Grenzdurchbruch 89 Backdrop Blur
Grenzdurchbruch 89 Poster
NR 0h 40m

Grenzdurchbruch 89

The propaganda film was intended to strengthen the solidarity of the people in the workers' and farmers' state with 'their' border guards and to portray the guarding of the 1,350-kilometre border with West Germany as a necessary measure. Members of the border troops recount their experiences; the film stylizes dead border soldiers as heroes and martyrs, albeit without shedding light on the exact background to these deaths. On November 9, 1989, countless East Germans crowded into the western part of the city, baffled border guards let them pass. Director Matthias-Joachim Blochwitz filmed around the Brandenburg Gate in November and December 1989. Rather than the people streaming towards the West, he interviewed border guards and asked about their thoughts and feelings on the fall of the Wall. Blochwitz used the footage to make Grenzdurchbruch '89, which only celebrated its cinema premiere in 2009: a unique historical document of a key period of upheaval in German history.

Top Cast

Overview

The propaganda film was intended to strengthen the solidarity of the people in the workers' and farmers' state with 'their' border guards and to portray the guarding of the 1,350-kilometre border with West Germany as a necessary measure. Members of the border troops recount their experiences; the film stylizes dead border soldiers as heroes and martyrs, albeit without shedding light on the exact background to these deaths. On November 9, 1989, countless East Germans crowded into the western part of the city, baffled border guards let them pass. Director Matthias-Joachim Blochwitz filmed around the Brandenburg Gate in November and December 1989. Rather than the people streaming towards the West, he interviewed border guards and asked about their thoughts and feelings on the fall of the Wall. Blochwitz used the footage to make Grenzdurchbruch '89, which only celebrated its cinema premiere in 2009: a unique historical document of a key period of upheaval in German history.

Rating

NR / 10
0 Reviews
0 Popular

Recommendations

Night Will Fall

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

Night Will Fall

7.6 2014