“Good bye, Lenin” was the extremely eloquent title for his film Wolfgang Becker which “stirred the waters” in Germany in 2003, was honored with numerous film awards and highlighted Daniel Brühl, one of the leading German actors of his generation (who also became known to the Greek audience with films such as “Merry Christmas” and “The Ultimatum Bourne’s”).

The subtitle in the German distribution was also eloquent: “The GDR survives in 79 sq.m.” The young Alex (Daniel Brühl) who sees his mother fall into a coma in the autumn of 1989, appears as a tragic, but also comic hero. At some point the mother regains consciousness, but remains bedridden and the doctors forbid any discomfort or emotion. Meanwhile, the German Democratic Republic has collapsed and a cosmogony is taking place in Berlin, but Alex feels he must keep these details quiet. His mother, a fanatical supporter of existing socialism, would probably not have been able to withstand the shock.

So the young man employs the most improbable tricks to maintain the illusion that East Germany remains strong and eternal. Not only at 79 sq.m. of the family apartment, but also outside of them. She rummages through food packaging that has disappeared from supermarkets so she can change the labels and cook traditional East German recipes. He coaxes the neighborhood kids to sing socialist anthems in the apartment building. In the end, he himself confuses reality with his illusions and wishful thinking. “For my mother’s sake I pretended there was an East Germany, which began to look more and more like the country I myself wanted,” he monologues towards the end of the film.

Stern magazine wrote that, until Wolfgang Becker’s film hit theaters, East Germans were laughing at West Germans and vice versa. Seeing “Goodbye Lenin”, for the first time they all laughed together. But at the same time they also cried…

The Stasi’s nightmare

Laughter was certainly not caused by the film “The Lives of Others” by Florian Henkel von Donnersmark, which was shown in 2006 and became world famous, winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Everything is dark here. Kafkaesque. Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys is clearly visible. At least in the beginning. But sometimes the bad guys can turn bad, the bad guys can show nuggets of goodness, the good guys can surprise us with their wickedness.

The tentacles of the Stasi, the powerful secret police, are reaching everywhere. Not only the declared dissidents are watched, but also the potential rival, the unpredictable artist, the romantic rival. Also under surveillance is the acclaimed director Georg Dreyman, skillfully played by Sebastian Koch (also known to the Greek public from the leading role in the film “God Loves Caviar” by Yiannis Smaragdis). However, Ulrich Mühe’s performance in the role of agent Gerd Wiesler, who, by typing official protocols for “the lives of others”, has devalued his own life, is unique. By the time he realizes this, it is too late to disentangle himself from machinations that have been set up in his absence.

Sun, baths and …Cold War

The excellent television series “Honigfrauen” remains unknown in Greece. “Honey women” would be the literal translation. This is a – rather sexist – nickname that young West Germans gave to East German women in the 80s, perhaps considering that they have a special temperament. The series was successfully broadcast on the ZDF network in 2017 and takes us back to 1986, just three years before the Fall of the Wall.

The first shots suggest carefree summer romances: Katrin (Cornelia Gressel) and Maya (Sonia Gerhardt), twin sisters from Erfurt, dream of “travels to the end of the world”. But for East Germans, who are not allowed to travel to the West, the end of the world is Hungary and Lake Balaton. There the two young women enjoy their baths and make acquaintances, some more, some less pleasant. Except the new friends have their “secrets”. Kathryn and Maya will unintentionally get involved. They are not interested in politics. They will be carried away by spontaneity and ignorance of danger. They are in the wrong place at the wrong time. And everything shows that the infamous Stasi is spreading its tentacles even in the “sister socialist countries”.

Herchausen, the “lord of money”

But what happens in West Germany before the Fall of the Wall? In politics, the Christian Democrat Chancellor Helmut Kohl dominates. The economy is dominated by Alfred Herrhausen, head of Deutsche Bank. He is the “lord of money,” DER SPIEGEL magazine reported in 1989, arguing that since the early post-war years and Hermann Josef Ambs (who had spearheaded the London Agreement on Germany’s foreign debt in 1953) no other banker had gather in his hands so much power and so much influence.

“Herrhausen, the lord of money” is also the title of the television series, which has been showing for a few days on the ARD television network. A series that is “based on true events”, but also contains elements of fiction. According to the script, Herrhausen (Oliver Mesucki) suggests to Kohl (Sasha Nathan) that he should support Gorbachev’s Soviet Union with billions in loans, because “their bankruptcy is much bigger than we think, while East Germany is economically dependent on Russia”. For the bank the profit will be future access to the Russian market, for the chancellor a favorable political starting point in view of the possible collapse of East Germany.