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SUMMARY:‘The Fall: the end of Honecker’ – screening of film (90m\, s
 ubtitled)\, followed by discussion with director Eric Friedler - Eric Frie
 dler (NRD)
DTSTART:20120521T153000Z
DTEND:20120521T173000Z
UID:TALK38235@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Bernhard Fulda
DESCRIPTION:To end the academic year on a high note\, the Modern European 
 History Seminar Research Seminar\, the German Studies Colloquium\, and the
  Public & Popular History Seminar have joined forces to invite award-winni
 ng director and documentary film-maker Eric Friedler (NDR) to join us for 
 the UK-premier of his latest film _The Fall: the end of Honecker_. Weaving
  together archival footage\, and an impressive array of surviving witnesse
 s – among them Margot Honecker\, Mikhail Gorbachev\, Eduard Shevardnadze
 \, Helmut Schmidt\, Wolfgang Schäuble\, Gregor Gysi\, and Honecker’s su
 ccessor Egon Krenz\, as well as victims of GDR repression – Eric Friedle
 r has produced a gripping account of the rise and fall of this contradicto
 ry German dictator and his wife. Friedler’s highly original fusion of po
 litical and historical documentary made front-page news when broadcast ear
 lier this year in Germany. \n\nFor 18 years\, Erich Honecker ruled the GDR
 . His fall in 1989 was the beginning of the end of the state which for 40 
 years had considered itself to be “the better Germany”. The Nazi victi
 m as a dictator: Honecker was an ideological hard liner\, who coordinated 
 the building of the wall in 1961 to stabilize a dictatorial regime which b
 ecame notorious for shooting fleeing citizens\, for the omnipresence of th
 e Stasi and for the practice of forced adoptions. In the wake of his fall 
 in autumn 1989\, the former dictator became homeless\, and found himself a
  refugee in his own country. Suffering from cancer\, he managed to extract
  himself from judicial prosecution and emigrated to Chile\, where he died 
 in 1994. He was survived by his wife Margot\, who – in her first intervi
 ew in over twenty years – provides a chilling glimpse into the ideologic
 al world-view of the practitioners of ‘actually existing Socialism’. \
 n\nEric Friedler is one of Germany’s leading documentary film makers and
  has won numerous national and international awards. His documentary on th
 e Armenian Genocide\, ‘Aghet’ (2010)\, won the German Television Award
 \, the Grimme Prize\, the New York Film Festival World Gold Medal\, and th
 e Humanitarian Award of the ARPA Film Festival in Los Angeles. \n
LOCATION:Bateman Auditorium\, Gonville &amp\; Caius
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