures in time and perspective are not acknowledged or glossed the material is not coerced into an argument Heise says at one point in the voiceover of Eisenzeit His striking documentary Material (2009) is largely assembled from such remainders A feature-length montage of miscellaneous footage collected over years including much shot around the time of the fall of the Wall it is perhaps the purest expression of Heise’s bricolage approach (history is not linear but ‘a heap’ contradictory – challenges the bullish official history propagated by West German media: it features recordings of GDR residents speaking about their hopes for the future of their East German state – hopes that dissipated when Germany was reunited on terms dictated by the West Heise was interested in such untidy ambiguities and was always willing to doubt preconceived opinions Refusing to explain or cast judgement on what we are being shown his films are deliberate without being imposing leaving the complexities of history intact Read on: Julia Hertäg, ‘Germany’s Counter-Cinemas’ No-one on Berlin’s main eastbound traffic artery could miss one of the two murals yellow and blue colors up to the gabled rooftop of an older A first glance sees an Indian village in Nicaragua with red-roofed huts flowers and birds in a jolly rural setting But take a closer look and you see the fighter plane and the armed soldiers marauding through the village panicked mothers and children – and the corpses Monimbó was the first village to rise up in 1978 in defense against repression by the right-wing Somoza dynasty It held out for a week against the well-armed foreign-born mercenaries it became a symbol of the revolution which drove Somoza out in 1979 A man born in that village became one of Nicaragua’s best painters certainly the best in the so-called “primitive school” After Somoza was beaten Manuel García Moia (born 1936) began painting his beautiful In 1985 East Berlin’s borough of Lichtenberg aided by the city and the GDR Ministry of Culture (the East German Democratic Republic still had five years to go before its demise) commissioned Moia to paint his mural on this conspicuous site The building’s new private owner wanted to renovate it away but was finally won over thanks to a highly dedicated group of active citizens and again the committee had to look for ways and means to save it actually to reproduce it exactly by two enthusiastic progressive artists from Hamburg and West Berlin with some assistance by the artist himself when he was able to visit remained the most left-wing borough in East Berlin so it was possible to gain some official support and 20 % of the nearly 200,000 euros required for the job The job was at last completed when nocturnal fascists smeared it full of swastikas and slogans – which could be removed just in time for the re-dedication ceremonies Trouble hit again seven years later when the materials used turned out to be faulty and pieces of the mural crashed to the ground with moral support from the Nicaraguan ambassador this time not from the LINKE (Left party) but a Social Democrat was won over to save this bright spot in his borough; again part of the needed sum was granted On Moia’s 70th birthday in June 2006 the little square in front of the mural with a small column explaining it and telling its history Since the mural is his largest and almost the only one to escape gentrification and demolition in Europe who has been living for years with his daughter in Maryland So are many other good people for whom the mural remains a lasting symbol of internationalism The other mural symbolizes basically the same ideals but in a very different way with 25 churches and a grand cathedral crowning a unique But post-war GDR needed millions of modern homes and it needed them quickly Using its newly-developed system of prefabricated panels it built whole neighborhoods of comfortable well connected by cheap city transportation A number of sculptors and painters worked to overcome this; a leading light among them was Josep Renau (1907-1982) he joined in making the famous posters supporting the Republic Put in charge of the Spanish Pavilion at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1937 he was able to encourage and then exhibit Pablo Picasso’s passionate After the defeat of the republic Renau escaped to Mexico where he worked with the great Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros he soon began work on his remarkable murals almost as colorful as those of Moia but with bold partially abstracted forms which did not always conform to some administrators’ clichéd ideas of the officially-approved “socialist realism” he became most noticeably successful with a series of murals It is still a goal of art-lovers’ pilgrimages Old Erfurt also wanted such a bright attraction for its new high-rise housing areas and commissioned a mural by Renau for a big new cultural center Called “The Relationship of Humans to Nature and Technology,” it shows two large hands surrounded by symbols and urging a symbiosis of both elements in building a better world It was composed of 70,000 colored glass mosaic tiles and together full 7 meters tall and 30 meters in length ((23 ft x 98 ft.) – truly an impressive sight Many GDR works were discarded or destroyed after 1990 but the Erfurt mosaic (and the Halle-Neustadt murals) survived But in 2012 the cultural center – like nearly all of its kind – received a death sentence which saved the city costs and brought money into the pockets of persuasive new owners it was again a small group of devotees who managed to rescue it – but only after it was sawed into many sections It took them years before they finally found art-loving sponsors requiring exact studies of the correct mortar the colors and how to replace broken tiles but this month it was finally achieved – bringing a huge sigh of relief for its supporters and a breath of new hope to some for a better world of genuine progress and lasting peace far from Erfurt but very close to Monimbó Platz thousands of people from many countries will again be placing red carnations on the memorial site of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht both murdered 101 years ago because of their beliefs and their actions aimed at these same goals “…we do not believe that the peoples must all oppose each other and that those who amass the largest piles of corpses are in the right We believe instead that it is far closer to the interests of humankind if all peoples would live in complete peace and friendship with each other and rather compete in the fulfillment of cultural achievements.” is about his life in the German Democratic Republic from 1949 – 1990 the tremendous improvements for the people under socialism Memorial to German Communist heroes Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and Thälmann desecrated Germany’s Left Party surges, taking 10 percent of Bundestag seats The roots of neo-fascism in East Germany ‘Sinners’ review: Horror, history, and Black American folklore combine for trailblazing cinema  Amidst capitalist crisis and war, Russian Communists struggle against Putin and the oligarchs U.S. imperialism’s new Cold War against China fosters anti-Asian racism at home Chickens coming home to roost: Remember what Malcolm said Big changes in the Catholic liturgy The show – snappily titled ’NEOCODOMOUSSE’ – is the firm’s largest for this year and aims to create an experimental building workshop within a former submarine base Located in the French city’s industrial harbour the display proposes 1:1 try-outs of structures for the future of collective housing in Saint-Nazaire the exhibition explores the future of a city that lives off the production of passenger ships Posit the architects: ’Fuel is now at its end and aeroplanes and cruise ships are the greatest killers of our climate what are the possible futures of such a place?’ ’is the foot-in-the-door approach for a new emerging market: the production of collective space from industrial waste’ ’NEOCODOMOUSSE’ will be on view at LiFE, Saint-Nazaire, until 9 October. For more information, visit the Raumlabor website VIEW GOOGLE MAPS escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox from the early years of the Berlin Wall to its fall Thomas Hoepker Today marks the 70th anniversary of the formal division of Germany and the founding of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) known in German as the Deutsche Demokratische Republik most commonly referred to in the West as ‘East Germany’ the Eastern part of the nation – including Berlin (though the city’s Western half remained part of the Federal Republic) – fell firmly under Soviet Russian influence Over the ensuing decades the DDR years became increasingly isolated from the rest of Europe and most visual embodiment of this cultural divide was the physical division of Berlin by the construction In the early 1970s, Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker – who had at the time worked as a photojournalist for magazines such as Stern and Geo for a number of years – was accredited to work in the DDR along with his then-wife Eva Windmöller – a journalist who also worked for Stern “We took it for granted that our apartment was bugged We had come there armed with lots of addresses and telephone numbers for relatives living in East Germany – and we called them up: ‘Surprise Why don’t you come by and we can talk a bit?’ There was zero enthusiasm…” Hoepker recalled in an interview with The Economist “Any East German who had any sort of important job was not meant to have what they called ‘a West contact’.” A selection of Hoepker’s photographs which span the early years of the wall’s construction became the book – DDR Ansichten – Views of a Vanished Country Here we feature a selection of images from DDR Ansichten – Views of a Vanished Country along with some of Hoepker’s thoughts and recollections of his time in the East shared in the aforementioned interview with The Economist “I visited East Germany for the first time in 1959 – it was grey the only colour one saw was communist red” a lack of spontaneity – though the parties that followed such forced joviality were somewhat more relaxed lubricated as they were by an “ample supply of beer and schnapps…” “bleeding to death” as Hoepker puts it The ebb of Easterners toward the West led to the construction in 1961 of the Berlin Wall and over time its degree of militarizaition increased to incorporate minefields A few years after the wall’s completion Hoepker made a number of photographs of children playing along the wall as part of an editorial assignment Expecting the wall to have been a source of fear or disturbance for such children the photographer was shocked to discover that “children were totally relaxed about this horrible edifice!” Hoepker also made a number of images at the Berlin Friedrichstraße station a crossing point between the Eastern and Western sectors of the city The station was dubbed ‘The Palace of Tears’ due to the regularity of emotional reunions that occurred in the locale “The government in East Germany allowed people over 65 to travel to see their relatives in the West They felt that if those people crossed over and then decided to stay in the West then they wouldn’t miss them much.” the photographers explained who look so alike and were dressed so alike was a very moving moment.” Friends and relatives in Berlin often found themselves living physically near one another yet totally isolated without means of communication or freedom of movement There were daily material privations in the East as well as the restrictions upon movement and political freedom that its citizens endured “Everybody walking around in East Germany had a little bag and they called it the ‘perhaps bag’ Perhaps you will find an orange or a banana perhaps some chocolate…” A number of photographs in the book capture these ‘perhaps bags’ Hoepker also photographed official state-sponsored events political rallies and governmental addresses He is quick to underscore some of the lightheartedness in his photographs from the East with a serious note on the dangers the ruling party presented “This country was run by very limited minds It was hard to understand that these very mediocre-looking people were ruling the country with an iron fist They were very dangerous people indeed.” Hoepker missed the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 But he returned in 1990 to witness the ongoing defacing of the monolith by Germans from East and West alike “Everything I had known was now topsy-turvy but it was also clear it would be difficult for both Germanys to adapt to this new scenario.” On reflecting on the failure of the East German – and ultimately the Soviet – state Hoepker tempers the joy of reunification with a note of regret at the great disappointment and disaffection felt by many normal citizens But in some aspects it was a dream that was shattered A liver chestnut Best Future (by Benicio x Don Diamond) was named the champion of the 2021 German Sport Horse (DSP) stallion licensing in Neustadt/Dosse on Sunday 24 January 2021 Originally the DSP Licensing was scheduled to take place in Munich but only two days before the event the District Administration Office decided to cancel the event because of tightened corona measures in the area The DSP organizers were prompted to think fast and out of the box and a quick solution was found by relocating the event to the Graf von Lindenau-Halle arena at the Brandenburg State Stud in Neustadt/Dosse In the Brandenburg area in north German the corona infection rate is higher than in Bavaria 42 showed up and 22 received a positive verdict from the licensing commitee and six were proclaimed premium A Benicio x Don Diamond x Fürst Heinrich was named the dressage champion of the licensing The reserve champion was a Ibiza x Sunny-Boy colt bred by Irene Bayer and owned by Andreas Kaiser The third ranked premium stallion was a Diamond Hit x Johnson bred by Thomas Schwarz and acquired by Antonius Schulze-Averdiek at the Riedlingen Foal auction two years ago The other premium stallions were a Zackerey x Don Juan de Hus offspring bred by Boddecker-Sietz and presented by the company Steigbugel Zitzler; Christoph Kühnle's  Vitalis x Diamond Hit colt; and Heinrich Ramsbrock's For Romance  x Diamond Hit who is bred by Brockmann-Drechsler and who is the full brother to the 2020 DSP Licensing Champion Finley A collection of licensed and non licensed colts is now for sale in an online auction that will conclude on 28 January Complete results with the jumpers here Stalls for Rent at Durondeau Dressage in Peer, Belgium Exceptionally Well Located Equestrian Facility in Wellington, Florida Well-built Equestrian Estate With Multiple Business Opportunities in Sweden Stable Units for Rent at Lotje Schoots' Equestrian Center in Houten (NED) For Rent: Several Apartments and Stable Wing at High-End Equestrian Facility Stable Wing Available at Reiterhof Wensing on Dutch/German border Real Estate: Well-Appointed Country House with Extensive Equestrian Facility in the U.K. Rémi Blot Rudi Meisel was one of the very few West German photographers to cross the Berlin Wall into East Germany he captured authentic street life in the GDR A new exhibition reveals that East and West Germans weren’t so different after all • Compatriots 1977 – 1987 is at C|O Berlin until 1 November • Compatriots 1977 – 1987 is at C|O Berlin until 1 November after eight consecutive seasons in the EHF Champions League Thüringer HC competed in the Women’s EHF Cup for the first time and reached the quarter-finals After a summer in which their squad has seen many changes THC are preparing for the EHF European League group phase The burning question – how will Thüringer HC’s squad changes affect their chances It might be an exaggeration to say that THC’s squad is unrecognisable from the team that contested the EHF Cup last season but the departure of nine players last summer marked the beginning of a new era for the former German champions Thüringer HC want to showcase their new-look team to a wider audience in the EHF European League group phase “We and our fans are hungry for the international competition and the special atmosphere and challenge,” said team manager Maik Schenk THC are in fifth place in the German Bundesliga after six wins from 10 games who joined DELO EHF Champions League participants FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria was arguably the most eye-catching name to leave the club – particularly after she finished the 2019 IHF Women’s World Championship as Germany’s joint top scorer and scored 30 goals for THC in the EHF Cup group phase last season Thüringer HC have been synonymous with world-class Czech centre back Iveta Koresova but one summer signing continuing THC’s Czech link has already made a big impact: Markéta Jerábková Jerábková has scored 86 goals in 10 league matches making her the top scorer in the German Bundesliga To achieve their goal of successfully contesting the group stage THC will certainly want their attack to fire at a similar level to the 31.2 goals per game that they are averaging in the German league A goal machine for club and country since the 2020/21 season commenced Markéta Jerábková is a player that you do not want to miss The current top scorer in the German Bundesliga was also the joint top scorer in the preliminary round at the Women’s EHF EURO 2020 – tied with Nora Mørk on 22 goals – and she has already scored 17 goals for THC in the qualification rounds in this competition International addition – Emma Ekenman Fernis the Swedish right wing moved from IK Sävehof to THC in the summer the move has paid dividends for both parties with Ekenman Fernis scoring 43 goals at a 68 per cent rate in the German league 19-year-old Austrian left wing Nina Neidhart featured in the top 10 scorers at the Women’s 19 EHF Euro 2019 in Hungary Her move from Hypo Niederösterreich to THC can be viewed as part of a logical progression and it will be interesting to see if Neidhart can impress at this level in European club handball so early in her career Thüringer HC’s EHF Champions League 2017/18 season ultimately ended with what may have seemed an all-too-familiar outcome: elimination in the main round the away match against SG BBM Bietigheim will live with THC fans for a long time Having pushed Metz close in the previous round of matches and with Iveta Luzumova (now Koresova) in sensational form Thüringer HC travelled to Bietigheim with hopes of registering an away Champions League win against their domestic rivals A fast start saw Thüringer HC lead 6:1 after seven minutes – a margin that Bietigheim would not fully erase THC coasted to a massive 13-goal win (34:21) Newcomers: Petra Blazek (SCM Gloria Buzau) Departures: Emily Bölk (FTC-Rail Cargo Hungaria) Dunarea Braila) Alexandra Mazucco (SV Halle Neustadt) EHF Champions League:Quarter-finals (1): 2014/15Main round (5): 2013/14 FEATURE: Thüringer HC left back becomes MVP and top scorer of EHF Finals Women after netting 29 times in Graz SUMMARY: Thüringer HC are crowned in Graz as the new EHF European League Women champions following an intense final against Ikast Håndbold FLASH QUOTES: Comments from players and coaches after the EHF Finals Women 2025 final and third place match FINAL REVIEW: THC come from behind to beat Ikast 34:32 at the EHF Finals in Graz FINAL PREVIEW: Ikast Håndbold meet Thüringer HC in final; Blomberg and Dijon play for third place SUMMARY: Ikast Håndbold and Thüringer HC celebrated semi-final wins in Graz as they get ready for the final on Sunday SEMI-FINAL REVIEW: The German side beat Dijon 35:29 in the second semi-final of the EHF Finals Women FLASH QUOTES: Comments from players and coaches after the EHF Finals Women 2025 semi-finals THIRD-PLACE MATCH REVIEW: The French side beat their opponents from Germany at the EHF Finals Women SEMI-FINAL REVIEW: The 2023 champions are back in the final of the EHF Finals Women in Graz After finishing in 14th place at the W17 EHF EURO 2021 the first place which did not secure a direct spot at North Macedonia 2022 Austria were awarded a Wild Card and will make their second consecutive appearance at the IHF Women’s Youth (U18) World Championship Progressing to the make round will make sure they could at least tie that performance and the games against Portugal and the Faroe Islands will be paramount for the young Austria team who have won only two of the matches played in the competition They have also won only a single game out of the seven they played last summer at the W17 EHF EURO which means that a big improvement will have to be made in order to contend for a better place at the end of the tournament who was the 12th best scorer at the W17 EHF EURO 2021 with 35 goals scoring 47 goals in 19 games this season in the Austrian first league Right wing Daniela Weber and centre back Marie Prokop have also featured prominently in the domestic league this season and will be ready for the challenge despite having not succeeded at the highest level last summer Qualification for North Macedonia 2022: Wild Card Group at North Macedonia 2022: Group C (Denmark By continuing to browse ihf.info, you agree to our terms of use , privacy policy and the use of cookies. For more information, please review our cookie policy. Josep Renau's salvaged 30m-long mosaic being reinstalled in Erfurt Thomas Wolf / Wüstenrot Foundation A large Communist-era wall mosaic comprising 70,000 glass fragments has returned to a square in the city of Erfurt after years in storage. Its reinstallation signals the beginning of a shift in attitudes toward East German public art, which has struggled for years to overcome entrenched perceptions that it is ideologically unsound, historically unimportant and eminently disposable. The official inauguration of the eye-catching mosaic, Josep Renau’s Man’s Relationship to Nature and Technology (1980-84), is to be celebrated on 3 December. The street party, with bratwurst and glühwein for the local residents, will be the crowning moment of a four-year operation costing €800,000. Its message is not overtly political, which may have been a factor in its survival, says Oliver Sukrow, an expert in East German art who has conducted extensive research into the mosaic. “A lot of buildings have been torn down in the last three decades, and usually the art has gone with them,” Sukrow says. Among the many murals that have vanished is another work by Renau with a more pointed political message that once adorned a canteen in Halle-Neustadt, he says. “In the 1990s, the value of the art was not understood; people didn’t consider the quality and looked at it through an ideological lens.” The Erfurt leisure centre whose facade the mosaic originally covered became a shopping centre after the fall of the wall. In a district of the city characterised by the featureless concrete high-rise blocks favoured by East German planners, it slipped into a slow decline. An investor stepped in to buy the building, planning to pull it down and construct a new mall on the site. Under pressure from local activists and students of Renau, the mosaic was placed under heritage protection, sawn from the wall and stored in a container in 2009, and the building was demolished in 2013. It remained in a depot until the Stuttgart-based Wüstenrot Foundation, owned by a financial services company, stepped in with funding to restore it. The foundation specialises in projects related to art and architecture that is underappreciated–recent examples include a campaign to save Brutalist buildings around the world. “We find it more exciting to work on things that are undiscovered,” says Philipp Kurz, the managing director of the Wüstenrot Foundation. For Kurz, one of the most fascinating aspects of the project has been investigating the biography of Renau, whose work is more highly valued in his native Spain than in Germany. Born in Valencia in 1907, he was a culture official in the Republican government responsible for overseeing the famous Spanish pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition in 1937, where Picasso’s Guernica was first shown. Forced to flee Spain after Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War, Renau lived in exile in Mexico. There he met important exponents of Mexican muralism, including David Alfaro Siqueiros By the time Renau moved to East Germany in 1958, the appetite for such art had diminished somewhat. The Erfurt mosaic, the most important of his commissions, was completed in 1984, after his death. The new shopping mall where the work has been reinstalled is lower and smaller than the original building, so the mosaic had to be mounted on a specially made concrete structure about a metre in front of the façade. But Tobias Knoblich, the Erfurt city official in charge of culture, has no doubt that the expense and toil have been worthwhile. “People liked the mosaic,” he says. “It was a part of the local identity. So much was lost after the fall of the wall in terms of cultural infrastructure that districts like this became quite lifeless. People feel thankful that the positive aspects of East Germany are slowly being acknowledged.” The Erfurt project is “important, and above all, pioneering,” says Martin Maleschka, an architect from the eastern German city of Cottbus. He has documented dozens of threatened East German murals, mosaics and other architectural art of the era in photographs and published them in a book. Among those in danger, he says, are a mural by Ronald Paris in Rostock that has almost faded away and a ceramic work by Carl-Heinz Westenburger on a swimming pool in Oberwiesenthal. “There is a new generation that grew up far from the ideology of the German Democratic Republic and values the art and architecture of GDR Modernism for its quality and craftsmanship,” says Maleschka, who was seven when the country ceased to exist. “I hope very much that more works in eastern German public spaces will be rescued.” Acting on Maleschka’s advice, the Wüstenrot Foundation has made a commitment to save at least one more: an abstract mural by Karl-Heinz Adler and Friedrich Kracht in the foyer of the town hall in Plauen. The foundation remains open to further similar projects, Kurz says. news31 May 2019Exhibition resurrects East Germany's demolished Palast der RepublikKunsthalle Rostock remembers Berlin's asbestos-riddled parliament building and culture hub Packaging can be a great help to protect items during transportation providing information and showcasing its content they are a growing problem due to their use of resources and waste often with difficulties to dispose or recycle During this public sustainable packaging symposium at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle we brought together manufacturers of sustainable packaging alternatives a sustainable entrepreneur and zero waste store representative to discuss the current status and future outlook of more sustainable packaging design Besides sharing existing solutions and discussing new developments with the public this symposium was the starting point for a three-day packaging prototyping workshop at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle in collaboration with its startup center Designhaus Halle Material Market: Exhibition of sustainable packaging materials Room: Burg Material Collection (1st floor Symposium: Lectures (English) followed by Q&A with the audience Speakers: Krown – Jan Berbee Aart van Bezooijen Room: Seminar Room (ground floor Krown Krown is a biotech company that makes products with Mycelium and organic waste. Krown’s primary markets are interiors, packaging and building materials. With Krown’s mycelium composites, many plastics can be replaced with fully natural and home compostable alternatives. Krown is located in Hilversum with production facilities in Hedel, The Netherlands. krown.bio DYCLE DYCLE is building communities around parents and babies This is a fundamentally new way of how baby diapers are produced when they are no longer a waste but a nutrient for plants Abgefüllt Zero waste stores enable the purchase of loose goods in order to avoid packaging waste. Customers can bring their own containers to purchase the loose assortment, which are filled independently in the store. Abgefüllt is the first zero waste store based in Halle (Saale). abgefuellt-halle.de NaKu NaKu uses a corn-based starch compound to produce breathable fresh-storage bags and beverage bottles. NaKu bottles use a starch-based Polylactic acid (PLA) as raw material based on cornstarch. NaKu processes its compounds with injection molding, film blowing, extrusion and thermoforming. NaKu is based in Wiener Neustadt, Austria. naku.at Please visit issuu.com to see the presentation slides online Burg Material Collection Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Neuwerk 7 06108 Halle (Saale) Email: material@burg-halle.de Website: burg-halle.de/unboxing You must be logged in to post a comment German photographer’s solo exhibition at Berlinische Galerie draws to a close we revisit our editor-in-chief’s recommendation—originally published in our Spring 2013 print magazine—of Zielony’s photo book Story/No Story 2003 (courtesy of Tobias Zielony and KOW Berlin) In John Carpenter’s 1976 film Assault on Precinct 13 an ultra-violent street gang lays siege to a remote police station in a vast Los Angeles wasteland of neon and streetlights this low budget classic focuses on the tension between angry teenagers and society The same can be said of German photographer Tobias Zielony’s haunting shot at night in The City of Angels (and lights) Bookended by two images of palm trees and the Pacific Ocean you can’t tell for sure if the teenagers Zielony recurrently portrays are posing for him as if they were being cast or if posing is simply an important part of figuring out teenage identity Zielony’s young subjects seem drawn to sources of light like moths and in the artificial glow of gas station signage or out on the streets seem reminiscent of characters from Carpenter’s film these kids seem to be waiting for a moment that never will come had set out to portray young people all over the world England and the eastern German city of Halle to Marseille on the French Mediterranean with the protagonists becoming a global community of nocturnal youth searching for meaning on the geographical and social fringes of their respective urban environments Zielony is highly aware of the cinematic quality of his images though he insists that they evoke numerous possible narratives As he explains to German director Christian Petzold in a conversation featured in the catalogue: “There’s a latent narrative But you can say nothing would be captured without the artificial light He has credited everything from classic film noir to Walter Hill’s The Warriors to Richard C Sarafian’s almost forgotten 1971 thriller Vanishing Point as artistic points of reference in that regard These alternately shadowy and glaring atmospheres are particularly present in the series shot in Halle-Neustadt one of the most impressive and prominent sections of Story/No Story the sense of “plot” in these images is heightened by the gigantic housing projects and oversized Stalinist avenues which resemble the abandoned set of a dystopian science fiction movie manifestations of an abandoned political reality the center of Zielony’s focus is always the teenager: lighting a cigarette or staring into the night and waiting for something to happen Story/No Story is a brilliant and comprehensive collection of a decade’s worth of portraits and was originally the accompanying catalogue for an exhibition at the Kunstverein Hamburg held in 2010 In light of the Berlinische Galerie’s upcoming Zielony retrospective in June I thought I’d take the chance to recommend a book that is important—and This text first appeared first in Electronic Beats Magazine N° 33 (1, 2013). Read the full issue on issuu.com or in the embed below. You can view more of Zielony’s work here retargeting and for playing out personalized content and advertising on Telekom sites and third-party sites including information on data processing by third-party providers and the possibility of revocation can be found in the settings and in our privacy information Here you can continue only with the necessary tools Accept all Continue with necessary Detailed privacy preferences You can give your consent to categories or display further information and select specific cookies.