Cars - GDR: books - history and models

Roads of Eastern Europe: Cars, trucks, buses and trains - the legendary vehicles of the Eastern Bloc

The former Eastern Bloc is often perceived as a gray region with prefabricated buildings, and its four-wheeled products are usually compared to shoe boxes. Klaus Schameitat decided to abolish these prejudices by presenting us with the exceptional variety of vehicles developed behind the iron curtain, some of which still exist today. To achieve this, he not only traveled to the former GDR, but he also visited almost all the countries of the Eastern Bloc for more than 40 years.

Big, American-looking sedans come across rear-engined air-cooled curiosities, monstrous transport vehicles dream of a better life on a scrapyard, and a Wartburg races against a Zuk van - but not on the road: both vehicles were converted into draisines. In this beautiful photo book, the East is represented as an unusual, colorful, elegant, and sometimes simply astonishing region.

The highlights: more than 800 documentary photos, mostly of everyday cars, concise model descriptions, a wide variety of cars, trucks, buses and trains of all kinds from more than 60 manufacturers, photographed in 20 Eastern European countries, classified by country, with informative maps and introductory texts. Appendices include abbreviations and the main products of the manufacturers.

Product details

Author:	Klaus Schameitat
Details:	224 pages, 27.5 x 22.5 cm / 10.8 x 8.9 in, hardback
Illustrations:	800+ b&w and colour photos
Publisher:	Delius Klasing Verlag GmbH (D, 2018)
ISBN:	9783667113238

So fuhr der Osten

The Wartburg and Trabi have remained in our memories. But that was by no means everything: the range of models of vehicles from the GDR and the former Eastern Bloc countries was much more diverse than many people would like to admit today. Who still remembers GDR tractors and transport vehicles, holidays in Hungary in GDR caravans, Eastern mopeds and motorcycles?

Klaus Schameitat makes the models from back then visible. He is a specialist in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. For almost 40 years he has been researching and travelling the countries that used to lie behind the Iron Curtain. He is particularly interested in the everyday lives of the people. That is why he has documented numerous treasures that have long since disappeared from the streets.

In this book, Eastern road cruisers with US influences meet air-cooled curiosities with rear engines. Monstrous transport vehicles dream of better times in a scrap yard, a Trabant 601 shines in new splendour and a Wartburg fights for every meter with a Zuk van - on the rails, mind you, because both were converted into draisines.
The vehicles in this illustrated book are bizarre, colourful, beautifully designed, but sometimes just amazing.

Product details

Author:	Klaus Schameitat
Details:	224 pages, 27.5 x 22.5 cm / 10.8 x 8.9 in, hardback
Illustrations:	numerous b&w and colour photos
Publisher:	Delius Klasing Verlag GmbH (D, 2017)
ISBN:	9783667112316

Deutsche Autos - Personenwagen und Nutzfahrzeuge in der DDR

So much for just Trabant and Wartburg. Anyone who thinks that only these two cars waved their two-stroke flag in the GDR is seriously mistaken. There was certainly a lot of variety in the street scene of the workers' and farmers' state.

In the passenger car sector, for example, there were the F8, F9 and P70 models from IFA or EMW from Awtowelo, as well as cars from neighboring Eastern European countries.
For trucks, there were models such as Horch, Framo or Barkas, again supplemented by trucks from neighbors.

Michael Dünnebier and Eberhard Kittler describe all of these vehicles and even more, with their history and technology, and illustrate them with around 600 images.

Product details

Author:	Eberhard Kittler, Michael Dünnebier
Details:	320 pages, 26.5 x 23 cm / 10.4 x 9.1 in, hardback
Illustrations:	120 b&w and 436 colour photos
Publisher:	Motorbuch Verlag (D, 2017)
ISBN:	9783613040007

DDR-Fahrzeuge Album: Personenwagen, Lastwagen und Omnibusse

The author describes all model series of cars, trucks and buses that were produced in the GDR between 1945 and 1990. 360 images from factory publications and private photo albums show the vehicles in their contemporary environment.

From the contents:
- Dresden: Melkus RS 1000
- Eisenach: EMW, Wartburg
- Gera: Fleischer buses
- Hainichen / Karl-Marx-Stadt: Framo, Barkas, P2 M, P3
- Leipzig: EKF 1200 electric delivery van
- Ludwigsfelde: IFA W50, L60
- Magdeburg: Tramp special transporter
- Sebnitz: Sebnitz hoisting equipment factory
- Waltershausen: Multicar
- Werdau: Horch, Sachsenring S 4000, H6, G5, H6 B
- Zittau: Phänomen, Robur
- Zwickau: IFA F8/F9, AWZ P70, Trabant, Sachsenring

Product details

Author:	Bernd Regenberg
Details:	128 pages, 28 x 21 cm / 11 x 8.25 in, hardback
Illustrations:	360 b&w and colour photos
Publisher:	Verlag Podszun (D, 2009)
ISBN:	9783861335146

Fahrzeug-Geheimnisse der DDR - Erfinder, Tüftler & Enthusiasten und - ihre erstaunlichen Projekte

Lots of new or forgotten things from GDR history for those interested in technology: There was much more than just Trabi or Wartburg.
Admittedly, most of it had to be improvised. In addition, inventions and developments took place in backyards or garages. But the results were exciting, even if they often did not make it into series production and were often only known to insiders.
Examples are Trabis with 80 hp, a car with three engines, the airplane with a Trabant engine. Then there were "rag tires", the secret mission Riga and, and, and.

Product details

Author:	Harald Täger
Details:	160 pages, 25.5 x 19 x 1.7 cm / 10 x 7.5 x 0.67 in, hardback
Illustrations:	200 b&w and colour photos
Publisher:	GeraMond Verlag (D, 2022)
ISBN:	9783964532817

Straßen der DDR - Wie es war zwischen Elbe und Oder unmittelbar nach dem Mauerfall

The tourist who travels through the eastern states today really sees them: flourishing landscapes with restored cities, renewed roads, industrial settlements and a modern infrastructure.
In the spring of 1990, when the photographs for this book were taken, the legacy of the past was still clearly visible: houses that had not been renovated since the 1930s, cobbled streets, wasteland. The GDR as it was no longer exists, even in its external appearance.
It is therefore of great historical value that the state of the east was captured in pictures immediately after the "change", before the excavators and construction machines, the craftsmen and road builders, the speculators and supermarket chains came and completely changed the landscape in many places.

In April/May 1990, Michael Krone, a qualified and renowned industrial photographer, had the brilliant idea of traveling through the collapsing GDR and documenting the condition of the streets, squares, tracks and waterways between Tangermünde and Berlin, Leipzig and Dresden, Potsdam and Zwickau, as it still presented itself in an unadulterated way: the dilapidated infrastructure, the two-stroke cars of the IFA, Trabant and Wartburg brands, the motorcycles, the trucks, the trams, freight wagons, river ferries. And of course the people who, feeling their new freedom, looked more or less hopefully into the future.

In 2019 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9 1989, an upgraded new edition of the award-winning photo collection first published in 2008 was released. An essay by the successful Dresden author Peter Richter enriches the volume. "Streets of the GDR" is an unbiased look at the reality of a state that no longer exists, on 240 pages and with the help of around 400 selected photos.

Product details

Author:	Michael Krone
Details:	240 pages, 28.5 x 25 cm / 11.2 x 9.8 in, hardback
Illustrations:	396 b&w and colour photos
Publisher:	Delius Klasing Verlag GmbH (D, 2019)
ISBN:	9783667116635

Traumauto Volkswagen - Wie Käfer, Golf und Bulli in die DDR kamen

NEW

The VW Golf was officially available in the GDR in small numbers at the end of the 1970s, which made it popular, but only a few were lucky enough to get their hands on one. In the following years, other cult models such as the Beetle and the T1 Bulli conquered East Germany. But at what price?
The Volkswagen cars were considered absolute dream cars in the socialist workers' and farmers' state. It was only during the fall of the Berlin Wall that modern four-stroke engines replaced the gas-guzzling two-stroke engines in the Trabant and Wartburg.

Eberhard Kittler, an expert on the GDR and VW, has researched the history of this unique connection using numerous previously undiscovered documents and illustrated them with exclusive, largely unpublished images.

Product details

Author:	Eberhard Kittler
Details:	256 pages, 28.5 x 21.5 x 2.1 cm / 11.2 x 8.5 x 0.83 in, hardback
Illustrations:	380 b&w and colour photos
Publisher:	Motorbuch Verlag (D, 2024)
ISBN:	9783613046405