Jürgen Hartmann

A stroll through East Berlin in 1977 - unique original recordings of the GDR capital by day and night, summer and winter, accompanied by music, offer a comprehensive insight into the diversity of urban life at that time. Numerous sights, famous buildings and squares, such as the television tower, the Red City Hall, the Palace of the Republic, Alexanderplatz and Unter den Linden, are shown. Popular places for leisure and recreation are also filmed, including the zoo, Volkspark Friedrichshain, the Christmas market on Alex and the Pankow outdoor pool. The film team also interviews a wide variety of Berliners, giving an impression of the lifestyle and everyday life of the capital's inhabitants at the time. The cityscape is rounded off with insights into new housing developments, renovated streets, businesses, restaurants and stores as well as official political events, military parades and memorial ceremonies.

In the spring of 1965, Polish citizen Sheybal visits the town of Genthin. He knows his way around the sugar factory. He had to work there as a prisoner of war during the Second World War. He suffered a life-threatening accident. Now he is looking for the people or their relatives who helped him.

During the Battle of Stalingrad, five German soldiers and officers are taken prisoner of war by the Soviets. In an interview, they talk about the fear of retribution, the question of guilt and the gradual shattering of an enemy image. The process of their rethinking is also due to their encounter with the "National Committee Free Germany". Pilot officer Charisius got into conversation with the Soviet writer Fedin in the camp. Decades later, Charisius remembers it. Pictures of the destroyed Stalingrad and scenes of the men in their present-day environment complement the conversation.

On the occasion of the GDR Landeskulturgesetz (Law on the Conservation and Protection of the Environment), passed in 1970, the speaker explains the various aspects of environmental protection through vivid, visually pointed examples. The film repeatedly refers to the fundamental contradiction between exploitation and preservation of nature in a developed industrial state but is unable to resolve it.