New.Europe.With.Michael.Palin.7.Of.7

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Transcript

00:00This is a production of the Center for Autonomous Vehicle Research and Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Forestry.

00:30I'm in Slovakia. It's a bit of a shock, after the flatlands of Poland, to find yourself

00:58confronted with an 8,000-foot mountain range in the heart of Europe. But these are the

01:02high Tatras, part of the Carpathian Range, and I've got to cross them to begin the last

01:07stage of my journey 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

01:22through Eastern Germany, from Dresden to Berlin, then on to journey's end at Rügen

01:27Island on the Baltic coast.

01:36Slovakia is one of Europe's newest countries, splitting from Czechoslovakia by mutual agreement

01:42just 14 years ago. It was always considered the underachiever of the Czechoslovak partnership,

01:48but a slower, more rural way of life.

01:55In the mountain villages, little seems to have changed. Today, the people who live here

02:00have killed a pig. Alena, a Slovak married to a Welshman, lives nearby.

02:04What are they going to do now? They're going to...

02:07I think they're going to... Obviously, they need to clean it now. I think that if they

02:12boil the water, you see they're preparing the water outside.

02:19You can help cleaning. Alfons 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.

02:36Are you married? Yeah, I'm married. What's the difference?

02:44Don't do it like with the woman. You've got to go really for it. Go for it. That's right.

02:50Sorry, I'm a city boy. I'm just used to all this.

02:58For young Slovakians, a day like this could soon be a thing of the past.

03:05And scenes like this, confined to EU-approved premises.

03:09OK. Oh, that's great. Oh, sorry. Oh, dear. Oh, dear indeed. Next time, the ladies take

03:24safe sausage precautions. I don't know, the Slovakian for stop. OK, now. All right, yeah.

03:40All right, OK. None of the pig will be wasted. What isn't eaten today will be stored away

03:46for the winter. These are all parts of the pig, isn't it?

03:55After work, I ask Elena about Slovakia. Did you feel that Slovakia had to be its own nation

04:02in order to sort of realise what it wanted? Probably, yes. Yeah, because through the history,

04:08we always, through the centuries, we always had either Hungarian or Austrian monarchy

04:14over us. And we never sort of could say what we wanted or do what we wanted. And we did

04:20what they told us. And so it's a good time. We are learning to stand on our own, I think.

04:26It's funny, really, isn't it? There's this whole process seems to be in Europe going

04:29on of interconnections through the European Union, through transport and all that sort

04:35of thing. At the same time, more and more small nations springing up who feel they can

04:40only realise what that nation wants by being independent.

04:43At a time like this, the old songs are always the best, even if no one can remember them.

04:56You're making that up. You're making that up. Even I know that.

05:04I'm almost tempted to say it's been a pig of a day, but I won't.

05:14It's time to leave the snows of the High Tatras behind and back onto the plain and west to my

05:25penultimate country, the Czech Republic. Being in the European Union has helped the Slovaks

05:49emerge from the Czech shadow. And tourism in the Tatras is one of the big hopes in an

05:54increasingly optimistic future. I've crossed my 19th border into Brno, the second city

06:17of the Czech Republic. Brno is a solid manufacturing town with a few surprises off the main street.

06:24In this unglamorous little theatre, the Czech tradition of satirical mime is carried on by

06:31one of its most illustrious practitioners, Tibor Törber. Martino, could you be so kind,

06:39try to play in the time, try to express as big as possible palette of different expressions of

06:53of red colour.

07:02Martina, asked to mime the colour red,

07:05seems to set herself almost literally on fire.

07:15OK, fine, you know.

07:17Michael, may I ask you, could you be so kind,

07:21could you make a study of Le Coq?

07:31Could you use this mask?

07:34This is Capitano, no?

07:37If there is some correspondence

07:40between the character of the Coq and the character of Capitano.

07:45Let's try. Let's try.

07:47And don't forget now, this mask,

07:50more moments, longer.

07:53Don't be afraid to stop,

07:56you know, to make so-called representative positions.

08:01I model my performance on everything I wanted to be

08:21when I was young, but never dared.

08:32They love it.

08:36Now that there's, you know, you're free, nobody's oppressing you.

08:40Does that sense of humour still... Is it still satirical?

08:44Is it still having a go at establishment?

08:46It's stupid, it's not this...

08:48These elementary things are rather clearly changed.

08:53But in details, there are still so many things

08:58In details, there are still so many problems

09:02and we can be ironic against many things.

09:07I know people which go on with this excellent humour,

09:11which makes some sort of cleaning.

09:14It's like kidneys, or...?

09:16Yes, I know, kidneys that clean out.

09:18Kidneys which clean your blood.

09:29I feel people like Turbo are happier with something to fight against.

09:34In the New Europe, we're all theoretically free

09:37and, 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,

09:58helps the journey slip by.

10:12Nestling in the western mountains of the Czech Republic

10:15is a town where all excess can be cured

10:18in excessively plush surroundings.

10:25Karlovy Vary, once the German town of Carlsbad,

10:28sits on a bed of healing waters

10:31and there are people who tell you how best to make use of them.

10:38Milada Serova, who runs this clinic,

10:40has 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

10:53and 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.

11:03We drink the water from these cups.

11:06We drink the water every time on empty stomach

11:10because, you'll see,

11:15we wash mechanically all digestive system.

11:18Yours still is normal?

11:20I think so, yes.

11:22Because when the people have constipation,

11:24they must drink water 30 degrees Celsius.

11:27My body just doesn't know what it's got to look forward to.

11:31And 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, yes.

11:39Because every day we drink around five cups.

11:42It is one liter.

11:44And when you really drink 20 liters,

11:47your liver can regenerate.

11:53You deal with the heart as well as the body.

11:57The mind and the body.

11:59Yes. Complex.

12:01Our body, our mind and our soul.

12:05When everything is healthy and happy,

12:08it means we can speak about everything.

12:11Yes.

12:12We can talk about everything.

12:14Yes.

12:15Yes.

12:16Yes.

12:17Yes.

12:18When everything is healthy and happy,

12:20it means we can speak about the time health.

12:23Can you tell from somebody quite quickly

12:26whether they're happy or unhappy

12:28or likely to be depressed?

12:30I think the love is very important in life.

12:33Yes. Love is.

12:34Because everybody who is in love,

12:36they are happy and they are much nicer.

12:39Oh, love. I thought you said laugh.

12:40Love.

12:41Oh, love.

12:42Love is very important.

12:44But also love is very painful for some people.

12:46Very unhappy.

12:47I don't know.

12:48I think when you really found the second,

12:52the woman found the good man.

12:55Yes.

12:56And it is really this very good laugh

12:58which means they must be happy

13:00because life is...

13:01Good sex, really.

13:02Sex is very important because limbic system

13:06and all this hormonal situation in the body

13:09is very important.

13:10And I think the people don't make enough love sex now

13:15because they don't have time for this.

13:18It needs time too.

13:20Time is very important.

13:23Can you give me a prescription?

13:27So star-studded is Milada's clientele

13:30that I find myself in a bag full of ice-cold CO2

13:34next to the current Miss World.

13:36Hello.

13:37Hello.

13:39You're so radiant.

13:42I think white is definitely your colour.

13:45Tatiana Kucherova is the first Czech girl

13:48ever to win the title.

14:02The carbon dioxide wind treatment

14:04is intended to dilate the capillaries

14:06causing the skin to radiate a smooth therapeutic glow.

14:13Hmm.

14:14Are you feeling any better for this?

14:17I think it will come later.

14:21Your skin is sort of opening up.

14:25I'm glad something's happening.

14:28It's a bit like being going to the dry cleaners.

14:34Have you ever been in a bag?

14:36A plastic bag before?

14:37No.

14:38No, never.

14:39This is the first time.

14:40Me too.

14:41I'm better than you.

14:43How have I missed out on this all my life?

14:46Anyway, sleep.

14:48We have to sleep, so here we go.

15:04It's an odd feeling, isn't it?

15:06I think you need really to have someone to tell you

15:09that this is good for you, don't you?

15:11Otherwise it's like sitting in a warm, wet bath

15:14with a lot of gravel up your backside.

15:17It's quite dirty.

15:18It is quite dirty.

15:19Yeah.

15:20So have you been to Kala Bihari many times?

15:23Yeah, I've been here many times.

15:25But this is the first time here in Spa Centre.

15:40The success of the private clinics

15:42may make Kala Bihari glow with health,

15:45but the town's most valuable resource is free.

15:48Every day, the place is full of people

15:50taking nature's medicine.

15:52So you have to drink it fresh.

16:10Fresh.

16:11Yeah.

16:12Yeah, fresh.

16:13And here it comes up from the earth.

16:18Okay.

16:20Well?

16:26The clinics may be all futuristic high-tech,

16:29but on the street it's traditional porcelain mugs

16:32and elegant old colonnades.

16:35Here's another one.

16:36And I've heard they get hotter, is that right?

16:38Yeah, it is.

16:39As you go along.

16:4062.

16:4162, it says, yes.

16:4562 is quite hot, isn't it?

16:47Yeah, it is.

16:48Well, here you go.

16:53I actually prefer it that way.

16:55Yeah?

16:56Do you like it better?

16:57Yeah, I like it better than the lukewarm.

16:59This is like a sort of really hot cuppa.

17:02So we are not the only,

17:03we are not the first ones in history.

17:05No, we are not.

17:06A lot of famous people drink this water.

17:08Yeah.

17:09For example, Goethe, Beethoven, Karl Marx,

17:12a lot of others.

17:13And now Miss World.

17:15Yeah, maybe I'm the first one.

17:17Maybe I'm the first one.

17:27Carlo Vivari fosters the impression

17:29that time has stood still.

17:32An illusion reinforced tonight at the Hotel Poop

17:35with an aristocrat's ball.

17:39New Europe seems a world away

17:41as those from rich and well-connected families

17:43greet each other like old friends.

17:47But there are occasional imposters.

17:49Enjoy your evening.

17:50Thank you, thanks.

17:51Pleasure to meet you.

17:56Nice to meet you.

17:58Hello, hello.

17:59We've come all the way from London to see this.

18:02I'm Mr World.

18:03I'm Mr World.

18:05Well, I'll think about that actually.

18:06That's very good.

18:07Welcome.

18:08Yes, maybe you are if you're with Miss World.

18:09Thank you, thank you very much.

18:10Good evening.

18:11Thanks.

18:12Mr and Mrs World.

18:13Yes, great.

18:14I hope you like that.

18:15It's nice.

18:17It's a spectacular room.

18:20I think Tatiana and I have made the mistake

18:22of sitting down too soon.

18:27Amazing place.

18:28It's a different kind of world than I know.

18:31Yes, a different kind of world.

18:32Yes, yes.

18:33Totally different.

18:34Yes, me too.

18:36We're not aristocrats.

18:37No, we are not.

18:38No.

18:42It's interesting to observe there, isn't it?

18:47It's a world I don't really know much about.

18:49Yes, it's very different.

18:50We'll see how they do.

18:52Suddenly, an aristocrat spots me.

18:55Hello.

18:56I'm a huge fan of yours.

18:57Oh, thank you.

18:59I was admiring your spectacular medal.

19:02And this is Tatiana.

19:05Good evening.

19:06Nice to meet you.

19:07Nice to meet you too.

19:08What is this award?

19:10The Sicilian Order of the Knights of the Colour of St Agatha.

19:14The Sicilian Order?

19:15Yes.

19:16The Knights of the...

19:17The Knights of the Colour of St Agatha.

19:19From the 11th century, you had three royal houses in Italy.

19:23Yes.

19:24You had the House of Paterno, or Aragon.

19:26You had the House of Savoy and Bourbon.

19:28Yes.

19:29The Bourbon is the Johanniter.

19:31My great-grandmother was an Irish orphan,

19:33but I don't really want to bring that one up.

19:35And the House of Paterno, Aragon,

19:37is the Order of the Colour of St Agatha.

19:39So if you go to Catania...

19:41Yes, Catania, right down in Sicily.

19:44Yes, in February, we always have the Feast of St Agatha,

19:48so that's the main event for us.

20:01The period flavour of the aristocrats' ball

20:03is so immaculately recreated

20:05that one can almost forget that two world wars ever happened.

20:09I mean, these people's families organised the Crusades.

20:14THE CRUSADES

20:29Prague, an hour's drive from Karlovy Vary,

20:32was spared the devastation that the Second World War

20:35inflicted on so many European capitals.

20:37It's splendidly rich in history,

20:39but doesn't take itself too seriously.

20:45MUSIC

20:51Prague's architecture is a bit of everything,

20:54from the Gothic houses by the Cathedral on the hill

20:57to 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,

21:26but of the Czech Republic from local girl Bára Václavíková.

21:30Do they regard any of the nations and the countries around

21:33as 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?

21:43I think we get along with the Slovaks the most, of course,

21:47because of the link.

21:49But we also think that the Slovakian girls come to the Czech Republic

21:53to steal our good-looking boys.

21:57In general, I think we don't really much like Germans

22:01because of all the oppressions and all the wars.

22:05It'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

22:15and no fun at all.

22:18But don't ask about the British.

22:20Our stag parties love Prague.

22:23What's essentially Czech, do you think?

22:26I think it's the humour.

22:29I think it's the dark humour.

22:32We're very ironic and sarcastic and we like it about ourselves.

22:38We...

22:42We like to make fun of everything and take everything lighter

22:46from the lighter perspective.

22:50Are you very sociable?

22:52Well, I am.

22:54I am, and definitely, I think so.

22:57I 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.

23:24Bára's friends are based around a singing group

23:27to which she belongs called the Yellow Sisters.

23:30Tonight, they and their band will be playing

23:33at a riverside castle at Ústí, Itagelon.

23:46As the industrial sprawl of northern Bohemia slips by,

23:50the Yellow Sisters discuss the show.

23:54CHATTER

23:57All of them have studied in West Africa

24:00and 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.

24:45When the castle at Ústí 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,

24:53I head back to Prague.

25:07The thousands of graves huddled together in the city's Jewish cemetery

25:11reflect the size and strength of the old Jewish community in Prague.

25:15But for people like Liza Mikova,

25:17life changed catastrophically when the Nazis marched in, in 1939.

25:26She and her family were sent north

25:28to the old garrison town of Teletzin.

25:38Under the chilling motto,

25:40work makes you free,

25:42an overcrowded ghetto was created.

25:46It was here in 1944 that the Nazis made a propaganda film

25:50to be called The Führer Gives the Jews a City.

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, it really happened. That really happened.

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.

26:54The 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.

27:15The truth of Teletzin is that of the 144,000 Jews who passed through,

27:21121,000 died either here, on forced marches,

27:26or in the concentration camps they were sent to.

27:29I lost my parents here. I saw them for the last time.

27:33But then when I came to Auschwitz and then to the work camp near Dresden,

27:39to Freiberg, so we remember Teletzin as a spa.

27:46In February 1945, Allied bombers carried out a massive raid on Dresden,

27:50wiping out its historic centre and killing an estimated 35,000 people.

27:55We lived so near Dresden

27:58that we saw these bombardments in February.

28:04They locked us in the factory and we saw the planes.

28:09And I must say today that we were so happy

28:12when we saw the English planes.

28:15Yes, and it was of course a possibility

28:19that something could also destroy our factory where we were locked up.

28:26But we didn't think about that.

28:29And we were so happy that we didn't think about those deaths in Dresden.

28:38We thought about something.

28:41They do something. They will help us.

28:44They will free us.

28:47This was our thinking.

28:49And it gave us so much strength.

28:54When I say something to a German,

28:57he looks at me as if I'm normal.

29:01But it was like that.

29:12Today's Dresden is a symbol of resurrection,

29:15a rebuilt city in a reunited Germany.

29:1862 years ago, this was a burning shell.

29:21Now, beside the banks of the Elbe, the Saxon capital is reborn.

29:30There are symbols of reconciliation,

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

29:41by 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?

29:52I was, in 1986. I'm 21 years old right now.

29:55And the memories of the bombing and that awful bombing in 1945,

29:59was that something you sort of learned about at school?

30:01My grandma told me about it.

30:03She saw the bombing from about 20 kilometres away

30:06and the sky was burning.

30:08And, yeah, she still doesn't talk about it a lot,

30:11but, yeah, it's a part of our history.

30:14And even the German Democratic Republic is a part of our history,

30:17even though I don't know much about it.

30:19I was three when the Berlin Wall fell.

30:22It's a part of our identity, I guess.

30:25So most people think it's a good thing.

30:27It'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 not everything was wrong

30:35in the German Democratic Republic.

30:37I guess there was a larger community,

30:39everybody was helping each other, and, yeah, not everything was wrong.

30:43That's what they always tell me.

30:45Interesting. Yeah.

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 between 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 the flamboyant skyline

31:11of the new Old Dresden

31:13as we slide away down the Elbe on 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.

31:56Well, now, on this rather pleasant peregrination,

31:58we've paddled our way down to the town of Meissen,

32:01world-famous, of course, for only one thing...

32:04China.

32:09Meissen hardly resembles the clichéd East German city.

32:13It's pretty, unspoiled,

32:15and its success is based on very expensive objects.

32:26A secret formula for making porcelain

32:28was discovered here almost 300 years ago.

32:31Collectors have pushed up the prices

32:33and some of these camp little figurines go for over £1,000.

32:39I 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.

33:04I'm shown round by a lady from head office.

33:08Was it that there 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.

33:37WHIRRING

33:54And the showroom products are now...

33:56They're finished when the job is finished,

33:59as 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.

34:11Well, that's the sort of one I associate with Germany particularly,

34:15where there's a sort of flat pan.

34:17Absolutely.

34:18And so it doesn't drop into the water.

34:20Exactly. We call it wash-out model.

34:22And it has a very practical reason, actually, 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?

34:35Yes, you do.

34:36Yes, I mean, especially elderly people should do that regularly.

34:40They should check on their sanity as well, on their point.

34:43On their sanity?

34:44Yes.

34:45On their health.

34:46Their health, yes. Sanity is sort of mental.

34:48Exactly.

34:49We're probably the same.

34:50You've been talking too much about sanitary wares.

34:52I'm coming back on sanity.

34:54Sanity ware, I like that. It's a very good laboratory.

34:57Yeah, and that's why a lot of Germans use it.

35:01Is it still popular then?

35:04Yes, it is very popular in Germany.

35:06There are some also in Switzerland, some in Netherlands,

35:09but mostly in Germany people are used to it

35:12and they like to do it in that way.

35:14So, for those who don't like it in that way,

35:17we have a kind of mixture where you can do both.

35:20Also, perhaps you can enlighten me.

35:23I've heard that there's a custom now for German men

35:26to actually sit down when they're having a pee

35:29and it's become quite an important,

35:31almost a sort of political thing.

35:33That's what men should do, is it?

35:35Yeah, I have to laugh about that

35:37because that's a very frequent question.

35:39It is true that a lot of German men

35:41have 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, yeah.

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,

36:09albeit 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

36:29that 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

36:53and the state security police, known as the Stasi,

36:56were 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.

37:27And 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 1961, you could be...

38:10There was the death penalty in East Germany

38:14and you could be shot by the Stasi in Leipzig until 1961.

38:24The Runde Ecke, or Round Corner,

38:28was the bland building from which the Stasi spied on the people of Leipzig.

38:33Now it's a museum and people can spy on the Stasi.

38:39MUSIC

38:51Preserved in all its banal colourlessness,

38:54it feels more like a small town technical college

38:57than a place where thousands of lives were watched,

39:00listened to and often destroyed.

39:09It's extraordinary how, you know,

39:12the evil of the system emanated from just a little office like this.

39:17You didn't need much, the telephone, the filing system,

39:21enormous amount of details kept on everybody,

39:24and, of course, the shredder, vital things.

39:27And then the tea and the coffee maker and the map.

39:30But enormous numbers of people's lives disrupted from this room.

39:35It really is an example of the bureaucracy of oppression.

39:44Today, biofuel crops and wind farms

39:47mark the landscape of a new, cleaner Germany.

39:54These wide flatlands on the Polish-German border are ideal tank country.

39:59And during the Cold War, the Warsaw Pact had 7,000 tanks here,

40:03which they reckoned they could get to Marseille within five days.

40:07And they've still got some left.

40:14So, we scramble aboard. Oh, no.

40:16Oh, a little ladder.

40:19Rather campy.

40:28Which 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.

40:48Awful lot of tap twiddling and levers going and all that.

40:51I mean, I hope I don't have to reproduce that.

41:01I didn't really see how you did that.

41:03This is the Panzerfahrschule,

41:05a tank-driving school set up by an ex-Cold War commander

41:09who couldn't bear to see these machines go to waste.

41:12This is Russian technology, he told me earlier.

41:15You can do what you like with it.

41:19And I'll get my own specially-shot video at the end of it.

41:23OK.

41:25Left and right to position one.

41:27OK.

41:29OK.

41:30And start.

41:31A little gas.

41:32OK, start.

41:33Gas, gas, gas.

41:35The spearing forward.

41:38The left to the right spearing forward.

41:41And shifting onward.

41:42Right forward.

41:44OK.

41:46OK.

41:48OK.

41:50OK.

41:52OK.

41:54And left forward.

41:56And gas.

41:57Shifting onward.

41:58Shifting onward.

41:59The RPM.

42:00What?

42:01The RPM.

42:02Gas, gas, gas, gas.

42:04Gas.

42:05Gas, gas, gas.

42:06Sorry.

42:08Left, is that?

42:10I don't know.

42:11More gas.

42:12Shifting onward.

42:13More gas, OK.

42:14RPM, shifting onward.

42:15OK?

42:16OK.

42:17OK.

42:18The pad neutral.

42:19The gear neutral.

42:21Can you start it with that one?

42:22I don't know.

42:23I don't know.

42:24Then left right.

42:25I don't know.

42:26The second gear.

42:27Is it two gear?

42:28Can you get three gear?

42:29Yeah.

42:30No.

42:31OK.

42:32It's two gear.

42:33Two gear.

42:34OK.

42:35Pull it, pull it.

42:36OK.

42:37The steering.

42:38Yeah.

42:39Position one.

42:40Position one.

42:41One right.

42:42Then left and right.

42:46OK.

42:47OK.

42:48Oh, shit.

42:50Gas.

42:51More gas.

42:53OK?

42:54OK.

43:01Position one.

43:07Gas, gas, gas.

43:08Gas.

43:12Steering forward.

43:16The left steering forward.

43:18Left steering.

43:19Gas, gas, gas, gas.

43:20Gas.

43:21Shifting onward.

43:23Gas.

43:29And left.

43:32Left.

43:33Left.

43:36Left.

43:39Right on.

43:40Right on.

43:43Big speed.

43:49Right.

43:51Left.

43:52Right.

43:54Right on.

43:55Right on.

44:05This is a much more comfortable assignment.

44:07I'm in Karl Marx Alley in East Berlin with two young actors who offer a city tour,

44:12which is also a small play about divided Berlin.

44:17Just dump us in the back without paying a penny.

44:20Olaf Rauschenbach on the left plays the proud Eastie,

44:23and Jörg Pintsch plays the cynical Westie.

44:27I play the audience.

44:29And the set for this particular act is what remains of the Berlin Wall.

44:35This is where the new Germany began.

44:37Socialistic Berlin.

44:38Just have a look.

44:41Getting in wasn't all that difficult.

44:43But getting out...

44:46What is the first thing you think of when you think of the GDR?

44:51A big wall.

44:52The wall.

44:54The heart of the GDR was the wall.

44:56Otherwise named the anti-fascistic protective 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,

45:12but also convinced that socialism is the right thing for the young GDR.

45:18You're standing there at peace vigil,

45:22at the border between the two alliances, on a watchtower.

45:25You've sworn an oath.

45:28I pledge, as a soldier in the National People's Army,

45:33side by side with the Soviet Army and the armies of our allies,

45:38the United Socialist Countries,

45:40that I'm prepared at all times to 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.

46:10So complete was the destruction of their city in World War II,

46:14that most Berliners now live in huge concrete housing estates.

46:24And this is one way of dealing with the problems of isolation and alienation.

46:29Kevin Kopnick's laughter yoga.

46:32Okay. Thank you.

46:35The first one.

46:37Okay. Thank you.

46:39The first one.

46:46But now...

46:54But now...

47:07But now...

47:13And now she jumps on three.

47:20But now...

47:23Let's go!

47:37LAUGHTER

48:04For the last ten minutes of the class,

48:06Kering 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.

48:30So 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.

48:47Not so long. It's very long.

48:49I think at the end, at this carpet, it's a very long time.

48:52Well, you don't often get the chance to laugh for that long.

48:55Nothing's that funny.

48:57No, I think it would be a little bit silly.

49:00Yes, probably silly.

49:02Everybody would think you are a silly person.

49:04You'd probably be taken out and put in a police van.

49:07And 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 without 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.

49:59That's awesome.

50:05I'm leaving for my final destination aboard a DC-3,

50:09which, nearly 60 years ago,

50:11took part in one of the world's most extraordinary peacetime operations,

50:15the Berlin Airlift.

50:24In June 1948,

50:26the Russians, mistrustful of Allied intentions,

50:29closed off all road and rail links to the city of Berlin

50:33with the intention of taking control of the whole city.

50:44For 11 months, American, British and French pilots

50:47joined together in a massive siege-busting operation.

50:51Two and a half million tonnes of food were flown in

50:54and, at its peak, the planes were landing

50:56at intervals no more than a minute apart.

51:01This is one of the actual DC-3s that flew during the Berlin Airlift

51:05and they called them the Candy Bombers or the Raisin Bombers

51:08from the habit of one American pilot

51:10who would open his cockpit window

51:12and throw candy out to the kids down below

51:15as he flew over the city.

51:24MUSIC PLAYS

51:40I'm heading towards Rügen Island on Germany's Baltic coast.

51:47Here, amid the sand dunes and the pine trees,

51:50stands one of the more bizarre relics of the Third Reich.

51:57It's a holiday camp, three miles long,

52:00with 10,000 rooms and accommodation for 20,000 people.

52:06Built here at Prora between 1936 and 1939,

52:10it was intended as a place where the good workers of Nazi Germany

52:14could build up their strength and their collective will

52:17for the great struggle that lay ahead,

52:19the conquest of Europe.

52:21MUSIC PLAYS

52:23MUSIC CONTINUES

52:46Overseen by Hitler's favourite architect, Albert Speer,

52:49the camp at Prora was to be the embodiment

52:52of the policy of Kraft durch Freude, strength through joy.

53:16100 miles to the east on the border with Poland

53:19is another relic of the Cold War.

53:22Now, as then, no-one quite knows what to do with the place.

53:26There's a museum, a few workshops,

53:29but the scale of this Nazi folly

53:31has defied even the most ambitious development plans.

53:35So it survives, neglected, empty and useless.

53:48Well, I've finally reached the end of my journey

53:51on the shores of the Baltic,

53:53surrounded by the broken dreams of the last attempt

53:56to unite Europe by force.

53:58But now, for the first time in history,

54:00there's a real chance to create a Europe

54:02out of cooperation rather than conflict.

54:05And that would be a mighty achievement.

54:07A new Europe indeed.

54:12MUSIC PLAYS

54:21MUSIC CONTINUES

54:51MUSIC FADES

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