Raising the Iron Curtain
September 12, 2019
The fall of the Berlin Wall began long before autumn 1989, in a warehouse at the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk. This is also where the documentary begins, before moving through Europe, to Prague and the no-man's-land between Hungary, Serbia and Romania.
The fall of the Berlin Wall was, ultimately, not just a German affair. It began in an inconspicuous shed in Poland, once built as a warehouse for torpedoes. It is there, at the former Lenin shipyard in Gdansk, that documentary maker Tilmann Bünz embarks on his journey across Europe.
He meets the men of the first hour such as Miklós Németh, Hungary's Prime Minister from 1988 to 1990, Karel Schwarzenberg, formerly President Václav Havel's chancellor, and Andreas Rost, a protester on the fateful 9th of October 1989, when the East German regime was on the verge of a war against its own citizens.
Bünz also meets a young generation that has grown up in today's Europe and has its own questions. Why are the countries that helped Europe unite now putting on the brakes? Democracy must be fought for time and again. In the new democracies, such as in the Czech Republic, young and old people take to the streets and demonstrate for democracy and freedom - as they did in 1989.
Broadcasting Hours:
DW English
MON 30.09.2019 – 01:15 UTC
MON 30.09.2019 – 05:15 UTC
TUE 01.10.2019 – 09:15 UTC
SAT 05.10.2019 – 12:15 UTC
SUN 06.10.2019 – 15:15 UTC
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TUE 01.10.2019 – 09:15 UTC
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