Damir White

6/18/23

Hist 416

The Stasi

The conflict that followed World War II was the division of Berlin which split apart families and

neighbors alike. Divided between .In this paper I will be describing the experience of a particular

character profiled in the BBC Documentary called People’s Power .

The first character we focus on is a border guard colonel by the name of Harold Jaeger who has

to make a momentous decision. That is because East Germans for the first time since the division

were being allowed to cross the Berlin Wall to the west and he wasn’t given orders by his

superiors. The East Germans people wanted out and the colonel knew that if the will of the

people outweighed the will of the state then the people would win. And the people did win since

it was the choice between let them break down the gate or let them through . The breach in the

wall showed the fall of communist ideals as the people flooded past by the gates finally free of

the control of Russia.

He watched the ideals he had longed to believe in, crumble with the Berlin wall as the people

fled and left the ideals of the revolution behind . The people of East Germany no longer had to

suffer under the totalitarian grip of the likes of Stalin, they were ecstatic as they left for West

Germany. The Colonel didn’t have any choice but to watch them go as the regime’s stronghold

on Berlin and Germany slipped. This was the beginning of the People’s century and the end of

the machinations of the machinery of state. This is shows that no matter what the state might do

the will of the people will always overpower them.