Chronicle of the turning point
The Chronicle of the Wende is a multimedia project produced by the Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg that documents the events of the Wende in the GDR in the form of a chronicle .
watch TV
The core of the project is a series of 15-minute television reports that document the turning-related events of one day with news clips from West German broadcasters (namely ARD , ZDF , RIAS-TV and SFB ) and East German television in the GDR . The news is supplemented by interviews with eyewitnesses who were involved in the day's events. A recurring optical element are windows that appeared both in the opening and closing credits and also served as a background for the eyewitness interviews.
The series was broadcast for the first time in 1994, starting on October 7th - the day the GDR was founded and the beginning of the fall of the Wall - an episode with the events of the same day was broadcast every day exactly 5 years before. The temporal parallelism should enable the viewers to experience the events again in the same chronological sequence as they were back then. The broadcast initially ended on December 18, 1994 with the events of December 18, 1989.
In the following years further episodes were produced, so that a second broadcast could take place in 1999/2000, this time extended to the events of March 18, 1990, the day of the first free election to the People's Chamber and provisional end point of the actual turning events.
A third broadcast took place in 2004/2005.
Between October 7, 2009 and March 18, 2010, the series on the occasion of "20 Years since the Fall of the Wall" was broadcast again during the night by the RBB. The RBB's early program was repeated again in 2014/2015 on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The series was broadcast in the 3rd TV program of the ORB and later RBB . It was partially taken over by other third-party programs , ARD and the documentation channel Phoenix .
Radio
In addition, in 1994 and 1999, the ORB broadcast an abridged version of the original audio content of the television chronicle in its programs Antenne Brandenburg and Radio Eins . There were also special programs and thematic focuses called "Radio Days". The radio contributions were partly taken over by other ARD stations, u. a. the HR and the MDR .
Internet
An extensive internet presence was produced for the second broadcast in 1999. It gives an overview of the events of each day and supplements this with photos, written documents, audio and video excerpts, short biographies of important people, a glossary and a list of literature. After the broadcast, it was also possible to chat with some of the eyewitnesses there.
Books
At the same time as the first broadcast, Ch. Links Verlag published two volumes with a written chronicle that is more detailed than the TV and Internet versions and lasts until October 3, 1990. However, this edition is out of print in stores.
The second edition from 1999 is slightly shortened and contains the events up to March 18, 1990 in just one volume.
Videos
In 1994 a slipcase with 6 VHS cassettes was released, containing the entire original version (October 7th - December 18th) of the television chronicle. Like the original volumes, this collection is no longer available in stores.
In 1999 two VHS cassettes with 12 selected individual episodes each appeared.
On October 23, 2009 a box of 3 DVDs with the same 24 selected individual episodes was released.
On December 14, 2009, a box with the entire series on 18 DVDs was released by the Federal Agency for Civic Education .
Awards
In 1995 , Wolfgang Drescher and Geri Nasarski received the Adolf Grimme Prize for Chronik der Wende .
literature
- Hannes Bahrmann & Christoph Left: Chronicle of the turning point. Left, Berlin.
- Volume 1: The GDR between October 7 and December 18, 1989. 1994, ISBN 3-86153-081-3 .
- Volume 2: Stations of Unity. The last months of the GDR. 1995, ISBN 3-86153-095-3 .
- Hannes Bahrmann & Christoph Left: Chronicle of the turning point. The events in the GDR between October 7, 1989 and March 18, 1990. Revised new edition. Links, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-86153-187-9 .