East Berlin Photo 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. 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. Here you can see a small selection of objects. Using the "Search" you will find all digitalised parts of the archive.