KGB in Germany (2006)

A two-part TV documentary takes the viewer to the front line of the secret "Hot War" which was waged from 1945 to the end of the 20th century. Germany, a country with two states and two ideologies, bisected by a very real ball, was the ideal battle field the secret services such as the KGB. Both sides believed firmly in the domino theory: if just one stone fell, the whole series would follow. If Germany falls, and Berlin with it, then the whole system will collapse. For almost 50 years, on both sides of the wall which divided Germany, whole armies of spies were busy waging war on one another. A KGB general, head of the German Section in his organisation for decades, estimates that a height of the tension every fifth German in West and East Berlin was, knowingly or unknowingly, in contact with a Secret Service agent. The price was high. Nobody has ever counted the casualties of this war. Many of them, secretaries in West German ministries in Bonn, were induced to betraying secrets by men claiming to be in love with them... and a large number of these women committed suicide in the end. There were computer hackers in Russian services, exiled politicians from the lands of the Soviet Union, secret agents who built up one contact too many.

For the fourth time high-ranking KGB insiders describe their cases and their methods. And for the first time people who became a spies and victims of the KGB narrates their experiences: from the successful "rocket snatch" operation, as told by a thief who was in the service of the KGB, to the case of a deserter from the West German army, described by his KGB case officer with unconcealed delight. From the comfortable life of a KGB officer in post-war Germany to the punishment of extracting uranium from mines as conducted by the predecessor of the KGB, the NKWD. From the indivisible activities of the KGB residents to the total undermining of the West German Republic in Bonn. From the young victims of the Stalinist terror in the special camps to the mutual spying activities of the Stasi and the KGB in east Germany. From the KGB killer commandos to be leisure activities of the KGB in Germany. From extracts from KGB training films about activist activities abroad to the puzzling activities of Vladimir Putin and his true superior officers in Dresden. From the dangers of the eastern policy to the less famous activities of the KGB in the period of perestroika.

The many facets of KGB operations in Germany are displayed here, using individual cases narrated in dramatic style, previously unseen archive footage, rare archive documents and lively re-enactments. Author and director Matthias Unterburg, together with his crew, as the huge countless kilometres of forms, thousands of pages of files -- and conducted many conversations with eyewitnesses, in Moscow and elsewhere. During all this he has discovered exciting and dramatic stories, alongside amateur films made by KGB agents and other undreamt of treasures from the archives.

Stab

Regie
Matthias Unterburg

Drehbuch
Matthias Unterburg

Kamera
Yuri Brodski / Matthias Seldte / Berthold Baule

Schnitt
Berthold Baule

ProduzentIn
Jasmin Gravenhorst

Redaktion
Martin Hübner, MDR / Katja Wildermuth, MDR / Beate Schlanstein, WDR

Infos

Sender
ARD

Genre
Documentary

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