Scarred landscapes: Wolfgang Hilbig’s ecocritique

Abstract

The collapse of the Gennan Democratic Republicin 1989 brought to light a socio-political culture of gross environmental mismanagement, especially within the heavily industrialized State of Saxony. Perhaps the most notorious perpetrator of environmental vandalism was the industrial complex of Bitterfeld, 'with its suffocating smog and toxic brew of chemicals dumped on waste tips and in strategic waterways. At Barna and Espenhain, the centre of vast coal reserves to the immediate south of Leipzig, the legacy of indiscriminate mining was detectable in the crater-likelandscapes, polluted air and contaminated rivers and streams. A similar scenario prevailed in the Sorbian-speaking region of Lower Lusetia (Lausitz), home to sixty-five percent of the GDR's predominantly state-owned opencast lignite mines