Brothers in Berlin

Maarten and Vincent van Rossem look at the remains of the Wall in Berlin. They also visit a former Stasi prison and a model home from the GDR era. Has the GDR left anything positive?

Maarten and Vincent speak to a cameraman who secretly recorded the protests in Leipzig in 1989 and smuggled them to West Germany. The then impoverished Leipzig has now been refurbished. Yet Egon Krenz, the last communist leader of the GDR, still believes in the East Germany of that time.

Dresden, destroyed during the Second World War, was partly rebuilt in the GDR era, in socialist style. Since the fall of the Wall, the city seems to have risen again to its former glory, but the wounds of the divided and reunited Germany are still deep among the population.

In Berlin, Maarten and Vincent visit the Holocaust Monument and the East Side Gallery. They speak to a project developer, a former East German and a convinced communist. Then penniless, but now very rich. Does he symbolize the future of Berlin?