The East German state, the German Democratic Republic, fashioned itself as a “Leseland” or a “land of reading.” A diversified field of publishing houses and an immense book production, sometimes with remarkably high print runs, may justify such an image. Yet, many of these publications did not address the eyes of the reader but the beholder—in the form of photographically illustrated books. Unsurprisingly, Berlin, the capital of the East German state, was among the most prominent subjects.
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