The American photographer Leonard Freed travelled to Germany for the first time in 1954. He observed the people in their social surroundings, at work, at street festivals, in public parks, in the streets and against the industrial backdrop of the Ruhr Valley. The Germany he saw was deeply scarred by the effects of war and the Nazi regime, despite the country's reconstruction, industrial development and economic success. Freed published his extensive report for the first time with Grossman Publishers in New York in 1970. The present reprint accompanies the exhibition of the same name at Museum Folkwang in Essen and comes with the booklet , providing extra information about Freed's approach and his times. The booklet is edited by Paul M. Farber and contains hitherto unpublished images, documents and writing by Freed, spanning his 50 years of photographing Germany.