We have another edition of “Around the World in Trams” and we stay back in 1979 over the other side of the wall in East Germany.
The DDR wasn’t always the grey and gloomy place of popular imagination, as depicted in countless films and novels. The centre of Rostock had undergone some tasteful renovation and Gotha 59 is seen on the way through Neuer Markt, heading from Marienehe to the Hauptbahnhof. The power car and its two trailers are all well-patronised.
The church in the background is the Lutheran Marienkirche, dating from the 13th century. Private car usage could not be entirely dismissed even in the 1970s as several eastern European models are parked in the market square.
Photograph by Donald Brooks, 11th August 1979