Original subtitles

CARNIVAL MUSIC

CHEERING

APPLAUSE

This is a story about the people who lived behind the Berlin Wall.

There are many reasons for building walls.

In a circus maybe, walls are there to stop unwanted people from breaking in.

THEY CONTINUE CHANTING

GLASS SHATTERING

This building was once the headquarters of the Secret Police.

They built a wall to stop people breaking out.

And their reasons were recorded on these pieces of paper...

..six million of them.

Inside a circus nothing much changes from one year to another.

But outside,

in Germany, it's been a completely different story.

AIR RAID SIREN WAILS

Berlin, 1945.

For those who'd survived, it was a time for returning.

A chance for life to get back to normal.

When we came back to Berlin we knew

it wouldn't be a country of milk and honey.

There was no fear really to come back.

For me it meant coming to a country where I grew up.

It was eight years since Alfred's parents had sent him away to safety in England.

And now he was coming home.

But for a Jewish boy returning to Germany what did "coming home" mean?

NEWSREEL: 'The problem now is future peace.

'That is your job in Germany.'

'Germany today appears to be beaten.

'Hitler, out.

'Swastikas, gone.

'Concentration camps, empty.

'You'll see ruins, you'll see flowers.

'You'll see some mighty pretty scenery.

'Nice country, Germany.

'Tender people, the Germans.

'And very sweet music indeed.

'Don't let it fool you.

'You are in enemy country.

'Be alert. Suspicious of everyone.

'Take no chances.

'You are up against something more than tourist scenery.

'You are up against German history.

'It isn't good.

'This book was written chapter by chapter. Not by one man.

'Not by one fuehrer.

'It was written by the German people.

'The tender, repentant, sorry German people

'carried the torch of their culture to Austria,

'Czechoslovakia,

'Poland,

'France,

'England,

'Russia,

'Greece...'

'..and the United States of America.

'Measure the cost in money.

'There isn't that much money.

'Measure the cost in lives.

'We can only guess at that figure.

'Some day the German people might be cured of their disease

'but they must prove that they have been cured

'beyond the shadow of a doubt

'before they ever again are allowed to take their place among respectable nations.'

And these are all the family papers?

Mmm...

Sorry.

If you look for something...

..special.

I give it up for the moment. I had the letter,

I'm sorry I can't find it at the moment.

I'm sure I'll find it again.

But that would be too late for you, then.

And they told me in that letter

"Unfortunately we have bad news for you,

"the information says that your parents were deported to the East

"in 1942

"and we are sure you realise

"what this message means for you".

You knew from an early age,

everything that...

Germany can do to Jewish people. Yes.

This I knew.

That's a terrifying thing to know about Germany.

It definitely is.

And it never went out of my brain.

Hitler gone. Cities gone.

Homes gone.

Circuses were amongst the first things to rise out of the ashes.

An escape from the harsh reality of the world outside

and they were quicker and easier to re build than the cities.

The streets weren't German any more.

They belonged to the Russians, Americans, British, French.

And as they divided the city into zones,

each of the armies prescribed its own cure for the German "disease".

In the Western zones the remedy was liberal democracy.

In the East, controlled by the Russians, it was something else.

HE LAUGHS

The historian of the German Circus

records that the Circus Probst was founded in 1945

in the Soviet zone by Rudolf Probst.

Probst was described as an intense character, always up for trouble.

In 1945, where did you get the camels from? And bears?

So you got them from them zoo and then trained them?

So, how did you get food for the animals?

It is 1951.

Young socialists from around the world travel to East Berlin for the Great Peace Festival.

I felt an obligation to help, to build up a new Germany.

What's the alternative?

What do we do with these millions of Germans?

Put them all into prison?

The alternative

was to create a new mental attitude

in their heads.

Without dreams...

..people cannot live.

This was the new Germany

and these were the new Germans.

Socialist, egalitarian, antifascist.

The German Democratic Republic.

Rising from the ruins to consign Western imperialism

to the dustbin of history.

HE LAUGHS

LION GROWLS

NEWSREEL: 'East Berlin is the centre of communist power on German soil.'

'Zones of occupation become zones of influence and control in East Germany.'

'They know that one free nation after another has been swallowed up by the red rulers of the Kremlin.

'The record in Europe alone is shameful.'

The 1950s.

People called Berlin the waiting room of history.

Two world wars had begun here.

Now Berliners were waiting for the next one.

In the meantime, a shadow war had already started.

Berlin turned into a city of spies,

informers, double agents, interrogators, kidnappers.

Drawn to the only place along the entire Iron Curtain

where it was still possible cross freely to and fro.

The KGB, the CIA and MI6 all refined their trade in Berlin.

And the stakes were high.

Lives were lost.

Thousands disappeared into the shadows.

So, were you a spy?

Wolfgang Kockrow was arrested by the Stasi, East Germany's secret police,

in 1959.

He was accused of spying for the Americans.

You're trying to change society.

You're on the side of history

but there are losers here.

And the losers are treated very badly.

Did you know that? Yes, of course I know that

but tell me is there one country in the world

where you haven't got this problem?

Look, for instance, in United Sates, one of the real free countries.

But what happened in 1952, '53, '54, '55,

in the McCarthy era?

Thousands had to appear before the tribunal.

Some were punished, some were sent to prison,

others were chucked out of their job and couldn't work any more.

So, you have these problems in any society.

Communists of the period were talking about...

They would say things like, "You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs" was the phrase.

Do you believe that?

Wolfgang's revenge would have to wait.

The outcome of the struggle for Berlin

was about to be played out on a much larger stage.

The Russians launch Sputnik, the first man-made satellite in space.

'The free world has been upstaged by the Russian bear.'

The Russians lose no time in exploiting their advantage.

In speech after speech, the Russian premier, Khrushchev,

makes demands that would force the Allies of Berlin.

Khrushchev tours America.

He jokes with Nixon about communism leaving the West far behind.

But behind the smiles, a steady drift towards war.

'On display in Moscow, the wreckage of pilot Francis Power's

'U-2 reconnaissance plane charging America with deliberate aggression.

'Mr K was laying groundwork for a clash in which the actual issue

'would be his demands on West Berlin.'

'This telephone is a trigger,

'this instrument will send jet planes into the air within 15 minutes

'armed with nuclear bombs.'

'Key questions centre around Berlin and the chances of war.'

And as the weapons of now are so annihilating

that we happen to live in the most dangerous time

in the history of the human race.

Khrushchev orders the construction of the world's biggest H-bomb.

In Germany, refugees from the East are flooding into West Berlin.

20,000 in May alone, more in June.

'If there is a dangerous crisis in Berlin, and there is,

'it is because of threats

'against the deep commitment of Western powers.'

'The intercontinental ballistic missiles destined for a target within our borders.'

In Vienna they talk peace.

But elsewhere both sides are making plans for nuclear war.

It would be a mistake for others to look upon Berlin

because of its location as a tempting target.

The United States is there,

the United Kingdom and France are there,

the pledge of NATO is there

and the people of Berlin are there.

It is as secure in that sense as the rest of us

but we cannot separate its safety from our own.

We do not want to fight

but we have fought before.

When Berliners went to bed on Saturday night

there was a Berlin Crisis.

When they woke on Sunday morning...

there was the Berlin Wall.

The human stories brought protests from the West.

But, the West had kept West Berlin,

and it was understood that a wall might be better than a war.

The wall ended the exodus of refugees that had threatened the existence of the East German state.

But it was a desperate measure.

And like many desperate measures in politics,

it seemed a little insane.

So, you party members built the wall

because you wanted more time to build your socialist utopia?

This is one of the reasons, yes.

And for the next few years, things became better.

CHILDREN CHEER

MUSIC: "Hier Lebst Du" by Frank Schobel

# ..Hier kommen die Sonne und Regen zustand

# Hier lernst du die Sprache

# Hier kennst du dich aus

# Hier lebst du

# Hier bist du zu Haus

# Hier tanzt du im Herbstwind

# Das Bund... #

And for most,

what the mirror showed was a people

who were leading perfectly normal lives.

In offices and factories, work went on.

People built houses,

bought cars,

had children,

Amused themselves.

Lived their lives.

But there were others...

those who saw something else in the mirror.

The wall claimed its first victim nine days after it went up.

Many more soon followed.

This was Peter Fechter. Killed, when the wall was just a year old.

By then, 23 people had died, most of them young.

Fechter was 18.

In 1964, after five-and-a-half years in jail,

Wolfgang Kockrow was released and deported to the West.

Soon after his arrival in West Berlin,

Wolfgang joined a group of students

building a new tunnel under the wall.

It took six months to build.

So now I am here in a place where we built a tunnel.

From there, west through street,

through to Delitzsch Strasse.

Digging from West to East, the tunnel run for 147 metres.

Over three nights in October 1964,

57 people escaped

before it was discovered by East German border guards.

The tunnel was the most successful ever built under the wall.

The truth was, the wall was the victor.

It got bigger.

More sophisticated.

More efficient.

The wall was here to stay.

And so were the people behind the wall.

# Hier raucht dir dein Meer

# Hier lernst die zu fragen

# Wohin und woher

# Hier sind deine Freunde

# Tagein und tagaus

# Hier lebst du

# Hier bist du zu Haus. #

What was more important?

That depended on what you wanted to see in the mirror.

At the Bornholmer Hutte did you see a perfectly normal pub?

Or did you see the wall down the road?

The border guards who drank here?

Or the odd Stasi officer who dropped in?

The wall was only the most obvious manifestation of state control.

Amongst the people living their perfectly normal lives,

the Stasi were everywhere.

Watching...

..controlling.

The GDR embarked upon its golden years.

There was growth in the economy,

a new prosperity.

And amongst the political classes there was a new boastfulness

as they looked down on Europe's fifth-largest economy.

It was an unexpected moment for a loyal citizen to escape to the West.

Ellen and son were smuggled across the border to West Germany hidden in the boot of a car.

It was being described as communism's first consumer society.

The highest standard of living in the Eastern bloc.

But the little girl who had wanted to be a clown still saw something else in the mirror.

Inside the circus, Rudolph Probst was the law.

But outside the circus, the law was in the hands of the Stasi.

Do you think you had informers in the circus?

Did you know them?

Twice the Stasi closed down Circus Probst.

And twice when he got out of jail, Rudolph Probst built it up again.

And the show went on.

High quality.

HE CHUCKLES

Sascha Anderson.

A bit of a poet, a bit of a chameleon

and by common consent

the most influential figure in the Berlin underground.

Prenzlauer Berg was Berlin's answer to Greenwich Village,

a Bohemian outpost...

..just down the road from Stasi headquarters.

So, you refuse to talk to me about GDR?

Well, before the '80s,

the Stasi had ballooned into a monstrous organization.

Per head of the population,

the Stasi was 12 times more numerous than the Gestapo.

35 times bigger than the KGB.

And even this did not take into account

a highly developed system of informers.

The Stasi kept files on six million people.

125 miles of files.

Stasi surveillance existed in a world of signs.

Its eye was drawn to any deviance from the norm.

The Stasi policed the border between what was permitted

and what was forbidden.

Little wonder then that, as time went by,

they began to see enemies everywhere.

Sascha, how did you decide that you wanted to be a spy?

The world was changing.

'I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute

'the office of President of the United States.'

A new president in the White House.

A new master in the Kremlin.

NEWSREEL: 'The Soviet Union has a new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.'

In East Berlin, the good days are long gone.

A subsidized dream that no-one could afford.

Western tourists queued for a glimpse of the evil empire...

..and the thrill of watching a country running on empty.

This was Leipzig.

And like the rest of the country, it was falling apart.

When they said, "We want you to be a spy", you said, "yes".

Is that what happened?

Did Sascha Anderson inform on you?

Ja...

Ja.

Were you a good spy?

Argh, das ist...

HE LAUGHS

Did you think that if you

offended or crossed your Stasi comrades

that they may find a way of putting you in prison?

What is the punishment for traitors who only betray their friends?

The Stasi knew a lot about Rainer.

They knew he was at the centre of an opposition network in Leipzig,

he'd been arrested several times,

and he hadn't responded to discipline.

The Stasi had arrested Thomas Rudolf, too.

His file described him as

"a symbolic figure in Leipzig's growing opposition,

"talented, intelligent, confident,

"who believed himself

"well capable of changing society in the GDR."

So, from 1988,

you and your friends were making a conscious attempt

to overthrow the government?

In 1989,

not everyone was trying to get out of East Germany.

Some were on their way back.

Alfred had been the GDR's chief radio correspondent in Bonn.

He was coming home to retire.

And Ellen?

Ellen was just coming home.

We realised, of course, all the time, that we were the second best

but our aim, at least till the middle of the '80s,

was someday, perhaps in ten or fifteen or twenty years,

we will be at least on the same level.

Not all of Berlin was like this, of course.

But this is a good reflection of what the Stasi wrote in their own reports of the morale of the people.

Chris Gueffroy.

He was the last person to be shot at the wall.

The time had arrived to remember the lessons of the past.

In 1953,

workers throughout East Germany had risen up against the regime.

Russian tanks had dealt with them.

It was to become the pattern in the Eastern Bloc.

Hungary in 1956.

Czechoslovakia in 1968.

First the protests, then the tanks, then the silence.

And now, in Leipzig, they were getting ready to protest again.

The protests grew out of prayer meetings in the churches.

Here, the campaigners for peace, for the environment,

for human rights met every Monday night.

The churches were a safe haven.

But they did not escape the spies.

These pictures were taken with Stasi cameras.

It had been thought that with Gorbachev in power,

the age of the tanks was over.

Then came the news from China,

hundreds dead in Tiananmen Square.

The old story once again.

If you want to change the world, you have to pay the price.

If you want to make an omelette, you have to break the eggs.

OK, I'll ask you about the Christian conscience.

But you may not like it.

You have this beard.

Like a revolutionary, 19th century Russian revolutionary.

These revolutionary people who believe that it's right

to put people's lives at risk in order to get what they believe in.

How does this...

relate to your Christian conscience?

THEY CONTINUE CHANTING

In May, the Hungarians take down the Iron Curtain.

Across the border and into Austria, East Germans are finding new routes of escape.

The traffic is all heading in one direction, out.

'The high emotion, hysteria and panic when East Germans fought Czech police

'to get in to the West German embassy.'

In Berlin,

the German Democratic Republic

prepares to celebrate its 40th Birthday.

WOMAN SCREAMS

In Leipzig, the Monday demonstrations had been getting bigger...

and so had the risk.

The Nikolaikirche, five o'clock.

Monday prayers.

It's been a day of rumours.

Tanks have been seen on the roads into Leipzig.

Mothers have been told to pick up their children early from school.

Hospitals have ordered extra blood.

Outside, troops stood ready with loaded weapons.

And then at six o'clock,

the prayers ended.

70,000 people.

The troops stood down and let them pass.

In the space of half an hour,

the regime had lost control of the streets.

And so, in Leipzig, things fell apart.

And in Berlin, the centre did not hold for long.

The Politburo shuffled, manoeuvred.

It was all for nothing.

The thought of wasted lives and wasted chances.

All the conviction we had thought

would create a real new social set up,

this failure was the most hurting

experience in the life

I so far have experienced.

January 1990.

After the Berlin Wall, it was the turn of the walls around the Stasi.

Now, for the first time, in the Stasi files,

the people of the GDR could read the stories of their lives.

A chance at last to look into a different mirror.

Angela found out that in prison her father had agreed to work as an informer with the Stasi.

Sascha Anderson's collaboration with the Stasi was exposed on television.

For a time, he was one of the most reviled men in Germany.

Wolfgang discovered that all the time he'd been in prison, his brother had been an informer.

He never spoke to him again.

If you were a young man again, with a young wife,

and you had a chance again to build a socialist country,

to go once more for that dream...

..would you still take that decision that you took all that time ago?

Yes. Definitely.

Perhaps it's easier to say now

because I realise I won't be in a position to do it actually,

but believe me, I haven't changed my fundamental...

..my fundamental

dream that...

there must be a way to come together

on a different basis than

the one we have lived through in the last...

100 years.

So you'd do it again?

Yes.

Perhaps I'm a fool.

But...

..who knows?