Gerd Danigel: The Self-Taught Photographer of East Germany

Gerd Danigel, born in Berlin in 1959, began his photographic journey by borrowing a Penti camera from his sister. As a child in East Berlin, he was warned by Stasi agents to stop photographing the West. Despite a passion for drawing and photography, he was forced into a gas technician career after school. He later worked in a photo lab and, in 1985, secured a position at the Institutes für Kulturbauten der DDR, documenting cultural buildings until the fall of the Wall. After the Wall fell, his work was thrown out of a window into a dumpster, and his equipment was sold for 1 mark each. He kept only one camera and some lenses. He sold his negatives for 2000 marks to an unknown buyer. Since then, he has sold his photographs every Sunday at the Boxhagener Platz flea market for 15 euros each. His archive captures everyday life in East Berlin from the late 1970s onward, focusing on children and the elderly. Danigel was twice interrogated by the Stasi in 1981 for photographing a FDJ parade and children playing near the Wall. His most sold photograph is of the Brandenburg Gate in 1989.