Youth in the GDR - Dreams behind Walls
The second episode examines the lives of young people in the GDR after the construction of the Wall from 1961 to 1976. East German youth wants to live. They love the same rhythm that attracts West German teenagers to dance clubs and are inspired by the sound of the 1960s.
Being young in the GDR - what did it feel like in the 1960s and 1970s? How did one live as an adolescent in the German Democratic Republic? Did teenagers really behave in a way that conformed to the system, as the workers' and farmers' state would have liked its youth to behave?
"The GDR was my home, but I lived in a country without loving it." When journalist + author Regine Sylvester, born in 1946, looks back on her childhood and youth, the relationship to her homeland is ambivalent. Regine Sylvester was 15 years old when the Wall was built in the middle of her native city of Berlin, completely turning the teenager's life upside down in the early 1960s. The clear political demarcation from the West shapes the entire GDR youth in almost all areas of life. Be it school, leisure time, the right to a self-determined life + first love.
This episode of the series "Youth in the GDR" deals with the generation that experienced their youth in the period between 1961 and 1976. It is characterized by the political demarcation of the small country from the West, by the Prague Spring of 1968 + by the state's attempts to win over girls + boys with large political events and an initially liberal youth policy.
Seven contemporary witnesses with very contrasting life stories travel back to their youth in this historical documentary - such as the former hippie Harald Hauswald, the "GDR showcase singer" Hartmut König or the opposition member Sonja Rachow, who had to spend most of her youth behind bars. They tell how they perceived "their GDR," but also, above all, how they perceived themselves in this totalitarian system.
Broadcasting on 09th of November 2021 at 11.10pm, on 16th of November 2021 at 04.55am, on 17th of November 2021 at 08.50am + on 18th of November 2021 at 02.55pm on ZDFinfo
Music: POPVIRUS Library