Boring postcards - DDR

These two pictures are from a book in our library entitled DDR Postkarten containing about 400 postcards from the old GDR or East Germany, nearly all of which qualify for the Boring Postcards category!

It seems the communist authorities there were particularly proud of their numerous ugly Plattenbau buildings (a large number of which are today being demolished and replaced)!  Entertaining for us now, you can't help but feel sorry for the people who had to endure these drab streetscapes on a daily basis.  And it wasn't just the buildings, in the Neubrandenburg scene you see in the foreground the ubiquitous communist paving slabs:  shabbily made and often poorly laid with inadequate substrate, they often cracked and acquired odd angles which could cause you a twisted ankle if you didn't carefully watch your step. There are still plenty of them.

Fortunately the towns featured in these examples, Halle and Neubrandenburg, are nicer nowadays than they look here.

Halle, Ernst-Thälmann-Platz and Hochstrasse (1975)

Neubrandenburg, Karl-Marz-Platz (1982)