On Monday, August 8, 2011, at 9:00 p.m., Houston PBS – Channel 8 – will show the first part of the two-hour documentary that first premiered in June 2010.
The most memorable symbol of the revolution that swept across Europe two decades ago is the November 1989 opening of the Berlin Wall. Soon after, East and West Germany were reunified, and in the ensuing months the almost unthinkable happened: the Soviet Union was dismantled. THE WALL – A WORLD DIVIDED tells that story from the unique perspectives of three world leaders — Helmut Kohl, then Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mikhail Gorbachev, then General Secretary of the Soviet Union, and George H.W. Bush, then President of the United States. They were at the epicenter of that remarkable series of events, when the face of Europe changed almost overnight. In this documentary they tell the story of how history unfolded.
A brief history of the Wall — why it was built and why it remained standing — segues into personal accounts that bring alive the reality of what the Wall meant to Berliners day-in and day-out for so many years. The film includes experiences of everyday people to help put the historical events discussed by the three leaders into an accessible context, from the darkest days of the 1960’s Cold War through the surprising events that led to the fall of the Wall in 1989.
Click here for a Preview Trailer: The Wall – A World Divided
Berliners woke on Sunday morning, August 13, 1961, to find their city and their lives cut in two by a wall of barbed wire and concrete blocks. It was almost impossible to flee the oppressive East German regime.
Rudolf Mueller Inside His Tunnel
Ordinary citizens found themselves caught in the extraordinary politics of the Cold War: a young father forced to tunnel beneath the Wall to be reunited with his wife and two sons; a teenager whose love of pop culture got him in deep trouble with the state; a young man broken by the ruthless interrogation methods of the secret police.
This film also follows the birth of the freedom movement in a most unexpected place: the Protestant Church. In the late 1980s when restrictions on churches were relaxed, rather than becoming obsolete as the regime expected, churches became a sanctuary for everyone who yearned to be free: environmentalists, feminists, punk rockers, and peace activists alike. At the same time forces of reform, triggered in part by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, were sweeping through Soviet satellite states. The East German government began to face a small but determined opposition movement and massive public protests.
But, what actually opened the Wall was — surprisingly — a mistake. An East German bureaucrat misspoke at a press conference on November 9, 1989, and triggered a flood of people at one of the East Berlin crossing points. The border guards had no instructions and were forced to let the crowds through — catching the world’s leaders by surprise.
The Wall — A World Divided and After The Wall — A World United were written and directed by Eric Stange. For more information, visit http://www.houstonpbs.org/thewall/.
Houston PBS – Channel 8 – was the first public television station in the nation; its first broadcast aired in 1953 from the Ezekiel W. Cullen Building at the University of Houston campus.