Moscow (May 2005). "Why are the German Soldiers then actually moved only to Ikea? "My daughter once asked, as we passed the massive anti-tank obstacles that mark the extreme front line in Moscow from December 1941. With five it was her just before the 9th May visibly uncomfortable, somehow to belong to those who attacked Russia at that time.
later than mid-April can not escape a German in Russia's history. The past is omnipresent. Before every ninth May, the day of victory over Nazi Germany, send the TV channels repetitions of all Soviet war films that have been long since become classics. In kindergartens and preschools Boys and girls paint the heroic deeds of their great-grandfathers of the Great Patriotic War in ink on.
A glass on the veterans
Every May walked the old men and women with their dress uniforms, the Moscow boulevards, and despite the traffic noise was then everywhere the gentle strumming of the heroic badge heard. The reforms pushed into economic misery, it was for the World War II veterans still at least this one day a year where they could hear the acceptance speeches of the big bosses ingratiating - but where they also young girls on the street completely honest red Carnations donated.
The Red Square, with its martial military parade was on this day always hermetically shielded by ordinary citizens. Away from the public spectacle, however, had the Russian Victory Day over Germany at the same time always friendly pages.
also in the German editor of Moscow Radio, it was a tradition, before 9 unpack May together back a few tables that had brought drinks, cakes and salads and to the health of Alexander Scholkwer to launch. The author of the daily state-supporting comments for the news broadcast was as a young man himself marched to Berlin, his war medals proudly wore on his lapel. He was the last of the veterans who have worked in the newsroom. And the Germans celebrated in the newsroom with naturally.
"You were not even proper winter boots"
somehow to belong to the other side, it was still a strange feeling. Only law in a country where some thirty million people had lost their lives in the most murderous of all previous wars. Yuri Sergeyevich spoke frequently about the war, when he came to pick up his rent and then we still sat with a cup of tea in the small kitchen of my first Moscow apartment. He had seen the start of the war as a sailor in the Kronstadt naval base on the Baltic Sea and survived the Leningrad blockade. Had the bodies of frozen in the cold hallways are seen, in which all the neighbors were far too weak to bury the dead still.
When Yuri told of the Wehrmacht soldiers, he did not say "the Germans", and certainly not "the fascists". No, he said "her". "I have over seen with binoculars from the front on your side," he told with his charming voice and I poured more tea. "Why should I hate you? You had not even yet sensible winter boots. "The war years did not leave him bitter. Yuri was not only a winner of the Great Patriotic War, he had also won his own personal victory against the madness of this war.
who traveled as a German, European countries, which Hitler had once felt attacked, even after more than six decades in many places, the aversion to all things German. Not so in Russia. Quite the contrary. Perhaps nowhere to fly a German to devote as much sympathy. Goethe, Heinrich Heine, the great composers, the order, not last. Often we were in our Moscow years looking for a home - and every house we visited, we would have to rent immediately. This was the German bonus in a country where the head of state his children to the German Embassy School was sent. Positive racism on Russian Art
And the mass killings? The exiled towns, villages wiped the eye? In few places was as a German but a hard time, there was the past so cruel that they even sixty years later one seemed to push away the still air. In Volgograd about. The city, which has risen on the ruins of Stalingrad from nothing. For "Arte" We shot in summer 2001, a documentary filmed in the city, on the Mamaev Hill, the Motherland statue and a wedding party.
some point I said to our director, it was time that he expresses a toast to the bride and groom. Matt had come up with the idea yet, but without thinking twice, he said exactly the right words that could be said in this situation. "In Germany, most people knew only as long as your city the scene of a terrible battle. A place of war, destruction and death, "he began his little speech, and the celebrants looked up at him. In reality everything is different. Volgograd want is a place dear to the young people marry, have children and have many, many future plans. That's wonderful. ! On the couple "Some people at the table clapped their hands and the bride's father said solemnly:" Until you were just German journalists, from now on since it our guests. Provides finally your camera away and party with. "
An SS colonel in the service of Moscow
From Karsten Packeiser, Moscow. "A real-Aryans. Nordic, determined character. "Cadres Act of SS colonel Otto von Max Stirlitz is impeccable. That in fact Stirlitz Maxim Isayev and is serving as the Kremlin's first inkling of the Nazi leaders yet. No other Soviet television series has become nearly as popular as the twelve-part series "17 Moments of Spring," which tells the adventures of the agent Stirlitz and was broadcast 30 years ago for the first time.
At the first performance In 1973, the Moscow streets were deserted. Meanwhile, the Russian television stations any pretext, to repeat the cult series, it was another anniversary of the victory in the Second World War, or a milestone birthday of the main characters. The television producers can be assured that turn millions of people between Kaliningrad and Vladivostok.
The plot of the series is based partly on historical events, a novel by Julian Semyonov it served as a template. During the "Third Reich" in the spring of 1945 is already on its last legs, Isayev met alias Stirlitz a delicate task. It is designed to prevent Nazi Germany agrees with the Western Allies for a separate peace and various Nazi leaders play sent off against each other.
The "17 Moments of Spring" are one of the few foreign film productions that tell about the war, the Germans do not represent but not as anonymous enemies and the Nazi leader as one-dimensional, brutal monster. Tatjana Liosnowa director paints a detailed picture of each character with all its emotional depths. Apart from the East German television Vorwende the time, the series is still never been shown in Germany.
This may be because Stirlitz is just not a Russian James Bond. In the black and white series, there are no wild chases, shootouts and explosions, as them in western movies a must-agent belong. Although Colonel Isayev had to leave his wife years ago in the Soviet Union, he does not even have a mistress.
Long portentous dialogue of the protagonists and again close-ups of the silent heroes determine all the consequences, which reduces the voltage means. Even today, the Russians increased again each time the breath at that point, drew as Gestapo chief Mueller nachruft suspicion and the Soviet agents the legendary words: "And you, Stirlitz, I ask you to stay."
The Soviet TV spy has long since become a genuine folk hero. Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, himself once worked for the KGB on the invisible front, the actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov Stirlitz presented to the 75th Birthday one of the highest Russian medal for services to his country.
the saying has been invented hundreds of jokes about the agent. "The situation in Berlin had become so bad that even in the Reich Chancellery, long queues formed when meat was sold there," says one. "Everyone waited patiently, but Stirlitz jostling each time roughly by the snake over to the front, which upset the Gestapo scary. You did not know that heroes of the Soviet Union always operated out of turn. "
Originally
published by Russia News .
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