Deutschland 89

Following the success of Deutschland 83 and 86, the concluding chapter of the Cold War spy drama is set among the huge changes which took place in Germany leading up to and in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Written by Anna Winger and co-created with Joerg Winger, Deutschland 89 premiered on Amazon Prime and is now available to buy on DVD.
Our HVA (East German Security) superspy Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) finds himself faced with some hard, risk-filled choices in a world that has changed suddenly, and beyond recognition. Should he decamp to Mother Russia and join the KGB? Stick with the HVA in exile? Or join the opposition and work for the CIA? What about his young son, whom his mother wants custody of in her Russian home?
Martin’s latest assignment is a straight forward postal interference job, but one that comes with a high level of danger and an order to induce a heart attack in a senior official using an ampoule of poison, secreted in a cigarette case. Martin baulks at this murderous suggestion and carries out his mission without the intended action.
Using a mixture of reconstruction and historical news footage of protesting East Germans, we see the so-called Anti-Fascist wall crumbling, almost solely in response to the will of the people. The stark contrast between the lives of the hard pushed labouring class in their drab, pokey flats and the communist elite in their palace-like art deco offices could not be more marked. The sprawling, labyrinthine Stasi building seems to grow as the camera takes it in, a grey edifice filled with files on what might have been almost every citizen of the German Democratic Republic. As the changes pass into law, signed off by Moscow, the faces of the citizens learning that travel restrictions to West Germany are being lifted, range from outright disbelief to overarching joy.
Martin has the good fortune to meet his son’s teacher, a personable, sympathetic young woman Nicole Zangen (Svenja Jung) and who turns up again at the bar Martin has entered to catch up on the unfolding news. She proves to be a calming influence on the young superspy, whose permanent worried and hunted look cannot have helped his necessary anonymity. Members of Martin’s family return from previous stories, including his father Walter Schweppenstette (Sylvester Groth), an HVA agent attempting to infiltrate the West German banking system, and Aunt Lenora (Maria Schrader), a former HVA agent with far left terrorist sympathies.
As the former German Democratic Republic unwinds, we see people of all walks of life leaving the country in droves. Workers are crossing the border unhindered by their former oppressors, lining up in the West German banks for their thirty marks ‘welcome’ money. Stasi officers are busily shredding every document they feel may come back to bite them, then making a hasty exit with hoarded cash and gold to anywhere they can safely disappear to. Tech wizards are making sometimes comically inept attempts to gain finance for their ideas and products in the West, seemingly unaware that Western employers have more interest in making money than in spying on their employees working.
This fast paced, taut and minutely detailed story takes in Cold War paranoia, an elaborate prison break, an idealist collective with designs on assassination, banking fraud, rioting, the consequences of living life as a fugitive, the appalling amorality of the security services on all sides and family ties within the HVA that may sometimes strain the viewer’s ability to suspend disbelief. The sheer, pell-mell action and intrigue adds up to a hugely enjoyable story that will surely bear up to repeated viewing.
Scenester