Dresdner Seniorenakademie Wissenschaft und Kunst e.V. / EFOS-Projekt / VECU Alltagskultur

The "Genossenschaftssystem" and the Principle of Self-Help
The City post 1945 (All for one and one for all)

Dresden was one of the few German cities that were untroubled by the allied bombers until the beginning of 1945. Only the disastrous carpet bombing in February of 1945 was of catastrophic proportions for the city. The destruction of the city took place within nearly three months. The incredible damage caused by the bombings primarily effected the city centre and the living areas of the Neustadt, the Südvorstadt and Johannstadt and was continued across the southeast direction up until Gruna. Of about 222.000 apartments in Dresden 1944, 75.000 were completely destroyed.
7.000 were heavily hit, 81.000 slightly damaged.
Thus, only 48.000 apartments, which equal 21% of the total amount, endured the heavy bombings unharmed. If one compares the total number of Dresden's citizens in the deciding years from 1939 to 1945, the following picture can be derived:
In 1939, the city had 630.216 citizens, in the end of 1944 there were only 566.738 left. In April 1945, there were 368.519.
In total, the city of Dresden lost 41,5% of its inhabitants due to evacuation, escape, deportation and bombardment.
By the incorporation of Albertstadt, Dölzschen, Gittersee and Roßtal to the city of Dresden, the number of citizens rose to 397.676 in 1945. A comparison of these numbers and the amount of destroyed apartments displays the housing shortage during this time. This parlous situation, remaining houses and apartments had to be fairly allocated to those in need. In an emergency conference of the city council on January 5th in 1946, the housing office of Dresden was commissioned to create housing for 100.000 people as soon as possible. Therefore, the most important task was the reconstruction and security of the damaged houses.
In December of 1945, about 5.000 of slightly damaged and about 3000 heavily damaged houses were provisionarily reinstated. Since most of the male citizens were in war captivity, the biggest part of this most valued achievement came from women who helped rebuilding the city with their bare hands. Until the end of 1945, the people were busy removing rubble from streets and important traffic arteries. This work and the tremendous task to reinstate the buildings proved to be very difficult, particularly in respect to the lack of technological means. Only regular engines or steam engines ranging between 11 and 50 PS built in 1905 were available to the people. If one considers that all civilian motor trucks and passenger cars were taken for military use by the government in the early stages of WW2, the difficulties that people were facing during this hard time quickly come to light. Under these conditions, the removal of debris and rubble was later completed in 1958. However, many of the damaged single houses could only be broached in the following years.

On February 5th in 1946, 1st mayor of Dresden, Walter Weidauer, started an open competition for the "Großen Dresdner Aufbauplan", a plan that contained suggestions for the reconstruction of the city. The idea found a large echo by the citizens of Dresden and was answered by letters of simple people or even technical blueprints designed by skilled architects. The results were never rated, but exposed in an Exhibition on July 20th in 1946, called "Das neue Dresden" and located at the former city hall or todays "Olbrichtplatz". The presented ideas were in every matter comparable to those of other German cities.
Next to rather unrealistic fantasies, a compromise between traditional and modern art was looked for. In Spring 1946, Dresdens will to rebuild was opposed to hindrances of very large proportions.
In a council meeting on the 15th of May in 1946, Urban Development Councilor Dr. Conert identified a strong deterioration of the Construction Industry. Although 25% of the construction volume posed by the Soviet Occupation were already included to the plans, the reduction of construction suppliers and the coal deficit caused severe consequences for the businesses that still existed. This lead to a catastrophic decline in the cement supply of Dresden's reconstruction workers. In March 1946, 3.000 tons of cement dropped to 875 tons in April and then to 270 tons in May.
As a consequence, the city council declared a prohibition to build to be able to complete vital projects such as the construction of the Albertbrücke. From then on, the reconstruction of the urgently needed houses was on hold due to the lack of material.
Following the written series of the Academies of Arts the following original position can be found for Dresden: "In the western zones of occupation soon after the end of the war those influential planners piped up as experts, that formerly worked for prominent NS planning teams, e.g. the one of Albert Speers, his environment or other important architect's offices of Nazi institutions. In contrast, in the Soviet zone there was hardly any possibility for engaging in planning activities."

The founding years of the housing corporation in Dresden

In 1954 the cooperative house building was brought to live under a proletarian signature. The new state of the GDR developed a legal basis for the corporate Arbeiterwohnungsbau -AWG that took up the idea of personal responsibility and self- help that had manifested itself in the housing corporation from the turn of the century. Now, the nationally-owned enterprises were supposed to be the initiators and bearers of the cooperate idea.
In April 1954 in the Sachsenwerk Niedersedlitz at first an operating AWG was founded that later on was namely active in many parts of the city. It started in Leuben. The city assigned the Sachsenwerk AWG the area across the local city hall.
The Lilienthalstrasse Dresden became the first construction site of the AWG with a symbolic ground-breaking ceremony for 18 apartments on June 8th 1954. In the same year, the AWG chairman Karl Rimmelspacher wrote in a progress report: "Many things had to be done, that were entirely new to us. There was need for opening an account with a bank, to establish membership cards, to make building contracts, to get advice on structural engineering and so forth, the learning did not cease until this day. As there was no instruction we had to get through quite some trouble." It still demands respect that under these circumstances the first roofing ceremony took place on November 27th 1954 whereas the new AWG doubled the housing program and planned to build 36 Apartment s in the following year. On February 13th in 1956 the house magazine of the Sachsenwerk proudly reports about further success, the first buildings had been moved in and the living quarters in the Hetzstrasse were upgraded. A new AWG- building pit already showed up in the Lilienthalstrasse. In the meantime, the focus of interest had shifted.
The nationally-owned enterprise Bau (St.) had become another major institution of the corporation.
This city building authority, located in Striesen, made it possible to build the first projects of blocks built from debris faster in 1958. Type- buildings in the Dinglingerstrasse in the Johannsstadt marked the beginning of building close to the town centre. Here in Johannsstadt- Striessen the first AWGs construction neighborhood was developed as well as a second original corporation. Its founder Karl Horst Büttner recalls: "I was mechanical adjuster in the typewriter works and read in the newspaper, that the housing shortage was supposed to be ended by the AWGs. When I asked my production director he agreed, but somebody else should take care of that. The business's trade union was helpless. I got information about the basic modalities from several other sources. I soon realized: if this is supposed to work you got to take it into your own hands" Despite the fact that he had not the mandatory 35 signed declaration of accession Bütner took a risk and registered the AWG "Will of Iron" at the city council of the area. Signing the declaration of accession meant to agree to pay a 2,500 Mark worth of dues and to make a personal contribution of 700 hours on the construction site. Bütner had the will and swept along the others. He also gained a lot of support from his production manager. Soon, the first houses had been built in the Lipsiusstrasse, Henzestrasse, Comeniusstrasse and Dinglingerstrasse after the debris had been cleared off the building ground.
Hilde Koch, member of a cooperative, recalls:
"It was great luck then and godsend that I got an apartment in the Lipsiusstrasse 3 in 1958. We lived there for 39 happy years. My memories from the first years are quite positive. We all were colleagues from the typewriter and sewing-machine works. We were all very young and after a while, there were 20 children in the house." In the north of the city the AWG Saxon Bridge- and Steel-framed Building Construction was founded in 1956. The following episode is supposed to remind of this origin history of this original AWG and the initial hardships on the construction site. At the same time it emphasizes the importance of the commitment of the institution. Heinz Leuchte, then a deputy work shop leader of the nationally-owned SBS, is describing the development of an AWG building in the Schweizstrasse 4-6 like this: "After the construction firm had finished the base plate, the pre-fabricated basement windows were missing that were already in use at that time. The construction site came to a standstill. When we asked Lösner, the company in charge, it turned out that they did not have steel for armoring. At that time, our company did not have the possibility to get armoring steel. As this incident affected every colleague our attention was drawn to a bundle of steel wire that had been stored in the assembly department since the war. It seemed like the rusty lump could not be used anymore. Our gear smith suggested putting the bundle on a rail, to fasten one end to the buffer stop and to extend the other end with a crane. That was a strange method for us lift builders, but it worked. After the firework of rust the bundle was thinner by a few millimeters on a length of about a hundred meters, but apart from a few corrosion pits it got steel blue. Work could be continued, another shortage was overcome."

Effective mergers:

The work of the single AWG's did not get more effective until new legal possibilities were used. In 1957, the AWG of Dresden Teachers and the AWG municipal council of the Dreseden area were founded. They had also been assigned building grounds around the area of the Dinglingerstraße, Stephanienstraße and Wallotstraße. As all the single AWGs had different possibilities of making personal contribution merging was a necessity. Starting out as the working group "buildup" in 1959 during a delegatee conference of five Dresden AWG's it was resolved to form the Groß AWG Dresden.

It is an achievement of collective effort that as of December 31st in 2006 62.099 out of 293.330 apartments belong to a total of 18 housing corporations. Thus, 21,3 % of the apartments are owned by a corporation.