The Last Witness of East Berlin: Faces of the passing era

In 1981, German photographer Harf Zimmermann moved into a five-story building without an elevator in East Berlin on the Hufelandstrasse. The area was a kind of anomaly in the city: beautiful facades and balconies of buildings, green lime trees along wide sidewalks and a huge number of private shops.

However, by 1985, the collapsing balconies were removed, and in 1987 the last lime trees growing on the ground poisoned by gas leaks were cut down. Harf Zimmermann, feeling that he was involuntarily becoming the last witness of what would soon disappear forever, went outside with a camera and began to shoot.

"It seemed that everyone felt a special connection with this place and a certain responsibility for it, acting by tacit consent and working to preserve their colorful island in a sea of dullness and monotony," Zimmermann recalls.

Rock band Phonolog.

At the corner of Hufelandstrasse and Betzstrasse.

The state butcher shop Wild Geflügel.

Mr. and Mrs. Fleischer with the dog Putzi.

Electricians.

Bull Terrier Rocky in front of a 1936 Mercedes.

Zimmerman's neighbor Frau Tepfer with her grandson Rene.

Frau Behr (center) with her daughter, granddaughter and her friend on the 38th anniversary of the founding of the GDR.

The bride and groom Dressler celebrate the wedding on the day of the 750th anniversary of Berlin.

Students.

A student nicknamed Student.

Workers of the cooperative "Berlin flowers".

From left to right: Beata with her daughter Henrietta, friend Mathias with her son Gregor and their daughter Lilly together.

Ingeborg with her son, grandson and grandmother.

Margot Schultz, a retired disabled person, with three of her 14 children.