Remaking the Landscape

Programme Outline

00.00-01.16	Images of derelict, lunar landscape near Leipzig’s old lignite mines
01.16-02.35	Commentary and dramatic shots of the immense equipment used in mining lead into an explanation of why East Germany needed lignite (‘brown coal’). The scale of rehousing (47,000 people) and obliterating the previous landscape is described
02.35-04.45	Interview with Claudia Quellmalz, who tells how her village came close to being destroyed. Elderly residents hanged themselves rather than move. The situation changed when East Germany collapsed and communism ended in 1989. The state-controlled mining came to an end. Claudia and her partner are now rebuilding their farm
04.45-06.40	Both long term residents and newcomers like the quiet rural life with its lack of crime and noise. Karsten Hiller finds lots of reconstruction work to do in the village of Dreiskau Muckern – he’s a carpenter. Socially, too, the village is coming alive again
06.40-08.10	In urban areas, such as nearby Leipzig, reconstruction is taking place rapidly. Plagwitz district was especially bad. After it was abandoned, the environment just deteriorated because old-fashioned industrial sites weren’t modernised by former East Germany. Houses and factories burnt masses of brown coal. The air and water pollution was terrible
08.10-11.00	Major rejuvenation is now taking place on a huge scale. New ventures, conventional and less orthodox, are springing up everywhere
11.00-12.50	Large-scale modernisation is located outside the whole city. For example, the new Siemens factory is near the ring road, the suburban railway station and the airport. There is cheap land and labour. It is highly automated and very efficient
12.50-16.15	One unfortunate result is unemployment – something unheard of when East Germany was a communist country. The brown coal industry now has 3 mines, not 21. There are strict environmental and safety controls so 53,000 workers have been replaced by 2,500, and by ever more efficient machines
16.15-18.44	Andreas Günther, a senior engineer with the new company, explains how mining has to be environmentally responsible as well as very efficient. He explains how power stations will not always rely on lignite. More people are now employed in relandscaping with lakes, leisure facilities, woodlands and access routes – transformation has already begun
18.44-End	Credits