Frühjahrsputz im Spreewald

Spring cleaning in the Spreewald

Stichgraben on the Lehder Spree: a garbage dump from GDR times.
Sandra Richter
Paul Rösler
Andrè Brämer, Lukas Hannemann and Tim Richter salvage a refrigerator
Sunday lunch break
Tim Richter wades through the “landfill”
Paul Rößler’s trip into the mud
Barge tourists marveled at the garbage barges
Sandra Richter collected hundreds of bottles at the end of the day.

The most beautiful spring excursion weather in the Spreewald: Berlin rowers and paddlers made their way across the Spree on Sunday and the first excursion boats turned into the lagoon village of Lehde. In between, somewhat atypical in a Sunday picture, two barges with five people tethered together. They didn’t look like day-trippers at all; empty sacks and boxes were piled up on board and work equipment could be seen. Their destination was not far from Lehde, on the banks of the Spree. They have already picked up garbage there in previous years and wanted to do so again this time.

Paul Rösler, a musician and artist from Lübbenau, had written to the “Spreewälder Gurkentruppe”, as they like to call themselves, and many were willing to collect garbage again. Tim Richter from Uferbau Lübbenau, Lukas Hannemann from the boat rental company of the same name, Andrè Brämer, service technician at WIS and Sandra Richter from Sielow flower shop Glodny gave up their free time on Sundays to clean up the Spreewald for the fifth time. They all care deeply about their homeland and the Spreewald in particular, and cannot look away when nature suffers.

Nothing is finally overgrown yet, and the legacies of the past decades are still being collected, because that is what they are. It is by no means the garbage of careless tourists, but the former household effects of the Lehd family. This dates back to a time when waste disposal was almost non-existent, as disposal structures as they exist today hardly existed in the villages during the GDR era. Apparently quietly agreed and tolerated by the authorities, the inhabitants of Lehde dumped their waste in a ditch by the Spree. The entrance to the trench is now silted up, but about 100 meters behind it are still the remains of that time: bottles, cans, pots, bathtubs, hotplates, kitchen sinks, garden chairs, refrigerators … The list is incomplete! Tim Richter had put on his waders and picked up countless pieces of garbage from the bottom of the ditch, while his friends cleaned the banks. Sandra Richter collected bottles and broken glass, André Brämer dug out larger pieces of garbage, Paul Rösler and Lukas Hannemann loaded them into the barges.

After just over two hours, both barges were well loaded. With a certain pride in having done something for the environment on this Sunday, we returned to the loading area at the Lübbenau sawmill. Tourists in the oncoming excursion boats expressed their approval, and occasionally there was applause for the Naturefriends’ action.

The building yard is now taking over the final disposal, for which the “Spreewälder Gurkentruppe” is very grateful! At last, waste can be recycled according to type. All the makers know that there will probably have to be several more trips to the Spreewald to remove the last remnants of times gone by.

Return trip with full barges: Sandra Richter, Tim Richter, André Brämer, Lukas Hannemann, Paul Rösler (from left)

Peter Becker, 27.03.26