Last week, 15 years after the fall of the Berlin wall, “Socialism” collapsed in the eastern German town of Nienburg. It left a pillar of brown smoke and 150,000 cubic metres of rubble spread over 6.5 hectares.

The two 90 metre high factory chimneys, disposed of with little fanfare by their west German owner, were the last remains of Sozialismus, the town's cement plant, which had towered empty and idle over Nienburg's outskirts since its closure in 1990.