Einheit/Zerfall: DDR im Herbst (Unity/Dissolution: GDR in Autumn)

Television material from an almost forgotten period, spring 1989 until autumn 1990, a time when much was possible politically in the GDR and things were surfacing that had previously been kept hidden: for example, that thousands of contract workers helped to keep the stores running, but were simultaneously exposed to structural racism and increasingly physical violence.

Almuth Berger, who as a priest had been engaged early on in fighting the exclusion of foreigners in GDR society. She co-founded the grassroots movement ‘Demokratie Jetzt’ (Democracy Now), and after ‘die Wende’ (The Turn) she became the “Commissioner for Foreigners” in the governments of Modrow and de Maizière.