Escape from GDR / Flucht aus der DDR / 6

[EvanC0912]

what a touching moment at 2:39 .

[scpaistechina]

Gunter Schabowski: you set the ball rolling.

Schabowski: 1

East Germany: 0

[siemenstraffic]

At 0:46 Chuck Norris was in the right place at the right time and kicked the wall down!

[slyrader1]

for the love of god let them thru

[Shukria123]

but these changing winds can blow cold and hostile...

[metsdudenj]

Wer mauer hat notig?

[julianallees]

Was that Gayle Tufts on the Wall saying that East Berliners can now go on West Berlin?

[jaegerguy]

thank you

[TalkToTheBody]

Fabulous documentary. One can only live in hope that dictatorships will become a thing of the past but until the last politician remains....I doubt it but one can only live in hope that ordinary people with the aid of the internet can make their own judgement and stand up for their rights.

[uraegurit]

I saw all six parts and it reminds me the wall between albanians in Kosovo and Albania. Of course there was no real wall but there were the same rules. And still albanians must get visa (which is almost imposible) to travel around the world. Just imagine we live in year 2010 and there are still such burocratic, people dividing, freedom breaking rules. I'm so happy germany got unified as i'm also happy the same thing happend to kosovo and albania.

[gibanitza]

@uraegurit

Only Kosovo and Albania never were the same country. 

[uraegurit]

@gibanitza That has been a propaganda that's not working anymore. Sorry!

[gibanitza]

@uraegurit

It's written in historical books it is not propaganda. How you then explain Serbian Orthodox monasteries built in 12th, 13th and 14th century in Kosovo?

There are TV footages from 60's depicting number of Albanian refugees illegally entering Yugoslav territory in the Serbian/Kosovo and Metohija region. Yugoslavian communist authorities wanted to prove that Yugoslavia was more prosperous than other communist countries. You have crashed on Serbian soil and overpopulated it.

[uraegurit]

@gibanitza O please, historical books written by serbs? You don't need to read those books anymore. Just google on internet or read wikipedia. Even you know that serbs and slavic people came from Carpathian Mountains to our forefathers lands "Illyrians". The nowdays Kosovo was called Dardania (an Illyrian tribe) that means the land of pears. So please stop the propaganda and let's face the reality and live like europeans, in peace and harmony, after all we are neighbours se let's be good ones.

[gibanitza]

@uraegurit Still haven't explained orthodox Serbian monasteries. Let's say we did come from Northern territories but Albanians came from Caucasus and then mixed with Illyrian tribes, you aren't part of European civilization and you can tell that according to many of your customs and your development.

Cut me some slack on those "peace & harmony" phrase. We'll never be good neighbours and you'll always need to keep your eyes opened cause we will come back one day.

[uraegurit]

@gibanitza

Regarding to orthodox monasteries, we know you built them later with the rocks that you brought from serbia, so people think they were built in 14th century. But i don't have time to argue about things that everybody knows now. It is serbia who started all the wars in ballkans. The problem is that it is getting smaller and smaller. No politics, only wars, ncncncnc, that's not good!

I bet you've never been in Kosova, and that will stay that way heheh. Sorry!

[uraegurit]

@gibanitza Please stop talking about the past. We are an independent state now and i enjoy every minute of this freedom. I wish every country and everyone in the world would be free, and i know that people need to sacrifice and fight for it, but if you fight hard, one day for sure the dream will come true. Same like this documentary shows, you can build physical walls to separate people, but they will never, never stay because the strength of human being love for each other is much bigger!

[gibanitza]

@uraegurit I have been in Priština and Peć, I was shocked what it looked like, all those ugly houses and people with funny hats riding horses.

We will let you stay there for another 50-100 years, until uranium shells which NATO used decompose and radiation levels decrease. Eventually USA, EU and NATO will loose interest in Kosovo after they dig up all Plumbum, Zinc and coal , and then we will come again and clean up our holy land from six-fingered, three-eyed sqipetars. Think about that.

[autouniondkw102]

Absolutly brilliant documentry, thanks for posting. All the denial of those in charge of the shooting orders - it makes me so sick. It must have been unbeleavably diabolical for those gaurds who because of their collegues could not tern a blind eye. .... I wonder how many single patrol gaurds let people escape...

[bozothefighterpilot]

Excellent video! I saw all 6 parts. I appricate what I have now. Freedom. Unfortantly there is a US president right now that wants what happened in Germany. A wall to devide people. His name is Barak Obama.

[tomziczek]

Very interesting documentary. I appreciate I coul watch it on YouTube. In 1986 (or 7) I spent my holidays in Potsdam and I saw the wall from the East side. I remember my strange feeling and curiousity when I was looking at West Berlin from the TV Tower... Although I could not visit West Berlin that time I was lucky enough to be in West Germany few years before. I rember crossing border between Czechoslovakia and FRG, where the border looked simmilarly to the one in GDR.

[MultiSodium]

good

[lialammas]

I have a friend that told me that after the east berliners crossed to the west they have a new challenge to make them work and give them a new mentality because they were lazy and used to different life in the east.

[kultbagusa]

Your friend must be very simple minded. I am from east germany and moved to the US 13 years ago. And I think that I am very successful so far, more so than most of my american neighbors around here. You want to see lazy people? Look around in america!

[bozothefighterpilot]

I see you have 1 thumbs down in red. I see and do understand what you are talking about. People in East Germany were tought Socialism and Socialism is lazyness. So now the East Germans need to be tought to learn how to work and be prosperous so they can have good lives.

[lialammas]

Thank you for understanding my comment. I sure hope people understands that is very difficult to the old generation to adapt to change. Sometimes they never adapt. So maybe that is why some people become critics but for sure the new generations rules.

[W025130]

and mexico

[josealonsoleon]

Why isn't anybody talking about another wall that stupid moronic humans are now building. It's not in Korea its right here under our noses, Israel is doing the same thing.

Down with walls where ever they are!

[andyhowpog]

@josealonsoleon Very true, one wall comes down then another goes up. Israel should learn from East Germany: building walls doesn't work!

[josealonsoleon]

@andyhowpog In principle, that's who they learned it from!!! The world moves in very strange ways.

[lotwyo]

@josealonsoleon Because the Israeli border (despite its alignment problems) is not mean to keep Israelis in, but to keep the enemies out. Like the US-Mexico border: US citizens can travel freely to Mexico, but they want to keep illegal immigrants out, which is a completely different situation.

[napajedlacek]

Can you catch West German - West Berlin TV in the east berlin ? just on TV antenna ?

we used to watch Wien - Austrian TV at home in Czechoslovakia...

and half of country could watch west german tv.

[Firithfenion]

yes we could watch West German TV and radio.

[tobsuchtfx]

but did not tell anybody ;)

[celticlofts]

At the time I had mixed feelings about unification. To me Germany was responsible for so many deaths during the war that to leave the Country divided was justice for the victims of their atrocities. As an individual is held accountable for their actions, so too must a country and to me the division of Germany was but a small price to pay for the millions who suffered at their hands. Im sure in time the concentration camp memorials will disappear too.

[Stachelschwein1975]

I was born 30 years after the war ended. I live in the west and I have some very close friends who come from the east. I would never have met them if Germany were still divided today. But what possible benefit would that be to the victims of the war?

[tomziczek]

Of course there is no benefit to the victims of the WW2. Rising that ridiculous wall didn't make any good.

I would rather say the Germany dividing was a later consequence of WW2. If Adolf Hitler didn't start the war Germany would probably be one country in its old borders all the time, but this is a different story.

[Stachelschwein1975]

@tomziczek,

It is undisputable that there would have been no wall without the second world war.

There may also have been no cold war without ww2 as there may not have been a nuclear arms race. Who knows?

[Brogel]

It is hard to grasp the influence World War II had on our society especially. Every field of human interest, from culture to politics to economy, was affected by it. Trying to imagine a world without World War II is rethinking EVERYTHING.

[claudyakuehn]

Harald Jäger made a real brave decision when he gave order to open the border. :-) Danke, Harald. :-)

He's sorta a hero in my opinion, just like all the other soldiers and policemen who decided not to open fire at protesting and demonstrating civilians in these days.

[MeatTycoon]

@claudyakuehn Mikhail Gorbachev is the real hero here. He ended the Cold War. Right after he declared that the Soviet Union is no longer going to intervene, all the communist regimes throughout Eastern Europe crumbled one after another. Before he came to power, any attempt to tear down the wall was simply drowned in blood by the Soviet military.

[Shukria123]

Ok, then a lot of Germans are 'dumbasses.'

Just search 'Germans Berlin Wall Back' in Google, and it'll bring up all these stories about opinion polls that show a significant number of Germans want the Berlin Wall back - like 1 in 5 in Germans.

[HokiesAndDawgs]

Also, this is a pretty amazing moment. I can only imagine the feeling those East Germans had.

[Shukria123]

A lot of Germans want the Berlin Wall back - only this time they would make it twice as high!

[HokiesAndDawgs]

Only a dumbass would want that garbage back.

[BadBoy1968]

Long live the GDR without a wall. ;)

[CapitanoGUC]

the GDR wouldn´t survive without the wall, even a month ......

it would be an emty place .....

[Suomipanzerdiv13]

The germany problem has been solved!

Now lets try to solve the corea problem!

[CapitanoGUC]

exactly - lets takle the corea problem and lets start to put pressur to the country, that they change the initial K to an C - i think, thats verry important ...:)

[NEWYORKLIBRE]

Lets not forget Cuba

[PeterMayer]

Looking at the guards, I can say "your days are vertig!" Prima!

[jaschenski]

I was chatting to a former East German lady on a plane - she said that when the Wall came down (she was a teenager) she was amazed at how 'backward' the westerners were as they were doing the same stuff at Uni as she'd already done at school.

[knightscomi]

Thankyou very much for uploading this.

[top8secret]

It was realy a great thing, walking over the Bornholmer Bridgeon this day and few days after.

"west" people smiling and hugs us. Tears of Happines. I never get this out of my mind. Never.

Thanks

[Perscriptions]

Yes, it went horribly wrong.

I wish it didn't, but unfortunately the GDR-government was blinded and close-minded.

[Perscriptions]

edit:

All communist regimes were like that.

[fx10243]

thanks for this video its a shame there is very little information about what happened after the wall fell kive in berlin so know the history and yes there is still a divide amongst the older generation of east and west berliners always thought that west berlin was overated anyway :) but if you live you you soon know where you are !!

[Bootleg127]

Thank your for uploading this documentary. I watched all parts, and it was interesting.

[Ahksel63]

Some think that the east Germans were trying to create a society of equality and "To take fear and poverty out of everyones life". Well, a reasonable person would not pen people in, make them work without any say in their compensation, starve them and then threaten them with death if they tried to leave. A reasonable person would realize that that is how one puts "fear and poverty" IN peoples lives. Liberalism is a mental disorder. The communist leaders weren't crazy, just clever and ruthless

[TRH1292]

Actually, if you knew Political Science and Ideoligys well, Marxist Communism is effectivly an Oppisite of Communism, as is Fascism and Conservativism.

[TRH1292]

*Liberalism, not marxist communism, haha.

[fritredage]

danke sehr, rigtigt gut. many information given. my city had the same experience. I am from Hong Kong and we and China was devided after the war.... many chinese tried to escape from China and they were shot..sigh...miserable history.

[28019ab]

this is incomplete - ignores the post-wall imposition of a market economy. this led to consequent destruction of the social framework in the east, destruction of their industry and job losses, concentration of power in the hands of western capitalists. It's a pity nobody broadcasts documentaries about all that - but then again that's down to the joys of a 'free' capitalist media!

[ablue5]

I agree with you. I read a book about how hard it was to get the two sides joined. It wasn't paradise after the wall, but was very difficult for the people. I live in the US, and have tried to read everything I could about East and West Germany. From what I have seen in my own country and what I have read about communism and socialism, every system has flaws.

[cassius969]

Communism means the rule of political power, capitalism means reciproce dependancy on production and consumption. In a capitalist world the powerfull capitalists have to pander to the weak consumer for their cashflow, in communism it does not matter how soft your toilet paper is, you just need to be maintained in workin order.

[Xantheus07]

@28019ab

Tell me something why should NATO be responsible for Warsaw's industries? We didn't want to finance them so we didn't. Why couldn't they live with out capitalistic income? Your communism paradise failed because thats all you get with communism FAILURE.

[paulpembroke]

ein volk

[neotheone999]

very interesting, thanks for posting

[arouharouh]

new way of unification..