1959: Life in POSTWAR BERLIN before the WALL | Panorama | Iconic News Stories | BBC Archive

Robert Kee reports from Berlin on what daily life is like for people in the east and west of the city. He speaks to Germans living on both sides of the then invisible boundary.

This report is from Panorama, originally broadcast 11 May 1959.

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[pinedelgado]

I'm just glad the reporter, Mr. Kee, wasn't run over by any passing Berlin motorists as he stood in the street boundary between East and West during his opener.

[iaw]

5:33 "much of the new building is exciting and imaginative"

*is literally just a box*

[tomduggan]

Archive,
Thanks for this very interesting piece on Berlin before the Wall was built. Excellent English spoken by so many inhabitants!

[NomadicDmitry]

What a great piece of documentary. Thank you!

[cmartin_ok]

1959: Life in postwar Berlin in the year I was born.Absolutely fascinating. It's only in the past 4 or 5 years I have found out about the situation in Berlin since the end of WW2 and have visited the city. Thanks for uploading this video, I find it extremely interesting.... and to think of what has happened there in my lifetime

[charleskramer]

Spent a year in West Berlin between 1979-1980 as an exchange student. Studied in Bonn a couple of years later. I loved my time there despite the ever-present oppressive nature of the wall. Have gone back several times since the reunification, and it’s a much more pleasant feel.

[FordFOO]

I once read a book from 1922 and in a Chapter it talks about Berlin, interesting to understand it pre and post war

[TheOfficialSmudgy]

I love the way he said “Yet”, as if he was fully expecting West Germany to soon legalise exile to Siberia 😭

[avus-kwf]

0:28 someone should build something like a wall to make sure people don’t accidentally cross

[boink]

It was very interesting to see how all of Berlin functioned before the wall was put up on August 13, 1961. The 1950's must have been a nice decade for all of Berlin.

[marcellocolona]

Fascinating contrast with post-wall Berlin. I remember visiting Berlin when I was a US naval officer in the 1980s and the contrast with the Soviet Zone was stark. As an Allied military officer I could cross over to the East, it was a drab, grim affair, a total surveillance state. A Royal Navy travelling buddy speculated that we got a taste of how it must have been living in Nazi Germany.

[edmondscott]

Marvellous documentary. Robert Kee was great.

[robadr]

Remarkably prescient presentation and commentary, and excellent interviews. The passing of time confirms what high-quality journalism this was.

[Neil-Aspinall]

Even in those days as today so many Germans could and can speak English. I always tell people wanting to spend time in the larger cities that you'll have no problem with communication. Germans on the whole are nice people but their directness can be confronting.

[MacG]

"and heyah I am standing on the main roadway, obstructing the local traffic"

[thomasburke]

Just eleven years after the blockade and the airlift, the populace are remarkably unperturbed about the risk to West Berlin.
It's also amazing to see a young Robert Kee, his voice was familiar from the beginning, after a few moments, I found myself wondering was this him. Sure enough, it was.

[alumycrick]

Nineteen forty-eight to nineteen sixty-one was a time of foreboding lull in Berlin: after the breaking of the blockade, but before the building of the Wall. Berliners seemed resigned to the prevailing circumstances, with their life-chances and choices resting largely in the hands of others. The Wall literally made concrete the division that the geopolitical situation dictated. But a generation later, when the geopolitical concrete abruptly fractured, Berliners' own hands determinedly grasped the sudden opportunity to change forever the hitherto fixed reality of their lives as well the lives of their fellow Germans and fellow Europeans.

[xiangyusi]

Saw three kids boxing this afternoon, a quite wise judge, two friendly players

[ThatBulgarian]

5:35 "much of the new building is exciting and imaginative"
pans up to the most generic building ever

[mickd]

Good luck to any journalist back then, trying to speak to people in the Uk in German!