Video of travel in the former East Germany in 1985

[cpzilliacus]

What was the dialog with the police officer about?

That drivers on East Germany highways should not consume any alcohol at all.  According to that cop, the limit there was 0.00%

[cpzilliacus]

Fascinating stuff! Wonder if they have trouble getting the Dodge van repaired?

The Dodge van was not actually broken-down.  The reporters from Sweden wanted to see what happened when they used an East Germany call box to summon help.

[firefly]

What you all seem to know about a country you have barely seen from inside. It's amazing.

What did we get wrong?

Stone sett paving was very much the norm in urban Germany between the World Wars, and in fact it was used for some lengths of Reichsautobahnen.  (In his memoirs, Albert Speer implies this was done to get rid of a surplus of stone blocks which resulted from a failed experiment in having concentration camp prisoners produce industrial-sized quantities of building stone.)  But after the Germans lost World War II and the Reich was split into the two German republics, it was West Germany which had the money to pave city streets in asphalt beginning in the 1950's.  East Germany did not have a chance to catch up until after unification, but nowadays it is hard to find stone sett paving (other than as an accent in areas of special touristic interest, such as the old city center in Dresden) in the former East.  When I visited Berlin in summer 2010, I didn't see ordinary stone sett paving anywhere except in Oranienburg (which I passed through en route to Sachsenhausen concentration camp) and possibly in Humboldthain in Berlin itself.

You can't have seen much of Berlin and Germany when you haven't even recognised stone sett paved streets. They can still be found all over the country, in east and west, in towns and villages, virtually everywhere off the main roads.

Just a few examples:
Dresden-Neustadt, Berlin-Kreuzberg, Hamburg-Altona

[J N Winkler]

You can't have seen much of Berlin and Germany when you haven't even recognised stone sett paved streets. They can still be found all over the country, in east and west, in towns and villages, virtually everywhere off the main roads.

Just a few examples:

Dresden-Neustadt, Berlin-Kreuzberg, Hamburg-Altona

Many thanks for the extracts, which have allowed me to broaden my horizons.

And fair cop:  I admit it is wrong for me to say stone sett paving is "hard to find" and thereby imply that it is rare in any absolute sense.  But actually the examples you furnish substantiate my point in an indirect way, since none of those locations would receive much, if any, traffic from casual visitors.  The one that is closest to where I have been is in Dresden-Neustadt, and is a five-minute walk from the Neustadt railway station (which I used often while I was in Dresden) and a ten-minute walk from where I was staying (in Erna-Berger-Strasse).  I could have stumbled on it easily enough if I had walked past the station and under the railway line, but there was never any reason for me to do so.  That neighborhood is not on the way to any places of touristic interest (which, in Dresden, are concentrated in the Altstadt to the south), and I was not in town long enough to engage in urban exploration.

Similarly, the Kreuzberg example is quite far south of the principal tourist attraction in that borough, the Jewish Museum near Hallesches Tor, and although it is in a residential estate not far north of Tempelhof Airport (which I have personally never visited but would like to since it is of architectural interest), it is not on any logical route a tourist would take to the airport from a central Berlin location.  Just now I dropped the Google Maps pin man in a few random locations in Kreuzberg (and possibly Tempelhof-Schöneberg since Google Maps does not render Berlin borough boundaries) and in each case the streets were paved in asphalt or Portland cement concrete.

The Hamburg StreetView extract shows a residential neighborhood and, panning around, I see a building heavily covered in graffiti.  I think it is a squat.  Again, a tourist would be unlikely to end up there unless he or she were using something like Airbnb to couch-surf and had a very marked countercultural sensibility.

[firefly]

East Germany was a very poor nation when compared to the Federal Republic of Germany.

Which says more about West Germany than the East. West Germany made virtually every country look poor.

[firefly]

Similarly, the Kreuzberg example is quite far south of the principal tourist attraction in that borough, the Jewish Museum near Hallesches Tor, and although it is in a residential estate not far north of Tempelhof Airport (which I have personally never visited but would like to since it is of architectural interest), it is not on any logical route a tourist would take to the airport from a central Berlin location.  Just now I dropped the Google Maps pin man in a few random locations in Kreuzberg (and possibly Tempelhof-Schöneberg since Google Maps does not render Berlin borough boundaries) and in each case the streets were paved in asphalt or Portland cement concrete.

I only know these sett paved streets in Kreuzberg because they are just around the corner of Columbiahalle, a well-known concert venue. I was looking there for parking space more than once. So this area has a certain touristic value as well.

[Brandon]

East Germany was a very poor nation when compared to the Federal Republic of Germany.

Which says more about West Germany than the East. West Germany made virtually every country look poor.

It made every Eastern Bloc country look very poor.  France, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium, the UK also made the Eastern Bloc look poor.  East Germany was one of the worse off of the Eastern Bloc countries, from what I understand, due to the early brain drain to the west and the treatment they received from the USSR (as retribution for WWII).

[english si]

East Germany was one of the worse off of the Eastern Bloc countries, from what I understand, due to the early brain drain to the west and the treatment they received from the USSR (as retribution for WWII).

Actually it was considerably richer than the other USSR vassal states (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia).

In 1990, average (mean) East German persons had about two thirds of the wealth of average (mean) West German persons. That makes the difference similar to that of Poland to Germany today. Poland isn't that poor, but isn't that rich either.

[cpzilliacus]

East Germany was one of the worse off of the Eastern Bloc countries, from what I understand, due to the early brain drain to the west and the treatment they received from the USSR (as retribution for WWII).

Actually it was considerably richer than the other USSR vassal states (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia).

In 1990, average (mean) East German persons had about two thirds of the wealth of average (mean) West German persons. That makes the difference similar to that of Poland to Germany today. Poland isn't that poor, but isn't that rich either.

Let's put it this way - most of the former Soviet empire satellite states of Eastern Europe are much better off without being under the yoke of Stalinism. 

I visited Estonia (which had been forcibly and formally annexed by the Soviet Union after World War II) about 5 or 6 years after they broke away from the Soviet Union, and the recovery there was pretty impressive.

[english si]

Oh yes.

And Estonia is still rather poor by Western European standards, which just shows how crappy life in the outlying republics of the USSR was (and still is in rather a lot of them).

But the East Germans did much better than most under communism.

[agentsteel53]

nowadays it is hard to find stone sett paving (other than as an accent in areas of special touristic interest, such as the old city center in Dresden) in the former East. 

is this stone sett?



exit ramp from Poland highway 18, between Legnica and Cottbus.  photo taken November, 2011.  from what I can tell, this is original 1943 Reichsautobahn construction.

true, this is not former East Germany proper...

[J N Winkler]

is this stone sett?

[Photo snipped]

Yup, it is.

exit ramp from Poland highway 18, between Legnica and Cottbus.  photo taken November, 2011.  from what I can tell, this is original 1943 Reichsautobahn construction.

Are you sure about 1943?  There was very little construction activity after 1942.  This length of Reichsautobahn would not have been extraterritorial since Legnica (German name:  Liegnitz) was within the borders of the Reich as they existed in 1933.

[agentsteel53]

Are you sure about 1943?  There was very little construction activity after 1942.

no, I'm not.  I just pegged 1943 as probably the latest year it could have been built.

it's extraterritorial to the 1949-1990 state called East Germany, thus it isn't technically stone sett found in the former East, but I figured "close enough"!

[firefly]

true, this is not former East Germany proper...

It actually is in former East Germany.

[J N Winkler]

It actually is in former East Germany.

This length of Reichsautobahn was entirely on German soil when it was built (probably before the start of World War II), yes, but the photo location is in Poland now--the direction signs visible in the distance are done to Polish standards.  (In 1945 the German border in this area was moved westward to the Oder-Neisse line and Silesia was transferred to Poland.)

A quick reconnaissance of the available Google StreetView imagery for this length of Reichsautobahn in Poland shows that at least one carriageway still has the original 1930's half cross-section and Portland cement concrete pavement, except in isolated places where blowouts and other pavement failures have been repaired with asphaltic concrete.  In most places the other carriageway appears to have been reconstructed to the more modern half cross-section that is used for Polish motorways.  This location is typical:

A18 near Dolnoslaskie, Poland

However, the roadside safety hardware, glare screens (where used), and fencing are all modern.  The Reichsautobahnen were originally unfenced.  To Americans now, and even back in the 1930's and 1940's when the US was pioneering its own freeways, this seems like sheer lunacy, but at the time the Germans thought it would be sufficient to apply a legal duty to pastoralists to ensure that their animals never wandered onto the Autobahn.  I am not sure when the fencing was erected (presumably by the Polish highway authorities), but in some locations it is so close to the traveled way that I suspect at least some of it encroaches on the clear zone.

Stone sett paving was fairly extensively used on ramps at Autobahn service interchanges but its use as a paving material for the mainline was much less common.  I have copies of photographs of some examples which the British took as part of reconnaissance tours in occupied Germany after the war, but I don't know if any of the involved lengths still retain that pavement type.  Some of the locations the British photographed, such as stone setts warped around bridge abutments that had experienced differential settlement, would have been reconstructed out of existence in very short order.

[agentsteel53]

A quick reconnaissance of the available Google StreetView imagery for this length of Reichsautobahn in Poland shows that at least one carriageway still has the original 1930's half cross-section and Portland cement concrete pavement, except in isolated places where blowouts and other pavement failures have been repaired with asphaltic concrete.  In most places the other carriageway appears to have been reconstructed to the more modern half cross-section that is used for Polish motorways. 

you are correct.  more photos can be found here:

https://www.aaroads.com/blog/2012/06/07/the-last-reichsautobahn/

in that post, I listed 1938 as the year of construction.  I don't remember where I got that figure (Chris?  Justin Cozart?) but it seems more plausible than 1943, when the German planners had more immediate things to worry about.

[J N Winkler]

in that post, I listed 1938 as the year of construction.  I don't remember where I got that figure (Chris?  Justin Cozart?) but it seems more plausible than 1943, when the German planners had more immediate things to worry about.

It might have opened as early as 1937.  I have a photograph of a New Year's greeting card sent out by Fritz Todt (who was then General Inspector for German Roads) in late 1936, and it has a map showing that the Cottbus-Breslau length of the Berlin-Breslau Reichsautobahn was to be open by the end of 1937.  A map attached to the report (dated January 1938) of the German Roads Delegation, a British body which travelled to Germany in the autumn of 1937 to observe the Autobahnen, shows as already open most of the length that is currently in Poland.  An ADAC map showing the Autobahn network as of April 30, 1938 shows the length from Ilowa (Halbau) east to Wroclaw (Breslau) already open to traffic.

The failed Soviet invasion didn't altogether stop the German planners' pipe dreams--around 1943, British intelligence heard of a tentative plan to build a Maltese cross stack (similar to the then planned Four Level Interchange in Los Angeles) in occupied Czechoslovakia.  This would have been part of a planned Autobahn route between Vienna and Wroclaw which has not yet been developed in its entirety (there are missing lengths in both Poland and the Czech Republic).

[agentsteel53]

when was the four-level interchange first designed?  it seems like a fairly intuitive next step after the cloverleaf for a full grade separation.  I'm guessing it was on someone's drawing board by the 20s.

[J N Winkler]

when was the four-level interchange first designed?  it seems like a fairly intuitive next step after the cloverleaf for a full grade separation.  I'm guessing it was on someone's drawing board by the 20s.

That is kind of hard to say, because the Maltese cross stack isn't really the intuitive next step--rather, that is the fully directional interchange, for which probably the most classic example is I-94/M-10 in Detroit.  In order to know that a Maltese cross stack is better than a fully directional interchange, you need a sophisticated enough understanding of traffic operations to appreciate why left exits and entrances are bad.  The District 7 engineers responsible for the Four Level were aware that it was better to have traffic leave and join from the right, and said so in a 1944 CHPW article, but that intuition took a long time to percolate through the traffic engineering profession.  I-94/M-10 was built in the mid-1950's and many states (e.g., Wisconsin) showed a marked preference for directional designs in system interchanges.  (The original Marquette Interchange in Milwaukee, completed around 1965, was a directional design; its replacement is a stack/turban hybrid.)

The cloverleaf was patented in 1916, but was probably around long before that.  Hermann Uhlfelder (one of the prime movers behind HAFRABA) published a design for a directional interchange around 1931.  The earliest references to a Maltese cross stack I have found are in British and American documentation, both from the 1940's:  CHPW articles dealing with the planning of the Four Level (probably the oldest, written by S.V. Cortelyou, appeared in the May-June 1944 issue of CHPW), British intelligence's 1943 description of the planned "road star" in Czechoslovakia, and a design (suggested by a member of the public) for motorway-to-motorway interchanges in one of the British Ministry of Transport's highway design files.  The last two are not accompanied by plans and are poorly attested, so I can't exclude the possibility that other types of interchanges are being talked about that operate similarly to Maltese cross stacks, such as turbans or stack/turban hybrids.

[agentsteel53]

good point on the fully-directional.  I don't recall any in California offhand.  the only left freeway-to-freeway connections I can remember offhand are I-5/CA-710 and CA-15/CA-94, but those are not left exit for all movements.

a stack/turban hybrid

I hate to nag on typos, but I must point this one out, as it is the first one I have ever seen you make on the forum, ever, while referencing some fairly obscure terms in a number of languages.  it brings to an end a DiMaggio-esque achievement.

you meant turbine 

[NE2]

good point on the fully-directional.  I don't recall any in California offhand.  the only left freeway-to-freeway connections I can remember offhand are I-5/CA-710 and CA-15/CA-94, but those are not left exit for all movements.

East end of the Bay Bridge, especially in the old configuration.

I hate to nag on typos, but I must point this one out, as it is the first one I have ever seen you make on the forum, ever, while referencing some fairly obscure terms in a number of languages.  it brings to an end a DiMaggio-esque achievement.

you meant turbine 

this again...

Apparently turban is a valid alternate spelling for the interchange. I see it as a flow diagram for a turbine, but it's also a turban with the fabric wrapped around.

[agentsteel53]

Apparently turban is a valid alternate spelling for the interchange. I see it as a flow diagram for a turbine, but it's also a turban with the fabric wrapped around.

I never knew that.

I quickly googled "turban interchange" and it immediately asked if I meant "turbine interchange".  the only instance it came up with of "turban interchange" was ... you guessed it, JNW, several years ago on this very forum.

[NE2]

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=7262.msg162935#msg162935
Yeah, it's a load of shite.

[J N Winkler]

Apparently turban is a valid alternate spelling for the interchange. I see it as a flow diagram for a turbine, but it's also a turban with the fabric wrapped around.

I never knew that.

I quickly googled "turban interchange" and it immediately asked if I meant "turbine interchange".  the only instance it came up with of "turban interchange" was ... you guessed it, JNW, several years ago on this very forum.

I tried this just now with the same result.  However, expanding the search phrase to {turban interchange highway design} turns up usage examples which did not originate with me, such as this Wyoming DOT report on possible improvements to the I-25/I-80 interchange:

http://www.dot.state.wy.us/files/live/sites/wydot/files/shared/Public%20Affairs/research%20reports/I-25_I-80_Interchange_Report_070108.pdf

Edit:

I hate to nag on typos, but I must point this one out, as it is the first one I have ever seen you make on the forum, ever, while referencing some fairly obscure terms in a number of languages.  it brings to an end a DiMaggio-esque achievement.

Your words are kind, and I thank you for the compliment, but actually I have made numerous typos in the past, both here and in other forums.  Even if I don't get terminology wrong--which does happen--I compose most of my posts using a wireless keyboard, so I drop characters from time to time and don't always catch them in proofreading.

[agentsteel53]

I compose most of my posts using a wireless keyboard, so I drop characters from time to time and don't always catch them in proofreading.

now THAT would drive me batty. 

one of my biggest complaints about the iPhone is that characters typed too quickly in succession end up dropped.  the phone even makes the "click" noise acknowledging the keystroke (if the volume is turned to an appropriately vocal setting), but the keypress is flat out dropped sometime between there and ending up on screen.