After a promising start in the twenties and thirties, the East German sky remained barred to aerial photography from start of the second world war onwards. The same applies to other east European countries. Their opening up, and the reunification of the two Germanies in particular, has again, since 1991, made archaeological flight possible. Rowever, progress has been hampered by remaining bureaucratic habits.
The long delay inflicted to research has been compensated in part by an easier analysis of photographs : the vast areas of past collective agriculture have yielded staggering discoveries, such as the henge at Goseck. However the archaeologists, faced with the present infrastructure developments and road network extensions, are engaged in a race against time.