Links and Related Information
 |
What happens when a brilliant young writer/director is able to
convince some of the best acting talent in Germany to participate in
his movie? He gets an Oscar! "The Lives of Others" won the Academy of Motion Pictures Award for best Foreign Film in 2006. Absolutely amazing. The director of this movie, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, seems one of the most intelligent film artists to come out of Europe in several years. Donnersmarck speaks five languages, has a Masters Degree in philosophy from Oxford and spent a few years right out of high school living and studying in St. Petersberg Russia. It is Donnersmarck's incredible scope of knowledge and understanding of history and human nature that forms the basis of this very touching story. Of course a screenplay is only as good as its actors and Donnersmarck, through his relentless attention to detail, was able to get Ulrich Mühe to take on the role of the Stasi officer pictured here. Mr. Mühe is clearly a most accomplished actor, reminiscent of a combination of Kevin Spacey and Tony Shaloub. There are entire scenes in this film that owe their success to the incredible ability of Ulrich Mühe to show the emotional landscape of the character without words. He is one of those actors who can tell an entire story with a single look. Even more appropriate to this role is the fact that Ulrich Mühe himself was under Stasi observation for many years. Only after the fall of the regime did he find out that even his very own wife had been a Stasi informer for six years. In addition, his theater company in Berlin - which in many ways is a lot like a working family to an actor - had been infiltrated by four Stasi agents whose sole purpose was to spy on him. Mr. Mühe found these details when he requested to be able to see his Stasi file (which all German citizens may do at this point). The work of outstanding talent like Ulrich Mühe is just one aspect that helped the success of this movie. Music is another. The director wrote multitudes of letters to Gabriel Yared. In Donnersmarcks own words - normally Gabriel had a music budget that was the equivalent of our entire production budget. And again, through what I am sure was the force of his intellect and power of his writing the director of this movie was able to get the cooperation of a first rate talent. |
 |
One of the best movies of 2003. Here is what ImDb says: The
words German and comedy don't often fit together, but Good Bye, Lenin!
is an exception, a stinging political satire that shows the impact
on a close-knit East German family of the events that shook Germany
to its foundations in 1989. The film, which won nine prizes at the
2003 German Film Awards, including best director for Wolfgang Becker,
and best actor for Daniel Brühl, interweaves comedy with a message
of political change and the story of a boy's love for his mother,
an unusual brew for those accustomed to Hollywood romantic comedies
that often seem to take place in a vacuum. |
 |
Wikipedia has sections on the Stasi in German and English (different content) as well as Numbers Stations |
 |
NPR ran a story some time ago about "Numbers Stations". Radio stations that operated in support of various espionage efforts. Look for the "Listen" icon on the NPR site to get an actual example broadcast. |
 |
It is actually possible to get East German cuisine in the US. Not only East-German but even better, regional cooking from the area of the country were I lived. I can highly recommend Walzwerk in San Francisco. It has good food and an atmosphere unlike any other place in the US. Guaranteed. |
|
Number Stations still exist today and are used for the same purpose as the one we monitored - to pass encrypted information to agents. In this day and age of the Internet thats pretty amazing. But maybe thats exactly why they are still popular - no TCP/IP connection needed. No way to trace the receiving party. All you need is a shortwave radio and your key pad. |
|
|
This video may not look like much but trust me the experience these people went through is similar to escaping a shark attack unharmed. The guards are under orders to shoot. The only reason they did not was that the people had crossed the river and were close to West Berlin citizens. |
|
|
|
|
|
The train station of my former home town Oberhof on a pretty Winters day. These days were rare. Usually its gray and overcast. One of my fondest memories of this place was visiting there in elementaty school at Christmas time to sing for some of the older folks living nearby. The train station is actually 20 minutes away from Oberhof. When the railroad was built a tunnel was needed to allow rail traffic through our mountains. Hence the station is several kilometers "downhill" from Oberhof. |
|
|
My old hometown had a strong history of Winter Sports. Here is a video of bobsled teams going back to 1951 ! The course shown is actually where I first learned luge. On an improved version of course back in 1972. Not long after that the brand new artificially iced course opened. That was an entirely different setup !
And here is an example of what it feels like to do a run on the new course. I never got a chance to start at the very top but even the Youth Gate was plenty fast. This video gives you a good sense of how it feels. The members of our luge team invented the modern style of riding without a guidance strap. Every little bit helps to shave hundreds of seconds off the run time. |
|
|
The Free German Youth (FDJ) was a youth organization that every teenager in East Germany belonged to. At age 14 you automatically became a member. |
|
|
The Young Pioneers was an East German youth organization that all school aged children belonged to. No exceptions. |
|
|
The national anthem of East Germany. There was some controversy that parts of the melody were copied from an American tune. |
|
|
In 5th grade every East German child began compulsory training in Russian. One of the first things you learned was the song of the Russian Pioneers. |
|
|
The Trabant 601 was the workers car in the GDR. Here is a commercial that ran on TV. A new one required literally a 10 year wait. I am serious! Used ones, simply because they were available, cost more than new ones. It had a 26 horsepower engine and was able to reach 60mph in about 21 seconds. It was produced all the way until 1989 in this configuration. This was our family car. We drove it all the way to the Baltic Sea and to the border of Poland and with the Soviet Union. Thats a long way for little midget like this. Wikipedia has great article on it. Notice that even in the GDR truth in advertising was a stretch. The four guys with helmets were probably needed to push that little "carton de blamage" in order to make it look as though its going fast. And how about those helmets?! |
|
|
Some GDR rock music. Interestingly several of the groups are still together. Getting pretty old but still rocking... reminds me of KISS... Not that it makes much difference but this is a cover of a GDR tune by a West German that reminds me a little of Journey We even had an East German version of Elvis in the form of Dean Reed. Interesting character. |
|