he wanted to smash the berlin wall long before it finally fell. ill she also issues in new york state you know linda bird is actually better known as the legend of german rock music. let's find out more about this amazing man mr linden. august 28th. this week on g.w. . germany's this week celebrating the full of the berlin wall 30 years ago but the party mood is changed with dismay many in eastern germany say they've been left behind and feel like 2nd class citizens well when the wall came down on the 9th of november 1989 the euphoria was boundless and fun scene was the word of the hour in credit the bull people kept saying to each other

a miracle it seemed to come to pass and the wall which it appeared so in movable was pierced but that was then and now it's now so we asked 30 years since the fall of the berlin wall what happens to the euphoria. of thanks very much for joining us and with me in the studio today i have got linda fear eka who grew up in the former g.d.r. and was 7 years old when the wall came down today she works as a reporter here t.w. and just completed a documentary about the full of the war and linda says it's only now free decades after the wall came down that we realize how radical the change was for people in the east also with this anglo-french transfer nicholson she's european affairs editor with the broadcaster france 24. believes that permanent euphoria on

realistic gets boring porton to learn lessons from the past. and a warm welcome to supporters freelance journalist only paterson who witnessed the fall of the wall 1st round and he points out the 30 years on from the fall of the wall at the far right his winning a worry going to support in the world's communist east. thank you once again all 3 for being with me today i'd like to begin with you charlie inevitably because you were there what do you remember most i remember most. listening or watching television and hearing reports coming in that there was some movement at the crossing points in the bag in wall and so we got into a car and drove flat out to a crossing point at the wall cool. and people walking towards us as we drove along this wide and we thought i would this must be just west berliners have come to have a look and now walking back into west berlin has me got closer and closer more and

more people started coming through and it was a maelstrom of people by the time we actually managed to walk there and the mood was just incredible it was there were people crying hugging each other. you know when i think about it today it almost makes me cry can we speculated for so long about this happening and people would always source themselves you know do you think it's going to happen in our lifetime and then suddenly my sense is that it came right out of the blue and you experienced absolutely nobody who i speak to now says oh it was inevitable that it would happen and it was absolutely a shock and a wonderful shock as well. a wonderful shock catherine you were talked up in bed it was bad to think i was about 8 years old. my my father had been to germany just a few weeks before i think in september quite placed you know the. further south and he'd taken photos that show. the watchtowers and soldiers with guns are really

scary when you're in those so we knew what the berlin wall was my brother and i and on the night my mom came up stairs she got us out i just said come downstairs what's this on t.v. this is historic and i don't even really remember her explaining what was going on we just watched and sort of drank it's in and you know obviously much harder to get the feeling than if you're actually that like you were but you know you grew up knowing about the knowing about the berlin wall and having had that experience of my dad telling us about it it seemed like you say what this huge scary thing is i put it it's god what is this and today you are with friends 24 and i wonder from the french perspective when you look burkas are those great days in once you know to knowing how much of a of a triumph for liberty was it from the french perspective or was there something scarier going on yeah i think you know in the in the maimane of the berlin wall coming down i think as you say the program that was euphoria quite generalized around the west part of your if i'm sure behind the iron curtain as well that there

was a say there was fear in france for many people i mean even today there is this that ambivalence for a certain part of the population when it comes to the idea of a big strong germany and of course the idea that to germany's like come back together was a worry so all the more important perhaps there was such a peaceful revolution exactly yeah sometimes actually when we talk about the problems of reunification whether we forget some what's actually what a miracle it was that it was peaceful you know this death zone that people within the allowed to come up say not a shot fired nobody killed on that lie so the following days as people pass through the wall. and of course people will suddenly into the business of working out what was going on and things like perhaps that past everybody by a little bit but i do think it is worth remembering it was a peaceful revelation of simply a spring linder and linda you were. born in 1982 in the city of brandenburg west of

berlin. how happy was your childhood when you look back because after all we do describe we just heard about you know before but again regions of eastern germany we it was a dictatorship or was it growing up in a dictatorship i mean i was really young and so i would say i had a perfectly happy childhood my grandparents lived in the countryside so we went there to you know what kids do we climb on trees and you know we we have our friends and i didn't exist i didn't i never felt like i was in the i was living in a dangerous ship that's not a word that would have appeared it might mean being 7 years old but still i mean i remember that night and i remember that from my parents it was kind of like a liberation yeah i mean where and. suffering much in the g.d.r. but they still felt unfree and we had family in that you know in west berlin we had family and western parts of germany so you know of course that was the most happy

moment of their lives as well and like for me you know the feeling afterwards that it has so much to do with with me i always you know i shiver when you talk about that night because i always think like a man i wish i would have been older or so i would have gone there and my mother was a teacher big ben and. we've been watching it on t.v. and she was saying like ok she would go and have to work 2 more. children and they didn't go there to do this syndrome dangle about and also came to me because she was working going to extend. well as we've already seen linda has made a very thought provoking documentary this being broadcast here on v.w. to mark the fall of the wall it's all about 3 generations of one family the family the family of regaining his the ground he was a very popular politician in these 2 sadly post away 18 years ago now let's hear from each of those 3 generations and for belinda again. i think the mountains and the homes the spirit of being well we felt like we'd been imprisoned for his few

moments survived but we tried to keep the wall out of our thoughts and it's rough and tell the children that inner freedom is what counts is why i think so you can make anything you want of it and gain from it someone has to give in and it's i'm caught in my mind the west was different in berlin we've been near the wall many times by the church of reconciliation and had peeked over the wall in little more colorful and vibrant we have a plate in scope watch when i was 12 i stood in front of the mirror and swore i would not settle for staying i would get out of a desk job like this and does it make you standing up on your just imagine this was actually the death strip mall was here and another wall was there and now we can just walk across we can dance and make music how beautiful it is that we're all here and dancing together the policy of the. time.

interesting stuff lenders the the grandfather of the 3 year he says we will wolf didn't we were imprisoned but it's the freedom that comes from a small i mean he's an he and his wife they actually they lived in ben whishaw so this is where the wall was you know was built so they really experienced how cruel this this whole. divide of germany was when they saw it with their own ice but they decided to stay in the east which was you know people didn't do that reeking ahead of one's own brother he went to the west you know so it was really a family that said ok we don't want the regime to when i was over you know so that was i think something that not a lot of people did and they of course they were part of the church and so there you know they had the little words world of freedom where they could also talk about other. yes there were also you know like. i watched ed by the

stasi so you know but it was a family that always you know they didn't. they were still heads up you know in the system they still live their life as they wish to interest on their reach what about the granddaughter cecilia we also heard from her she says that these days you know people can and do go and actually dance and policy and hang out on the form of death strip how much of how typical is that lightness and that openness and for her generation i think it's you know this is burnin i mean you can see and this is to me every day i mean i don't know i cross every day from west to west berlin to east berlin and it's just really normal and for them as well i think they're really benefiting from a reunited germany and this this generation i mean they feel that there are still differences but also in bergen i think a lot of the things are complete it. you're not going about the younger generation benefiting from the from the economic developments of recent years but they're all

you know there are many problems out there in this new there's great inequality absolutely yes i mean the steeds of reunification perhaps was necessary in some senses if it was going to be done maybe it does have to be done that quickly but it was quite a brutal process was that the toy and the privatizations of all these businesses and all those people made on employees was 3000000 within just a couple of years i think i don't think the 5 percent of people lost their jobs in the in the ninety's that was totally traumatic yeah and when you think about i mean when they've been periods of mass unemployment in france or in the u.k. it's never been on that scale and that's left scars for such a long time for those generations and so i think it is interesting what you say about the new generations have only named a unified germany i think that they will have a you know they'll be coming at it from a different point of view and some of those skulls won't be as present for them bob i think that's very true i mean i know people in their thirty's who they said

believe now germans and they speak only english among themselves because they've grown together a whole community of young people of their age from croatia from all over europe and they have english as a common language and the bully has just gone for them it's really his history. books when we talk about the younger gen will be told of these germans in general when we mention the inequalities that you were just describing how i would rate use is it that people are told these germans are told constantly and of over a long period of time know that they are ungrateful and they moan sue if you don't . i mean yeah i mean if i talk about the young generation and that the differences are not there so much anymore i'm talking about berlin you know when. i think you know i wouldn't say that germany is united fully back because we can see i mean we

can see the different paychecks we we see differences on you know where people are represented the difference is still there and i think hearing for 30 years that you know this isn't that bad that's what my parents also heard you know you just wait and it's everything's going to be why you can see your parents in the ones who know him to say well my father like many others lost his job he was working in the steel factory that was gone afterwards and. it was just you know there was not a lot of jobs you could get into and it's also he was same age like me now 36 but he never got back on his feet and this is something that was it was a brutal change and i think a lot of people around all my friends have different stories to tell so you know and just realizing how brutal and how you know not only using a job but also the values that are in the system you know that changed everything changed you know people went to the west. people were chilling and steeples so you

know social network also was gone in a way so i think we're just only beginning now to really fully understand that and also kind of like understand the people because really this is something that you always heard was your come on it's only about it's only about money you know it's not only about money it's about learning a whole new system in a really really short amount of time and i think there was a lot too much for and i think something is interesting that we spoke about before the program. it was about how the people in west germany that life didn't really change you know there was this sense that perhaps they were paying east and all of that but in times of day to day life things went changing in the same way they were for the east germans with this as you say an entirely different system of democracy as capitalism a completely different way of thinking about yourself in the world because the case and i think that it was really with hindsight a complete waste and take over the east and west and as still occupy good to have

been avoided should have been avoided this takeover as you describe it well i think if you have a situation that you had in 1909 that the majority of east germans were screaming for the lights mark i think wanted you read if occasion really badly as a very very weeks earlier there was screaming for democratic socialists but it it something happened it snowballed very very quickly people realized i think it's in if they went over and got their so-called reaching money they going to get a 100. each and they soon realized that that was new get them anywhere so they wanted to reunification very very quickly in the zone people consequence of it was that it would be a western take of them because they had the cash to do it where they have the numbers as well they had a number of commission differences and i think we looked at it a lot back then market wise which i understand in the context and it was also nobody knew how long we would have to really read unify it was an alternative logic

that was the problems of the market logic yes appeared but you know i mean i think i agree with the take over because you know what would have been nice looking back 30 years is looking at what are things that we might could take over from one system to the other to help us all together to bring you know bring our germany forward and i think they never did that i mean there was. you know there's also it's about solidarity and i think we lost that and nobody looking at it from a market point of view. well internationally angle americal has been far and away the most visible form and he's chairman of hope it's a different story though the question is will. from the outside until america's rises the 1st eastern german woman to become chancellor of a reunified germany sounds like a success story american business magazine forbes named her the world's most powerful woman 7 years in a row. u.s.

president obama honored. with the presidential medal of freedom america's highest civilian award partly because of her efforts for freedom in east germany. after the unpredictable donald trump took office many turned to america to be the leader of the free world. but in germany chancellor merkel often encounters hostility bordering on hatred when she appears especially in the east. colors yellow beaded many reject to refugee policies and chant we are the people. protesters feel angry and disappointed with the women from the east many of them feel that she doesn't represent their interests america has been worn down by political bickering at home as chancellor merkel only divided germany. well it's an interesting question but the one i would really like to us linder is why is an american such a red rag to so many people in eastern germany. difficult question but i think one

thing is you know she never did like really east german identity never came through really and so you know people don't see her as an east german petition but as a politician you know working for the system as they call it or she's one of the others and she's playing and we well she's really successful within the system but i think. many of these germans or especially the ones voting for rather populist parties like you know they they don't identify with her and her politics so this is why this is my explanation so now i know you're very interested in the rise of the populist right in your. but i wonder whether you find them to find a special eastern german angle on that narrative well i think it's very much this feeling that people in the east feel that they left behind because but plays back into this whole thing the west and take over which it was and i think people are beginning to realize that it was that now and

a lot of people don't feel represented they feel that there's an elite up there it's like bricks in britain there's an elite up there which tells them all what to do and they're not the elite is not telling them what they want to hear they don't want to be told that they've got refugees coming to live next door to them and they say who lost this and it it all comes together if you have a right wing political party that can pull in all these arguments and vocalized them then you've got something like the a.f.p. and that's why it's making such such begin really concerns kathy wanted to go to. the marginalize left behind absolutely i think there are parallels in so many parts of the western world for much better was you know in france the movement really struck me what you said about young people in cities in germany feel that unifications happened well similarly in paris there is a big movement even if that's where a lot of demonstrations happen is people who live in the countryside. having fewer of your g.p.s.

and shops and even you know the bakeries are closing down which is really symbolic an important thing for us you know it means that there isn't life in these places a little as if you're like me when i was like a king in paris sort of directing without knowing about that life so i feel like here in germany it's a different it's a ration of quite a similar phenomena want to do here in germany about the 57 percent are very strong german people people in eastern germany who study very feel like 2nd class citizens i mean it's not just another poll that says 57 percent i think people's lives do need to be paid attention to 0 sense of self is that's of pride your sense of purpose or you're going to matter i'm sorry to interrupt you but that's the pressing question why i'm going to medical most interest and why is she not establish that dialogue perhaps it's easier to address hits into. when you've got a country that 2nd gnomic a stable and prosperous there i think perhaps the downturn that's being full cost is coming in the next character says that could be a massive test and i think it's a there's a lot of things you can do i mean if there if there's differences you can see on the paycheck 30 years off the wall came down we have to equalize equal it but then

one thing the people in the west will say that's so unfair because the cost of living in the east the rents somewhat heavy there's no question it doesn't make up for it and i always say you know the narrative we're saying is you know you people in the east you do you didn't pay the same amount of money the best in people and it's not true i mean somebody decided to draw a lie to you to build a wall but it wasn't the people in the east so you know if you start the story to tell the story from there you know you get. you distance yourself a little bit from the whose fault it is that the people where there are there and i think 30 years of the war why does my mother was a teacher for 43 years why yes you have to earn less than a teacher in the us i don't get it you know angry as you get about these things i get really angry now you know i'm not 53 of the percent of the population are really unsatisfied and you know not all of them vote for the a d. but you know i think it is a problem if they're not represented that's from you that's the most precious issue

if you don't if you're not and that's figures 1.7 percent of the east germans are in leading position top positions only only 1.7 percent of them are east germans so if you are a recession dating site via the days it's a region eastern german universities and colleges of higher education i don't know how many there are several dozen at least all of the heads of all of these institutions indeed east from the from away from the worst so you think this is something you have to change and there you are you know if you don't feel well i think if this is a look at the look at case in across the board i mean east germany has profited enormously since the fall of the believability and people are not richard job in this instance. completely but i think now we got to the stage where people are beginning to realize really what happened and then looking back properly at history and saying well what really happened to me and what all of these people's concerns but it's taken a really long time for that to happen and i think that young generation that you

would say ok about is probably a really big parts of the k. part of the solution to this because you know people who do not have that mental will the people who before the fall of the wall talk about you know they they've grown up with unified germany cyberspace if that generation can feel a desire to stay in east germany to start businesses that to start their families that has been the big brain drain as well population transfer you know if the new generation of east germans can feel east german and feel hopeful about east germany just explain to that i mean there are more people going back to east germany now than there are leaving so that's a tough times but so many have gone already i think there's a small percentage of them that's true but if you look at the numbers and they're in the last elections it was actually people. younger than 13 that also voted for a large percentage for the a 50 story i think you know very own views once of the war.

of course your insanity is problematic i mean i think it has a lot to do with like cities like really areas where there's not much structure there's not much jobs high paying jobs you feel left out i think that's really a big because also in the east we have great cities that are functioning that don't vote for the that much but you know it's that's a big part of the problem and it's also what i said about representation if you know a part of the system you know you you know you don't you don't vote for the system and b. if he claims to be an anti-establishment party and that's where they come in. tony would be down with you you know what happens. the euphoria what became of the euphoria well i think it's your fault you for years sort of given way to reality and i think that what happened is that people have realized how much they've actually sort of lost out and that now have to really really stablished their own

identities not only in east germany look at countries like poland colleagues reporting. people thought oh it's the end of history in 1009 everybody is going to be a nice liberal and not i mean people are trying to find out who they really are through right wing movements but that will change things are changing in 100 i think last month obama's polity last in budapest budapest is no longer controlled by or been spotty so it's moving in the opposite direction and bracks it has not been decided . catherine how long is it going to take for east and west to grow together it's good question isn't there and well i think that this issue of euphoria well as they go on it only gets you safe is a constant process isn't history's happening all the time say you know perhaps the end point people full saw in 1909 will never happen that germany is going to get somewhere else or thank linda if you got a one sentence message of optimism yes i'm pretty optimistic i think they're said

it will take maybe a little more but. 2 or 3 generations she's very hungry for she said it with a look at it with a lovely reference for joining us here on to the point if you've enjoyed the show as much as i have to come but it's where you can tell and show spark thought it. was a. little bit of a. ready

for lift our lives through our solar system lab and taking the universe's measurements. can all be done with the space telescope rosita. and researchers are working on a map of all the galaxies suddenly the universe doesn't seem so big after all.

are all to do. 30 minutes. from the past to the future. synagogue in. style history. places for jewish history in germany. and the jury make this. the synagogue the call. to 75 minutes on d w. discover your concept discover with.

up to $100.00 it is the ideals of the bombs are more relevant today than they were a. 100 years ago visionaries really shaped things to. people understood design as a way of shaping society. the powerhouse of man does cassella. with ideas of our future. what makes the back. and somehow a part of the from a. small part documentary starts nov 14th w. . play

. this is deep breathing is coming to you live from berlin hong kong protester dies of his injuries after for. rolling from a building it's the 1st student debt since the start of the anti-government campaign pro-democracy activists are calling for revenge and vowing to escalate their protests also coming up spain's socialist prime minister gets ready to face off against his.