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00:00This program is made possible in part by the support of our patrons on Patreon.com
00:30I'm in Slovakia, it's a bit of a shock after the flatlands of Poland to find yourself confronted
00:58with an 8,000-foot mountain range in the heart of Europe, but these are the high Tatras,
01:03part of the Carpathian Range, and I've got to cross them to begin the last stage of my
01:07journey through Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and into East Germany.
01:17Once through Slovakia and across the Czech Republic, I'll be following the river Elbe
01:21through eastern Germany, from Dresden to Berlin.
01:25Then on to journey's end at Rügen Island on the Baltic coast.
01:36Slovakia is one of Europe's newest countries, splitting from Czechoslovakia by mutual agreement
01:41just 14 years ago.
01:44It was always considered the underachiever of the Czechoslovak partnership, with a slower,
01:49more rural way of life.
01:55In the mountain villages, little seems to have changed.
01:58Today the people who live here have killed a pig.
02:01Elena, a Slovak married to a Welshman, lives nearby.
02:04What are they going to do now?
02:06I think they're going to, obviously, they need to clean it now.
02:10I think that if they boil the water, you see, they're preparing the water outside.
02:20You can help cleaning.
02:24Alphonse is saying you perhaps want to take your coat off.
02:29I don't want to do it at all, but I'll do it.
02:34Are they asking, are you married?
02:41So don't do it like with the woman, you've got to go really far, go for it, that's right.
02:49Sorry, I'm a city boy, I'm just used to all this.
02:56For young Slovakians, a day like this could soon be a thing of the past.
03:03And scenes like this, confined to EU approved premises.
03:08OK.
03:11Oh, oh, that's great.
03:16Oh, sorry, oh dear.
03:21Oh dear indeed, next time the ladies take safe sausage precautions.
03:25I don't know, the Slovakian for stop.
03:30OK, now.
03:33Alright, yeah.
03:36Alright, OK.
03:42None of the pig will be wasted.
03:44What isn't eaten today will be stored away for the winter.
03:48These are all parts of the pig, isn't it?
03:54After work, I ask Elena about Slovakia.
03:57Did you feel that Slovakia had to be its own nation in order to sort of realise what it wanted?
04:04Probably, yes.
04:06Because through the history, we always, through the centuries, we always had either Hungarian or Austrian monarchy over us.
04:14And we never sort of could say what we wanted or do what we wanted and we did what they told us.
04:21And so it's a good time, we are learning to stand on our own, I think.
04:25It's funny really, isn't it, there's a sort of process seems to be in Europe going on of interconnections
04:32through the European Union, through transport and all that sort of thing.
04:35At the same time, more and more small nations springing up who feel they can only realise what that nation wants by being independent.
04:50At a time like this, the old songs are always the best.
04:54Even if no one can remember them.
05:00You're making that up, you're making that up, even I know that.
05:10I'm almost tempted to say it's been a pig of a day, but I won't.
05:19It's time to leave the snows of the high Tatras behind and back onto the plain and west to my penultimate country, the Czech Republic.
05:30Trains 1, train 1, ready for departure.
05:46Being in the European Union has helped the Slovaks emerge from the Czech shadow.
05:51And tourism in the Tatras is one of the big hopes in an increasingly optimistic future.
06:01I've crossed my 19th border into Brno, the second city of the Czech Republic.
06:07Brno is a solid manufacturing town, with a few surprises off the main drag.
06:13In this unglamorous little theatre, the Czech tradition of satirical minds is still alive.
06:19It's the first time in the history of Czechoslovakia that I've been in the Czech Republic.
06:26In this unglamorous little theatre, the Czech tradition of satirical mind
06:30is carried on by one of its most illustrious practitioners, Tibor Turba.
06:35Martin, could you be so kind and try to play in the time,
06:45and I'll try to express as big as possible a palette of different expressions of red colour.
07:02Martina, asked to mime the colour red, seems to set herself almost literally on fire.
07:15Okay, fine. Michael, may I ask you, could you be so kind and could you make a study of Le Coq?
07:30Could you use this mask, this is Capitano, no?
07:36If there is some correspondence between the character of the Coq and the character of Capitano,
07:45let's try. And don't forget now, this mask, more moments, longer.
07:52Don't be afraid to stop, to make so-called representative positions.
08:15I model my performance on everything I wanted to be when I was young, but never dared.
08:35They love it.
08:38Now that there's, you know, you're free, nobody's oppressing you.
08:44Is that sense of humour still, is it still satirical, is it still having a go at establishment?
08:50Not this, elementary things are rather clearly changed.
08:56But in details, there are still so many problems, and we can be ironic against many things.
09:06I know people which go on with this excellent humour, which makes some sort of cleaning.
09:13It's like kidneys, which clean your blood.
09:30I feel people like Turbo are happier with something to fight against.
09:34In the New Europe we're all theoretically free, and of course encouraged to keep moving.
09:50A smooth, tilting train that's come from Vienna carries me northwards,
09:54and Pilsner Lager, one of the Czech's finest contributions to the world, helps the journey slip by.
10:05Czechoslovakia
10:12Nestling in the western mountains of the Czech Republic is a town where all excess can be cured,
10:18in excessively plush surroundings.
10:25Karlovy Vary, once the German town of Carlsbad, sits on a bed of healing waters.
10:32And there are people who tell you how best to make use of them.
10:38Milada Serova, who runs this clinic, has treated such icons of New Europe as Gorbachev and Czech President Václav Havel,
10:46so she's a force to be reckoned with.
10:50I prescribe you now how you drink the water, and to this you make two or three treatments every day.
10:56Right, this water which is very, very special.
11:00Our water is in colonnade, we drink the water from these cups.
11:06We drink the water every time on empty stomach, because you'll see, we wash mechanically all digestive system.
11:18Yours still is normal?
11:20I think so, yes.
11:22Because when the people have constipation, they must drink water 30 degrees Celsius.
11:27My body just doesn't know what it's got to look forward to.
11:31And this, how long is this program?
11:33You drink the water around 10 minutes.
11:36How many days?
11:37The best is 20 days.
11:3820 days.
11:39Because every day we drink around 5 cups, it is one liter.
11:44And when you really drink 20 liters, your liver can regenerate.
11:57You deal with the heart as well as the body, the mind and the body.
12:12Yes, complex, our body, our mind and our soul.
12:17When everything is healthy and happy, it means we can speak about that I am healthy.
12:23Can you tell from somebody quite quickly whether they are happy or unhappy or likely to be depressed?
12:30I think the love is very important in life, because everybody who is in love, they are happy and they are much nicer.
12:39Oh love, I thought you said laugh.
12:40Love, love, love.
12:42Love is very important.
12:44But also love is very painful for some people.
12:47I don't know, I think when you really found the second, the woman found the good man.
12:55Yes, science.
12:56And it is really this very good laugh, it means they must be happy because life is...
13:01Good sex, really.
13:02Sex is very important because limbic system and all this hormonal situation in the body is very important.
13:11And I think the people don't make enough love and sex now because they don't have time for this.
13:18It needs time too, time is very important.
13:22Can you give me a prescription?
13:27So star-studded is Milada's clientele that I find myself in a bag full of ice-cold CO2 next to the current Miss World.
13:36Hello.
13:37Hello.
13:39You are so radiant.
13:42I think white is definitely your colour.
13:45Tatyana Kucherova is the first Czech girl ever to win the title.
13:49It's like your body is bursting.
13:52You know that feeling?
13:54I feel like...
13:56I remember my willy.
13:59The carbon dioxide wind treatment is intended to dilate the capillaries causing the skin to radiate a smooth therapeutic glow.
14:11Are you feeling any better after this?
14:14I think it will come later.
14:17Your skin is sort of opening up.
14:21I've got something to help you.
14:25I've got something to help you.
14:28It's a bit like going to the dry cleaners.
14:34Have you ever been in a bag, a plastic bag before?
14:37No, never. This is the first time.
14:40Me too.
14:41I'm older than you.
14:43How have I missed out on this all my life?
14:46Anyway.
14:48Sleep, we have to sleep.
14:50Here we go.
14:54Hmm.
15:04It's an odd feeling, isn't it?
15:07You need really to have someone to tell you that this is good for you, don't you?
15:11Otherwise it's like sitting in a warm, wet bath with a lot of gravel up your backside.
15:17It's quite dirty.
15:19It is quite dirty.
15:21Have you been to Kalabivari many times?
15:24Yes, I've been here many times.
15:26But this is the first time here in Spa Center.
15:42The success of the private clinics may make Kalabivari glow with health,
15:46but the town's most valuable resource is free.
15:49Every day the place is full of people taking nature's medicine.
16:08You have to drink it fresh.
16:10Fresh, yeah.
16:12And here it comes up from the earth.
16:16OK.
16:18Well...
16:24The clinics may be all futuristic high-tech,
16:27but on the street it's traditional porcelain mugs and elegant old colonnades.
16:32Here's another one.
16:34I've heard they get hotter, is that right?
16:36Yes, yes.
16:3862.
16:4062, it says, yes.
16:4662, it's quite hot, isn't it?
16:48Yeah, it is.
16:50Well, here you go.
16:54I actually prefer it that way.
16:56Yeah? Do you like it better?
16:58Yeah, I like it better than the lukewarm.
17:00This is like a really hot cuppa.
17:02So we are not the only, we are not the first ones in history.
17:05No, we are not.
17:07A lot of famous people drink this water.
17:09For example, Goethe, Beethoven, Karl Marx, a lot of others.
17:13And now Miss World.
17:15Yeah, maybe I'm the first one.
17:27Carlo Vivari fosters the impression that time has stood still.
17:32An illusion reinforced tonight at the Hotel Poop with an aristocrat's ball.
17:38New Europe seems a world away
17:40as those from rich and well-connected families greet each other like old friends.
17:46But there are occasional impostors.
17:49Thank you, thank you.
17:51Pleasure to meet you.
17:57Hello, hello.
17:59We've come all the way from London to see this.
18:01I'm Mr World.
18:03I'm Mr World.
18:05Well, I'll think about that, actually. That's very good.
18:07Yes, maybe you are, if you're with Miss World.
18:09Thank you, thank you very much. Good evening.
18:11Thanks. Mr and Mrs World.
18:13Yes, that's great.
18:17It's a spectacular room.
18:19But I think Tatiana and I have made the mistake of sitting down too soon.
18:26Amazing place.
18:28It's a different kind of world, I don't know.
18:31Yeah, a different kind of world.
18:33Yeah, me too.
18:35We're not aristocrats.
18:37No, we are not.
18:41It's interesting to observe, though, isn't it?
18:46It looks like a world I don't really know much about.
18:49Yes, very different.
18:51Suddenly, an aristocrat spots me.
18:54Hello.
18:56Oh, thank you, thank you.
18:58I was admiring your spectacular medal.
19:02And this is Tatiana.
19:04Good evening. Nice to meet you.
19:06Nice to meet you.
19:08What is this award?
19:10The Sicilian Order of the Knights of the Collar of St. Agatha.
19:14The Sicilian Order?
19:16Yes.
19:18The Knights of the Collar of St. Agatha.
19:20From the 11th century, you had three royal houses in Italy.
19:24You had the House of Paterno, or Aragon.
19:27You had the House of Savoy and Bourbon.
19:29The Bourbon is the Johanniter Order.
19:32My great-grandmother was an Irish orphan,
19:34but I don't want to bring that one up.
19:36The House of Paterno, Aragon, is the Order of the Collar of St. Agatha.
19:40If you go to Catania...
19:42Yes, Catania, right down in Sicily, yes.
19:45In February, they always have the Feast of St. Agatha.
19:49That's the main event for us.
20:00The period flavour of the aristocrats' ball is so immaculately recreated
20:05that one can almost forget that two world wars ever happened.
20:08I mean, these people's families organised the Crusades.
20:29Prague, an hour's drive from Kala Vihari,
20:32was spared the devastation that the Second World War
20:34inflicted on so many European capitals.
20:37It's splendidly rich in history,
20:39but doesn't take itself too seriously.
20:51Prague's architecture is a bit of everything,
20:53from the Gothic houses by the cathedral on the hill
20:56to the majestic neoclassical bulk of the Rudolfinum concert hall.
21:09The 600-year-old Charles Bridge is packed 20 hours a day
21:13as people squeeze down the tourist trail they call the Golden Mile.
21:19But there is a quieter way to see the city.
21:22For the price of a pedal, though, I get a view not just of Prague,
21:25but of the Czech Republic from local girl Bára VáclavÃková.
21:30Do they regard any of the nations and the countries around as their natural allies?
21:35Is the one sort of people that the Czechs tend to like more than others
21:39or understand better than others?
21:42I think we get along with the Slovaks the most, of course, because of the link.
21:48But we also think that the Slovakian girls come to the Czech Republic
21:52to steal our good-looking boys.
21:54And in general, I think we don't really much like Germans,
22:00because of all the oppressions and all the wars.
22:04And it's been like thousands of years of our fights with Germans.
22:09And we think they're a little too strict and not any flexible and no fun at all.
22:18But don't ask about the British. Our stag parties love Prague.
22:23What's essentially Czech, do you think?
22:26I think it's the humour.
22:30I think it's the dark humour.
22:33We're very ironic and sarcastic, and we like it about ourselves.
22:42We like to make fun of everything and take everything lighter,
22:47from the lighter perspective.
22:50Are you very sociable?
22:52Well, I am.
22:55I am, and definitely, I think so.
22:58I think Czechs are very social.
23:00You can see people hanging out together all the time.
23:04It's very based on friendship and community,
23:07and there are bunches of people that gather together.
23:10It's not only that you have one friend,
23:13but basically people usually have at least a group of ten friends
23:17that they hang out with.
23:21Vára's friends are based around a singing group
23:24to which she belongs called the Yellow Sisters.
23:27Tonight they and their band will be playing
23:30at a riverside castle at ÚstÃ, Itagelan.
23:43As the industrial sprawl of northern Bohemia slips by,
23:47the Yellow Sisters discuss the show.
23:54All of them have studied in West Africa,
23:57and their music reflects a strong African influence.
24:18This seems very Czech.
24:20I can't imagine an English band
24:22being allowed to do this sort of thing in a restaurant car.
24:27MUSIC
24:45When the castle at Ústà finally comes in sight,
24:48I feel I know the concert pretty well,
24:50and privileged to have had my ringside seat in the restaurant car,
24:54I head back to Prague.
25:08The thousands of graves huddled together in the city's Jewish cemetery
25:12reflect the size and strength of the old Jewish community in Prague.
25:16But for people like Liza Mikova,
25:18life changed catastrophically when the Nazis marched in, in 1939.
25:25She and her family were sent north,
25:28to the old garrison town of Teletzin.
25:38Under the chilling motto, Work Makes You Free,
25:41an overcrowded ghetto was created.
25:45It was here, in 1944, that the Nazis made a propaganda film
25:49to be called The Führer Gives the Jews a City.
25:55MUSIC
26:00The forced smiles, the hastily cleaned-up areas,
26:03helped blind the world, including Red Cross inspection teams,
26:07to the realities of the Nazis' genocidal policy.
26:12This was something that happened anyway.
26:15Yes, this really happened. That really happened.
26:25MUSIC
26:38And here are the gardens.
26:39And here you see the gardens.
26:41They were around Teletzin.
26:44There were a lot, a lot of vegetable fields.
26:49And there we had to work.
26:51Of course, these vegetables were not for us.
26:55The Germans came every second day with cars
26:59to carry these vegetables away.
27:02And there were guards,
27:04and when they saw that we would eat one tomato or one turnip,
27:10it was terrible.
27:12You were punished and sent to Poland.
27:16The truth of Teletzin is that of the 144,000 Jews who passed through,
27:20121,000 died either here, on forced marches,
27:25or in the concentration camps they were sent to.
27:28I lost my parents here. I saw them for the last time.
27:32But then, when I came to Auschwitz
27:35and then to the work camp near Dresden, to Freiberg,
27:40so we remember Teletzin as a spa.
27:45In February 1945,
27:47Allied bombers carried out a massive raid on Dresden,
27:50wiping out its historic centre
27:52and killing an estimated 35,000 people.
27:55We lived so near Dresden
27:58that we saw these bombardments,
28:02these two in February.
28:04They locked us in the factory
28:07and we saw the planes.
28:09And I must say today that we were so happy
28:12when we saw the English planes.
28:16And it was, of course, a possibility
28:19that something could also destroy our factory
28:23where we were locked up.
28:26But we didn't think about that.
28:29And we were so happy that
28:32we didn't think about those deaths in Dresden.
28:38We thought about something, something.
28:41They do something. They will help us.
28:44They will free us.
28:47Yes, this was our thinking.
28:49And it gave us so many strengths.
28:54When I say something to a German,
28:57he looks at me as if I'm normal.
29:01But it was like that.
29:04Today's Dresden is a symbol of resurrection,
29:07a rebuilt city in a reunited Germany.
29:1062 years ago, this was a burning shell.
29:13Now, beside the banks of the Elbe,
29:16the Saxon capital is reborn.
29:23There are symbols of reconciliation,
29:26like the cross made by a British soldier
29:29in the 18th century.
29:32Like the cross made by a British bomber pilot's son.
29:36It sits on top of the rebuilt Frauenkirche,
29:39which had been left as a pile of rubble
29:42by the communists of the GDR, the German Democratic Republic.
29:46High on the dome, I meet Felix Schoger.
29:50Were you born and bred in Dresden?
29:53I was, in 1986. I'm 21 years old right now.
29:56And the memories of the bombing,
29:58and that awful bombing in 1945,
30:00was that something you sort of learned about at school?
30:03My grandma told me about it.
30:05She saw the bombing from about 20 kilometres away,
30:08and the sky was burning.
30:10Yeah, she still doesn't talk about it a lot,
30:13but it's a part of our history,
30:15and even the German Democratic Republic
30:17is a part of our history,
30:19even though I don't know much about it.
30:21I was three when the Berlin Wall fell.
30:23It's a part of our identity, I guess.
30:26So most people think it's a good thing.
30:28To reunite.
30:30Yeah, see, I don't know much about it,
30:32but what my parents tell me is that
30:34not everything was wrong in the German Democratic Republic.
30:37I guess there was a larger community,
30:39everybody was helping each other,
30:41and not everything was wrong.
30:43That's what they always tell me.
30:45Yeah, it's interesting.
30:47But there's another saying.
30:49We say some people still have a wall in their heads.
30:52It's a symbol, a metaphor.
30:54It means that even so now, 17 years after reunification,
30:57there is still segregation
30:59between the eastern part and the western part.
31:01And it's probably going to take another generation
31:04to get rid of that wall in the heads of people.
31:08We have a last chance to admire
31:10the flamboyant skyline of the new Old Dresden
31:13as we slide away down the Elbe
31:15on Europe's oldest steamboat service.
31:27It's a mixture of high-tech and low-tech.
31:36In almost anywhere else but Germany,
31:38machinery like this would have been in a museum.
31:41But here it is, paddling us through the Saxon countryside.
31:45MUSIC PLAYS
31:56Well, now, on this rather pleasant peregrination,
31:59we've paddled our way down to the town of Meissen,
32:02world-famous, of course, for only one thing, China.
32:05MUSIC PLAYS
32:10Meissen hardly resembles the clichéd East German city.
32:14It's pretty, unspoiled,
32:16and its success is based on very expensive objects.
32:26A secret formula for making porcelain
32:29was discovered here almost 300 years ago.
32:32Collectors have pushed up the prices
32:34and some of these camp little figurines
32:36go for over £1,000.
32:40I prefer my China a little more down-to-earth.
32:44Like the bathroom appliances they make in this factory,
32:47relocated here from West Germany.
32:56This state-of-the-art operation has provided a big boost
32:59for an East German economy
33:01only slowly catching up with the wealthier West.
33:05I'm shown round by a lady from head office.
33:08There was a tradition of porcelain-making
33:11around Dresden and Meissen. Was that important?
33:13Yes. I mean, the region is very famous
33:16for people really educated in producing ceramic ware.
33:20They already have the feeling how to produce ceramic ware.
33:24That's important, is it, the feeling?
33:26It's not just making any old product.
33:28Absolutely, because it's a material that is all nature.
33:33I love the paint-spraying robot.
33:35Like a dentist's chair gone mad.
33:54And the showroom products are now...
33:56The finished...
33:58When the job is finished, as we get into terrible puns.
34:01Yes.
34:02So what's that? That's sort of more conventional.
34:07Actually, I would like to show you that first, maybe, if you want to.
34:11That's the sort of one I associate with Germany particularly,
34:15where there's a sort of flat pan.
34:17Absolutely.
34:18So it doesn't drop into the water.
34:20Exactly. We call it wash-out model.
34:22And it has a very practical reason,
34:24actually a medical reason.
34:26So, as we say, you can examine your business
34:28when you've made a number two.
34:30Is that something Germans do?
34:32I mean, are you brought up to examine your business as well?
34:36Yes, you do.
34:37Yes, I mean, especially elderly people should do that regularly.
34:41They should check on their sanity as well, on their point.
34:44On their sanity?
34:45Yes.
34:46On their health.
34:47Their health, yes. Sanity is sort of mental.
34:49Exactly.
34:50We're probably the same.
34:51You've been talking too much about sanitary wares.
34:53I'm coming back on sanity.
34:55Sanity ware, I like that.
34:56It's a very good laboratory.
34:58Yes, and that's why a lot of Germans use it.
35:02Is it still popular then, that particular stuff?
35:05Yes, it is very popular in Germany.
35:07There are some also in Switzerland, some in Netherlands,
35:10but mostly in Germany people are used to it
35:12and they like to do it in that way.
35:15So for those who don't like it in that way,
35:18we have a kind of mixture where you can do both.
35:21Also, perhaps you can enlighten me.
35:24I've heard that there's a custom now for German men
35:27to actually sit down when they're having a pee
35:30and it's become quite an important, almost a sort of political thing.
35:34That's what men should do, is it?
35:36I have to laugh about that because that's a very frequent question.
35:39It is true that a lot of German men have decided to sit when they pee.
35:44They don't like to speak too much about it
35:46because they still consider it as not very masculine.
35:50But they do, they do more and more, yes.
36:01Satirical cabaret has a long tradition in Germany
36:04and during the Communist period it was one of the few arenas
36:07in which criticism could be voiced, albeit carefully and ingeniously.
36:17Gunther Boehnke performed throughout the days of the GDR
36:21when they had full houses every night.
36:25Tonight here in Leipzig, the cast and the audience
36:27are reliving some of the old sketches that wowed them in the 60s and 70s
36:31when satire had a real purpose.
36:47Leipzig, with its big international trade fairs,
36:50was the city where the GDR met the rest of the world
36:54and the state security police, known as the Stasi, were a strong presence.
36:59Gunther explains to me the way the Stasi worked
37:02and what they were trying to achieve.
37:06Well, the idea of these people was,
37:10as I think the Minister of State Security once said,
37:14we have to go into every flat, into every bar, into every head.
37:21We have to know what people think, what people plan, what people do.
37:26And they had lots and lots of information.
37:31I mean, they had six million people in their archives.
37:36Did people disappear?
37:38I mean, did you know of someone who just suddenly was off the streets
37:41and you didn't see them again?
37:43In the 50s, there was a saying,
37:45if you tell a joke in the restaurant and somebody hears it,
37:50you will disappear to Siberia.
37:53And when I was a small boy, I always thought,
37:56what do they mean by you will disappear to Siberia?
38:00Well, it meant you were sent to the Gulag in the 50s.
38:06Until 61, you could be...
38:10There was the death penalty in East Germany
38:14and you could be shot by the Stasi in Leipzig till 61.
38:26The Runde Ecke, or Round Corner, was the bland building
38:29from which the Stasi spied on the people of Leipzig.
38:33Now it's a museum and people can spy on the Stasi.
38:50Preserved in all its banal colourlessness,
38:53it feels more like a small town technical college
38:56than a place where thousands of lives were watched,
38:59listened to and often destroyed.
39:11It's extraordinary how, you know, the evil of the system
39:16emanated from just a little office like this.
39:19You didn't need much, the telephone, the filing system,
39:23enormous amount of details kept on everybody,
39:26and of course the shredder, vital things,
39:29and then the tea and the coffee maker and the map.
39:32But enormous numbers of people's lives disrupted from this room.
39:36It really is an example of the bureaucracy of oppression.
39:45Today, biofuel crops and wind farms
39:48mark the landscape of a new, cleaner Germany.
39:52These wide flatlands on the Polish-German border
39:56are ideal tank country.
39:58And during the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact had 7,000 tanks here,
40:02which they reckoned they could get to Marseille within five days.
40:06And they've still got some left.
40:12So we scramble aboard. Oh, no.
40:15Oh, a little ladder.
40:17What are they?
40:19What are they?
40:21Camp?
40:23Dainty.
40:28This is the heavy stuff up here, isn't it?
40:30These Russian T-55 tanks were once the mainstay of the Warsaw Pact forces.
40:35These were the weapons of our enemy.
40:38Start the machine? Start the machine, yeah.
40:41In the new Europe, they're a tourist attraction,
40:44and military training takes all of five minutes.
40:48There's an awful lot of tap twiddling and levers going and all that.
40:52I mean, I hope I don't have to reproduce that.
41:07I didn't really see how you did that, but...
41:10This is the Panzerfahrschule,
41:12a tank-driving school set up by an ex-Cold War commander
41:15who couldn't bear to see these machines go to waste.
41:18This is Russian technology, he told me earlier.
41:21You can do what you like with it.
41:25And I'll get my own specially-shot video at the end of it.
41:29OK. Ideally, the left steering, the right steering, position one.
41:35Left and right, position one. OK.
41:39OK. Yeah. And start. A little bit. Yes.
41:42OK. Start. Gas, gas, gas.
41:45The steering forward.
41:48The left to the right steering forward.
41:51And 15 onwards.
41:53Right forward. And left forward.
41:56And gas. 15 onwards.
41:5815 onwards. The RPM.
42:00What? The RPM. The RPM.
42:02Gas, gas, gas, gas.
42:04Gas, gas, gas, gas.
42:06Sorry.
42:08Left, is that?
42:10I don't know.
42:12More gas. More gas, OK.
42:14The RPM, 15 onwards, OK?
42:16OK.
42:18The pad neutral, the gear neutral.
42:21Can you start a bit?
42:23No, no.
42:25The second gear, the T-gear.
42:28T-gear?
42:30No, the T-gear.
42:32T-gear, OK.
42:34OK. The steering, position one.
42:37Position one.
42:39One right, and left and right.
42:45And gas, gas.
42:47Oh, shoot.
42:49There you go.
42:51More gas.
42:53OK? OK.
43:01The position one.
43:04Gas, gas, gas.
43:06Gas.
43:10Steering forward.
43:14The left steering forward.
43:16Left steering, gas, gas, gas, gas.
43:18Gas, 15 onwards.
43:26And left.
43:29Left.
43:31Left, left.
43:35Left.
43:38Right on, right on.
43:4215.
43:49Right.
43:52Right.
43:54Right on, right on.
44:02This is a much more comfortable assignment.
44:05I'm in Karl Marx Allee in East Berlin
44:08with two young actors who offer a city tour,
44:11which is also a small play about divided Berlin.
44:18Olaf Rauschenbach on the left plays the proud Eastie,
44:22and Jörg Pintsch plays the cynical Westie.
44:25I play the audience.
44:27And the set for this particular play
44:30is what remains of the Berlin Wall.
44:33This is where the new Germany began,
44:36socialistic Berlin.
44:38Just have a look.
44:40Getting in wasn't all that difficult.
44:43But getting out...
44:45What is the first thing you think of when you think of the GDR?
44:49Oh, a big wall.
44:51The wall.
44:53The heart of the GDR was the wall.
44:56Otherwise named the Antifascist Protector Wall.
45:00Or the stigma of German history.
45:03Just imagine, you are 18 years old.
45:06You are standing there,
45:09young and liable for military service
45:12and also convinced that socialism is the right thing for the young GDR.
45:17You're standing there,
45:19at the peace vigil,
45:21at the border between the two alliances,
45:24on a watchtower.
45:25You've sworn an oath.
45:27I pledge,
45:29as a soldier in the National People's Army,
45:33side by side with the Soviet Army
45:36and the armies of our allies,
45:38the United Socialist Countries,
45:40that I'm prepared at all times
45:43to defend socialism against all enemies.
45:47The cost of defending socialism along the whole length of the wall
45:51has been estimated as anything from 300 to 1,000 lives.
45:57If there were one date which marked the end of the Cold War,
46:00it would be November 9th, 1989,
46:03the day the wall fell.
46:15So complete was the destruction of their city in World War II
46:19that most Berliners now live in huge concrete housing estates.
46:28And this is one way of dealing with the problems of isolation and alienation.
46:33Kerin Kopnick's laughter yoga.
46:40Kerin has ways of making you laugh.
46:49Oh, yes.
47:13And now she's going to jump on three.
47:20Oh, yes.
47:23I don't get it.
47:44Ho, ho.
47:49Ho, ho, ha, ha, ha.
47:52Ho, ho, ha, ha, ha.
47:55Ho, ho, ha, ha, ha.
48:04For the last ten minutes of the class,
48:06Kerin gets us all to lie down and laugh.
48:10Group hilarity is not something I'd normally associate with the Germans,
48:14but this lot has no trouble.
48:19Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
48:30So how long have you been coming to the classes?
48:33I've been laughing here since last August.
48:37Laughing since August. That's pretty impressive.
48:40Yes, only once a week.
48:42Once a week, but you laugh during the rest of the week a lot.
48:45Yes, I do, but not so long.
48:47It's very long, I think, at the end, at this carpet.
48:50Yes, yes.
48:51It's a very long time.
48:52Well, you don't often get the chance to laugh for that long.
48:55Nothing's that funny.
48:57I think it would be a little bit silly.
49:00Yes, probably silly.
49:01Everybody would think you are a silly person.
49:03You'd probably be taken out and put in a sort of police van.
49:06And here you can be like a child, and the child is laughing.
49:10And it's helped you, has it?
49:12Yes, I think it helps everybody.
49:14Everybody likes to laugh.
49:16Maybe not everybody laughs, but everybody likes it.
49:23It's difficult to walk through Berlin
49:25without sensing ghosts of the past,
49:28from the grand hopes of socialism
49:30to the squares where the Nazis held their rallies.
49:35But to be able to walk unhampered through the Brandenburg Gate
49:39is a reality, the reality of a Germany reunited
49:43and, hopefully, a Europe reunited.
50:06I'm leaving for my final destination aboard a DC-3,
50:10which, nearly 60 years ago,
50:12took part in one of the world's most extraordinary peacetime operations,
50:16the Berlin Airlift.
50:26In June 1948, the Russians, mistrustful of Allied intentions,
50:30closed off all road and rail links to the city of Berlin,
50:34with the intention of taking control of the whole city.
50:41For 11 months, American, British and French pilots
50:45joined together in a massive siege-busting operation.
50:49Two and a half million tonnes of food were flown in,
50:52and at its peak, the planes were landing
50:54at intervals no more than a minute apart.
50:59This is one of the actual DC-3s that flew during the Berlin Airlift,
51:03and they called them the Candy Bombers, or the Raisin Bombers,
51:06from the habit of one American pilot
51:08who would open his cockpit window
51:10and throw candy out to the kids down below
51:13as he flew over the city.
51:37I'm heading towards Rügen Island, on Germany's Baltic coast.
51:44Here, amid the sand dunes and the pine trees,
51:47stands one of the more bizarre relics of the Third Reich.
51:54It's a holiday camp, three miles long,
51:57with 10,000 rooms and accommodation for 20,000 people.
52:01Built here at Prora between 1936 and 1939,
52:05it was intended as a place where the good workers of Nazi Germany
52:09could build up their strength and their collective will
52:12for the great struggle that lay ahead,
52:14the conquest of Europe.
52:31RAIS ORGANISATIONSLEITER DOCTOR LEI
52:34BESICHTIGT ANLESSLICH SEINER POMMERNFAHRT
52:36DIE BAUARBEITEN FÃœR DAS KDFBAU
52:38Overseen by Hitler's favourite architect, Albert Speer,
52:41the camp at Prora was to be the embodiment
52:44of the Nazi policy of Kraft durch Freude,
52:47strength through joy.
52:51AUF DER EMPFANGSSAHL IST BEREITS IM ROHBAU FERTIGGESTELLT
52:55DIESE GEWALTIGE ANLAGE WIRD JEWEILS 20,000 KDF-URLAUBERN PLATZ BIETEN
52:59HIER WERDEN SPÄTER TAUSENDE UND ABERTAUSENDE SCHAFFENDE DEUTSCHE MENSCHEN
53:03ERHOLUNG UND KRAFT ZU NEUER ARBEIT FINDEN
53:09A hundred miles to the east, on the border with Poland,
53:12is another relic of the Cold War.
53:15Now, as then, no-one quite knows what to do,
53:18but it's time to go.
53:20There's a museum, a few workshops,
53:23but the scale of this Nazi folly
53:25has defied even the most ambitious development plans.
53:29So it survives,
53:31neglected, empty and useless.
53:43Well, I've finally reached the end of my journey.
53:47Well, I've finally reached the end of my journey
53:50here on the shores of the Baltic,
53:52surrounded by the broken dreams
53:54of the last attempt to unite Europe by force.
53:57But now, for the first time in history,
54:00there's a real chance to create a Europe
54:02out of cooperation rather than conflict.
54:04And that will be a mighty achievement.
54:06A new Europe indeed.
54:16BALTIC COAST
54:46BALTIC COAST