Behind The Wall – My Brother, My Family And Hatred In East Germany

Germany, like many countries, has witnessed the rise of extremist far-right groups and parties in recent years, and no more so than in the eastern regions.  Why have those parts of Germany that used to be part of the old GDR turned out to be so supportive of extremist groups and parties and such fertile ground for violence and hatred?

To try to find answers to this question, Ines Geipel, the former East German Olympic athlete, returns to her past in order explore the matrix of fear and anxiety that shaped the lives of people in the GDR.  Spurred on by conversations at the bedside of her brother as he lay dying of a brain tumour, she probes into her own family background and discovers a web of secrets and denial that reflected larger processes of East German society.  She finds that her father had worked as a special agent for the Stasi until the service had no further use for him, and her grandfather had joined the Nazi party in 1933 and was stationed in Riga at a time when tens of thousands of Jews were murdered in the nearby forests.