'Learn Polish'
October 17, 2014The call was aimed at breaking the silence about the imposition of martial law in Poland in the East German media in 1981. Until then, there had been solidarity with the Polish people. The hunger strike by some 300 prisoners at the Stasi jail in Cottbus in support of the Polish trade union movement shortly after the beginning of martial law in Poland was another instance.
But there was little contact between the Polish and East German oppositions and the courage of East Germans has been forgotten over the years. Civil rights in the East Germany of the 1980 talked about the "Polish revolution" and hoped to bring about a similar upheaval in their own country. As we know today, they were a bit premature.
Roland Jahn, the current head of the Stasi Records Authority, was arrested in 1982 for fixing a Polish flag with the inscription "Solidarity with the Polish people" to his bike. Unlike in Poland, where Solidarity was a mass movement that also received financial help from the West, the East German opposition could not count on a lot of support and therefore remained quite insignificant. It limited itself to buying the release of political prisoners from jail and offering them a new life in the West.
Rosalia Romaniec (DW) and Magdalena Gwóźdź (TVP) tell the story of the early years of a movement that ultimately laid the foundation for the peaceful revolution in East Germany. Twenty-five years later, Polish and East German opposition figures joined hands in Gdansk, the city where it all began.
Broadcasting Hours:
DW
WED 05.11.2014 – 22:15 UTC
THU 06.11.2014 – 06:15 UTC
THU 06.11.2014 – 13:15 UTC
THU 06.11.2014 – 17:15 UTC
FRI 07.11.2014 – 04:15 UTC
FRI 07.11.2014 – 10:15 UTC
Cape Town UTC +2 | Delhi UTC +5,5 | Hong Kong UTC +8
San Francisco UTC -8 | Edmonton UTC -7 | New York UTC -5
DW (Europe)
THU 06.11.2014 – 04:15 UTC
THU 06.11.2014 – 17:15 UTC
FRI 07.11.2014 – 06:15 UTC
FRI 07.11.2014 – 13:15 UTC
London UTC +0 | Berlin UTC +1 | Moscow UTC +4
DW (Arabia)
THU 06.11.2014 – 04:15 UTC
Tunis UTC +1 | Cairo UTC + 2 | Dubai UTC +4
DW (Amerika)
THU 06.11.2014 – 06:15 UTC
Vancouver UTC -8 | New York UTC -5 | Sao Paulo UTC -2