When Karl Heinz Lotz's "Die Mauerbrockenbande" (1990) was aired on ZDF (Second German Television) every viewer was aware that The Wall Busters Gang was far more than just a children's film about kids in Berlin. And it was much more than a modern fable about tearing down a wall - although the title teased with its reference to that mass-phenomenon known as die Mauer-Spechte, the "wall-peckers" (as in wood-peckers) who went about their merry business day after day with hammers and chisels and whatever other tool was available. The ZDF broadcast took place on 11 September 1990, the anniversary to the day when the Hungarian borders were opened in 1989 to allow East Germans to cross over to Austria and freedom in the West. For this entertaining and provocative "family film," Regina Ziegler engaged Karl Heinz Lotz, a DEFA director, to tell the story of how an East Berlin family managed to follow this very route to Hungary, then Austria, and finally back to West Berlin - to arrive on that historic day when the wall came down. Naturally, there's a delightful déja vu sequence in the film: the kids decide to cross over to East Berlin and visit the home they had so quickly abandoned but a few weeks before.