I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN interested in the concrete course of events marking the major turning points in history: how people experienced the morning after the storming of the Bastille, how a loyal German soldier responded to the Kaiser’s abdication, what Germans felt when they emerged from air raid shelters in May 1945. I suppose my imaginings in this regard have always been rather clichéd. This was certainly how I felt after experiencing a major turning point myself in 1989.

What I find extraordinary about the Wende is not just the experience itself but the fact that my memory of it is constantly changing. These changes certainly have a lot to do with me, with my tendency to forget and with the many new impressions I have. But they also have something to do with the writers of history. Many did not know daily life and routines in the GDR. As a result, a very simple black-and-white picture has emerged of life in East Germany. With the disappearance of shades of gray, it has become increasingly difficult to recognize the contradictory forces that drove and impeded the development of society. Describing them is important to me. They have a lot to do with my film Die Architekten (The Architects, GDR 1990).

After the end of the Second World War many Germans were looking for a new type of society that would never again lead to war and atrocities. Socialism held out the promise of a peace-loving, just, and democratic society. This utopia played an important role in my upbringing. Of course, you could claim that these were just empty phrases. That may be true, but only partially. For me, there were a lot of persuasive supporters of this idea, including my parents, who had been forced to flee Germany during the Nazi period.

But questions naturally arose. Why did the actual conditions in the country barely resemble the ideals? Where was the promised democracy? Where was justice? And where was the modern economy? In response to such questions my teachers always told me and my classmates that the problems were the result of the special circumstances in Germany.