Bathrooms in East German Apartments I Used to Live In

The real tragedy is that I only have photos of 3 1/2 of the bathrooms. And really not the good ones either. Man, but I’d *kill* for a picture of the Döbeln plumpskloh (sp?), especially if it showed off the mid-winter frozen condensation on the window and toilet seat. Man. Oh well.

The upside of these photos is that they give me good ideas of what I should do with my house I’m maybe gonna buy in Pittsburgh. Very good ideas. I’m sure you can imagine the home I’m hoping to create is going to be very different from this one though!

Gera (March-May 1993)

I’m not sure how using the Gera bathroom for two months did *not* kill me. And it was the nicest one I had the whole two years. The washer-dryer combo emptying into the tub is a nice touch. Sehr mode!

Dresden (January-May 1992)

That one was at the Kurt-Fischer-Hotel (which was not actually a hotel; we called it that because if someone was getting blitzed home, that missionary stayed their last night with us — I’m sure I personally inspired everyone who came through there to eventually straighten up, fly correctly). The shower fed off a two-gallon hot water tank; the desk lamp over the sink seems like an under-utilized concept. And if I could, I’d usually try and hold it till I got to Tiergartenstraße 40 in the morning.

Weimar (December 1991-January 1992).

I don’t think the bathtub actually worked here, which explains why the definitely non-functional communist Schleudermaschine is inside it. And the best part of this apartment was that we had a Nazi fork among the silverware. Should have grabbed it on my way out. Biggest regret of my mission.

Borna (August 1991-December 1991)

The toilet is through that door. The door is down the stairs from the apartment. Because it’s not a flush-toilet, that’s why it’s nowhere near the actual apartment (I figure).

Um, so yeah. Then here’s my ranking of Best Bathrooms of East German Apartments I Used to Live In That Are Not Pictured Above:

1. Döbeln – Frost on the inside window of an in-house outhouse toilet closet!
2. Halberstadt – For some reason the apartment had 12 rooms and covered 2,000 s.f., but the bathroom was contained in a cubby hole. (We had a library in that apartment, a workout room, a clothes-drying room, and a room where we threw unwanted baked goods.)
3. Hohenstein-Ernstthal – Very little recollection of this bathroom except that it was in the kitchen.
4. Hof (bei Weber) – Though technically in West Germany, Hof was East Germany in spirit. And we had a neighbor who was always begging to borrow our shower because he was tired of having to bathe in his sink. A lot of things wrong with that. (Also wish I could have scored a copy of that tape Denny and Kalama(?) made for Omi Weber — so many regrets.)
5. Mittweida (bei Jentzsch/Laube sort of) – We were living in an apartment that the Laube family was renovating while living in alongside us. Got walked in on a few times (they hadn’t gotten around to putting a doorknob on the bathroom yet).
6. Hof (the *good* Wohnung) – Utterly westernly normal.

Somit aufgenommen.

bkd

PS, Re: the headline, it’s the *apartments* that I lived in; I did not live (primarily) in the bathrooms.