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East Berlin Foto Archive

The photographic archive of the former East Berlin Ministerial Offices for Urban Development, Housing and Transport encompasses ca. 35.000 black and white photographs in the shape of original negatives and contact prints on annotated index cards.

Photograph by Gisela Dutschmann

[Translate to English:] Gisela Dutschmann, Alexanderplatz, 1970, aus dem Ostberliner Fotoarchiv

The collection is seen as an historically unique document of the architectural and urban development of East Berlin. A large number of the photographs were taken by Fritz Tiedemann (1915-2001) and Gisela Dutschmann (born 1933).

From 2003 to 2005, with assistance from the Getty Foundation Los Angeles, it was possible to scientifically index, inventorise and register the East Berlin photo archive on a database. The publication "Ost-Berlin und seine Bauten. Fotografien 1945-1990" documents a selection of the research findings. On the basis of this archive, in 2008 the museum produced the exhibition and publication “So weit kein Auge reicht. Berliner Panoramafotografien aus den Jahren 1949-1952”, which was one of the most popular and successful exhibitions ever shown by the Berlinische Galerie. The aim of digitalisation was to link the existent sets of data with scans of the index cards and photographs, and to make this unique archive accessible online.

East Berlin Photo Archive in Collection Online

East Berlin Photo Archive

in our Collection Online

The digitisation project was made possible by

Photography by Fritz Tiedemann, silver gelatin paper on paper, 18,5 x 24,6 cm

"As far as no Eye can see"

Panoramic Photographs of Berlin, 1949 – 1952
Exhibition at Berlinische Galerie (2.11.2008 – 16.2.2009)