It was once the iron heart of the city, a huge company with thousands of workers repairing and maintaining locomotives. The state railway repair shop (Reichsbahn Ausbesserungs Werk RAW) "Ernst Thälmann" in the East German town Halle, named after the old German Reichsbahn, was a state-owned company or - official - peoples owned (VEB) that the East German government named after the workers' leader Thälmann, murdered by the Nazis.
Inside the huge area, with a total area of over 30,000 square meters, the workers received dark, oily halls at the height days of the company, in which hammers boomed, puddles of oil sloshed and endless columns of men in blue work clothes worked on locomotives under large crane runways. As kids we have to work in this hell of a nightmare two days a months - if you have survived this challange you never will back.
But we do because we want to see what remained. Until the 1990s nothing had changed in the work processes in the plant, which was built in 1910 by the Royal Prussian State Railroad.
More than a dozen halls and countless outbuildings in which the administrative employees sat, transformed the plant, located in the middle of the city, into a real maze for the uninitiated. Shunting locomotives and light railcars drove in and repaired, the 2,000 workers welded, soldered, forged and sawed on oversized gears, pressure vessels and the steel wheels of the locomotives. On nearly every working place were a bottle of alcohol, they are drinking beer while work and nearly everyone was smoking, everytime.
The end came in the mid-1990s. All factory halls were shut down, the locksmiths, welders and administrative employees lost their jobs, the huge halls were nailed up, the ravages of time took in command.
Trees grew, hedges erupted from the earth, some halls were demolished, and in the ten surviving moss and grass grew from the poisoned soil. Young artists eventually discovered the site and began using it as a studio. Everywhere today there are grafittis on the towering walls. Even some remaining machines, which were too big to be kidnapped by illegal scrap hunters and turned into money, have been brightly painted.
A quarter of a century later, however, the traces of decay are unmistakable. Walls are crumbling, the glazed roofs have holes, floors have collapsed. But the former splendor of the wonderful brick buildings can still be guessed at. Like ghosts of a long forgotten time they stood quiet in their own grave. Birds flying over the visitors, water is dripping from the roof. Someone has left a lonely chair in one of the big halls, in another one you can find a bunch of private papers, payrolls and a few of sex catalogues.
There are big plans for the area in the future. At some point a small Silicon Valley will be created here, which will combine modern jobs and modern living in a completely new city district.
What will then remain of the legacy of industrial history is open.