Changing Regions - Better Days in Eastern Germany

In eastern Germany, the transition from what used to be a Communist state-controlled economy to a free-market system resulted in a major loss of jobs and old state subsidies. But over the past two decades since German unification, islands of economic affluence have developed in the new eastern German federal states. MADE IN GERMANY takes a look at these changing regions.

Part 1: Ludwigsfelde

The first report takes us to the Brandenburg town of Ludwigsfelde, a center for automobile and aerospace technology - both in the days of East Germany and today. Grit Hofmann has taken a look around technophile Ludwigsfelde.

Part 2: Bitterfeld

Before German reunification, Bitterfeld was Germany's most toxic city. The chemical industry made the air sting and the city filthy. Twenty years later the dirt is gone, the air is clean, and there are new industrial jobs to be had.

More than 11,000 people work here, even in the once-toxic chemical industry park, which has now been cleaned up. Three hundred firms have now made their headquarters here. Our reporter Joachim Eggers visits the head of the industrial park, Matthias Gabriel, who can still remember well one time in the old days when he sat down on a bench and the chemical residue there ate holes in his trousers.