Overview

Uncleared roads, frozen pipes, district heating breakdowns: winter regularly posed problems for the GDR leadership. From the mid-1960s, the GDR leadership set up a central, state-organized winter service. Entire workforces were seconded from the factories to help their colleagues from the snow clearance service or VEB Stadtwirtschaft. But how did the population cope with the pitfalls and challenges of winter? How was the much-vaunted socialist community really experienced during collective snow shoveling? And what experiences from everyday life remain in our memories to this day?