Heinz Trökes represents so-called Berlin Post-War Surrealism more strikingly than any other artist. He worked in a completely different way, however, to the famous Salvador Dalí, for instance. Classic Surrealists like Dalí explored the subconscious in order to create strange, surreal worlds on canvas that did not exist in external reality. But Trökes was referring to a surrealism that could literally be found “on the streets” after the war. The obscure beings, building blocks and elements of walls or fences in his paintings resulted from the re-arrangement of things he had actually seen. Shifting spatial boundaries, cut-off tiled floors, and broken structures corresponded to the reality in a totally bombed-out Berlin after 1945. And even when he piled up apparently incompatible elements this was a reflection of early attempts to improvise useful objects from parts of the ruins.