The CargoLifter project is one such victim.Ĭreated by a team of industrial, logistics, and engineering experts, the CargoLifter airship, or 'flying crane', was designed to carry out heavy load transportation using almost no infrastructure.

Recent opinion polls also suggest Germany's high unemployment rate- now stuck above four million (m) - will be the main issue for voters.įuelling the figures are the high-tech start-up firms in Berlin and Munich that have joined media giant Kirch and a host of the country's top newspapers and banks in declaring bankruptcy. With just under a week to go before Germany's elections, the main focus for the competing parties seems to have reverted back to the sluggish economy.Ĭatastrophic floods and the prospect of a US-led war against Iraq threatened to distract the electorate from Germany's problems at home.īut as campaigning hots up, Germany's conservatives, lagging in polls ahead of Sunday's election, are desperate to draw attention back to domestic economic woes. Shot from car driving away from CargoLifter hall 'Because of business stagnation, I have to release three of our 12 employees during winter season, because we lost the additional income.'Ģ3. SOUNDBITE: (German) Hartmut Lausch, hotel owner: If there are no more visitors coming to CargoLifter I have to leave too because I cannot live off the sixty citizens in the village of Brand.'Ģ1. 'I came here to sell food for the builders who worked at CargoLifter but now it seems that CargoLifter is bust. SOUNDBITE: (German) Sylvia Domke, snack kiosk owner: It will be difficult for me to find a new job. Maybe a temporary project, maybe there will be a new investor found, one has to wait. SOUNDBITE: (German) Siegert Walter, former CargoLifter employer: He said that in the area of Dahme Spreewald another 500 people are affected who worked at service an supply companies.'ġ4. Concerning the region I'm depending on figures I got from the head of the administration of Spreewald Dahme. 'We had to release about 560 people who were employed here.

SOUNDBITE: (German) Rolf Dieter Moenning, insolvency administrator: Various (simulated) file shots of CargoLifter projectġ2. CargoLifter ran out of money on its way from the idea to the final product.'ġ1. 'The total investment of the CargoLifter project is about four hundred million euro and the reason why the company filed for insolvency is very easy to explain. Mid shot CargoLifter Project hall and training airship, 'Charly'Ĩ.

Cargolifter zeppelin