Das Wunder von Berlin (2008)

The Miracle of Berlin is the English title of a German historical drama (based on a true story) which premiered in 2008. The drama focuses on the Kaiser family who lives in East Berlin. We see what happens to the members of this family during the final 18 months of the cold war: from June 1988 to November 1989 when the Berlin Wall no longer divided east from west.

The drama was shown on German television (ZDF) in 2019 in order to mark the 30-year anniversary since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Here is some basic information about this drama:

** Original German title: Das Wunder von Berlin 
** Director: Roland Suso Richter

** Writer: Thomas Kirchner

** Based on an unpublished auto-biography by Tilo Koch (1994)

** Language: German – no English subtitles!

** Released on DVD in 2016

** Run time: ca 102 minutes

The cast includes the following:

** Kostja Ullmann as Marco Kaiser (son)
** Heino Ferch as Jürgen Kaiser (father) (works for the Stasi)

** Veronica Ferres as Hanna Kaiser (mother)

** Michael Gwisdek as Walter Kaiser (grandfather)

** Karoline Herfurth as Anja (Marco’s girlfriend)

** André Hennicke as Heinrich Wolf (major in the East German Army)

** Gesine Cukrowski as Marion Niemann (works for the Stasi)

** Anna Loos as Juliane (Neues Forum)

** Hermann Beyer as “the Professor” (Neues Forum)

As stated above, this historical drama is based on a true story. The main character Marco Kaiser is based on a real person: Tilo Koch, who was a teenager in the 1980s. In 1994, five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he wrote an account about his life and his experience in East Germany.

It was not published. It was circulated among his friends. But eventually it ended up with some people who wanted to make a movie based on his account. This is how the movie came to be made.

In the drama, we follow Marco and his family and the people around them during the time from June 1988 to November 1989. In 1988, when the story begins, Marco is into punk-rock which is not regarded as a good thing in East Germany.

When he attends an underground punk-rock concert, the place is raided by the police. Marco and his girlfriend Anja are both arrested. His father who works for the secret police (the Stasi) offers to help them both and set them free on one condition: Marco must join the army. His father believes the army will turn him into a responsible person.

During 1989 when the opposition inside East Germany slowly begins to grow, members of the Kaiser family find themselves on different sides of the conflict:

** Marco is a soldier in the People’s National Army (NVA)

** His father works for the Stasi

** His mother, his grandfather and his girlfriend support the opposition group Neues Forum

What do reviewers say about this historical drama? On IMDb it has a rating of 67 per cent which corresponds to 3.4 stars on Amazon. On the German version of Amazon there are at the moment more than 15 reviews of this product. The average rating is 3.8 stars.

If you ask me, the former rating is too low, while the latter rating is more appropriate. I like this drama, but I cannot go all the way to the top, because there is a significant flaw:

In the drama, the peaceful demonstrations against the government organized by Neues Forum take place in East Berlin where the Kaiser family lives. This is not accurate. The demonstrations took place in Leipzig and later also in Dresden. Berlin was not the centre of the opposition. This is an important point. The opposition did not begin in the capital.

I like this drama and I want to give it a good rating, but have to remove one star because of this flaw. Therefore I think it deserves a rating of four stars.

PS # 1. The German title of the movie is an echo of the movie Das Wunder von Bern which premiered in 2003. This historical movie is about a football match which took place in Bern, the capital of Switzerland, in 1954.

It is the FIFA World Cup in football 1954. In the finale, West Germany plays against Hungary and West Germany wins 3-2! For citizens of West Germany, this result is a miracle. Hence the title of the movie The Miracle in Bern.

PS # 2. The following articles (in German) offer more information about Tilo Koch and explain how his unpublished auto-biography became the basis for a historical drama:

** Ulrike Simon, “Der gewendete Grenzschützer,” Die Welt, 1 September 2007

** “Tilo Koch erlebte das Wunder von Berlin,” Kölnische Rundschau, 25 January 2008 (André Wesche interviews Tilo Koch)

** Olaf Reichert, “Von der Führung in die Irre geführt,” NWZ Online, 8 November 2008

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