Berlin Music 02:00
Brissenden: In Berlin, the capital that once threatened to deliver the final solution, Jewish life and culture is making a steady, defiant and symbolic return. 02:13
Music
Jewish family having photo taken
Brissenden: But it's a renaissance tinged with apprehension, guilt, resentment and violence. 02:30
Jews on street
Neo-Nazi: These people have always been treated badly. 02:37
Neo-Nazi Why have they been treated badly? Because they are inferior only good for slavery, or I don't know what. Personally I feel hatred for them. 02:41
Protests
Brissenden: The 21st Century could provide an opportunity for the country to finally break from its past. 02:49
But the behaviour of some suggest it is still shackled to the stains it left on the 20th.
Udo
Udo: We have no responsibility we cannot be blamed collectively. These times are over, and I think that Germany has paid enough reparation during the past fifty years. There must be an end to this at some point. 03:09
Crowd
Brissenden: An upsurge of neo-Nazi against blacks, foreigners and Jews has modern Germany worried. Last week the 62nd anniversary of Kristallnacht drew tens of thousands of people onto the street. 03:25
Sixty-two years ago the Holocaust began. This year that anniversary became a day of defiance, despite all that's changed, Germany is till haunted by its history. 03:39
Gortemaker
Super:Mannfred GortemakerProf. History, Potsdam Uni
Gortemaker: I think we have to understand particularly here in Germany that people all around us in Europe and elsewhere in the world are concerned about the new Germany and therefore today it's even more necessary to deal with the past. 03:50
Jewish memorial site
Brissenden: And evidence of that constant debate is impossible to ignore. In the former no-man's land that surrounded the wall, the spot where Adolf Hitler his last days in his bunker contemplating defeat, has been set aside for the biggest Jewish memorial of them all. This site will be filled with more than 2000 gravestone-like pillars, a quiet few acres of reflection in the middle of a modern, dynamic new capital. 04:06
Brissenden to camera What memorials like this are saying is the past will not be forgotten and will never be revisited but reconstructing the psyche of the people is proving to be more difficult. 04:35
Interior of synagogue Music 04:45
Brissenden: Today Jews are being drawn back to Germany by the opportunity it offers for a new life, and a chance to reconnect with their heritage. 04:57
Music
The population has reached a hundred thousand for the first time since the Holocaust, still a long way short of the community of 500,000 that lived here before the war. 05:10
Anna and Saira Makatov Brissenden: Well over half of them are from the former Soviet Union, like Anna and Saira Makatov, taking advantage of Germany's offer of an open door to Europe. 05:25
Saira Makatov: When I was in Azerbaijan I had no stability because of the war. I studied and worked hard. It was often not possible for people to find bread to feed themselves. Here we don't have these worries we are able to concentrate on our studies and to develop ourselves. 05:36
Brissenden: And there are plenty more who are keen to follow the Makatov's good fortune. 06:08
Brissenden: Five thousand Jewish families receive permanent visas every year now. Among immigrants they occupy a special privileged position. They receive full work permits, residence permits, full welfare benefits, free schooling for children and German lessons. 06:19
Guys in bar Guys: Cheers! Cheer to you and to Germany. 06:36
Brissenden: But the open door for immigrants has provided an opportunity of a different sort for some. 06:43
Guys singing: The thoughts are free, who can guess them? They fly past you like shades in the night. No one can know them. No hunter can shoot them. It's still true that our thoughts are free. 06:49
Brissenden: Udo Voigt is the leader of the far right German nationalist party, the NPD. His thoughts might be free but they trouble the government. 07:18
Neo-Nazi march 07:28
Brissenden: In the past few years, Voigt has cleverly tapped the resentment and disillusionment felt by many people in the east.
Udo
Udo: No skinhead remains a skinhead for his whole life there are also people amongst them with a brain. It's not just the beer-can Nazis we reach out to because it would be a catastrophe if we have ten thousand young people in Germany who have a sticker that says I'm proud to be German and we don't try to talk to these people. 07:41
Duo leaves headquarters Brissenden: For Udo Voigt the government's campaign to ban his party has been a welcome attack. The publicity has attracted hundreds of new members and thousands of inquiries from interested people. His party now finds itself at the centre of a national debate about the merits of restricting some freedoms to protect core democratic values. 08:04
??: Politicians, Justice and Police we demand that everything is done to protect the dignity of the people. Politicians, think about what you say and quit sparking fires with your words. 08:25
Brissenden at park memorial Brissenden: Attacks on foreigners have been increasing in Germany particularly here in the east but the death of Alberto Adrianno has had more impact than any other he was kicked to death in this park by three skinheads, since because he was black. The brutal and senseless nature of that attack has finally forced Germany to confront an issue that the country had until now been unwilling to address. 08:48
Trial of neo-Nazis The three youths convicted of killing Adrianno were unrepentant neo-Nazis, two of them were just 16. The other was 24. They were part of a loose knit group of Nazi sympathisers led by this man. Adrianno's wife simply can't comprehend why her husband was a target. 09:15
Mrs Adrianno
Mrs Adrianno; That my husband had to die in such a way he really did not deserve that. No human being deserves to die like this. They even punched out his eyes. 09:35
Neo-Nazi: She is a German she has to fend for herself. It could have happened two years earlier or two years later. For me there is absolutely no difference. The children are mixed. For me, that is as I said, inferior. I have no sympathy with them. 09:59
Shrine to Adrianno
Brissenden: The spot where Adrianno was killed has become a shrine. Even Gerhardt Schroeder, the German chancellor, has paid homage here. 10:14
Music
Brissenden: The neo-Nazi violence is, he says, a problem in Germany and not a specifically German problem, but the symbolism of the past has a far greater resonance among those who feel left behind by the new Berlin republic.
The west may have colonised the boulevards of the east but he fashionable boutiques are as alien as ever. 10:44
Disco Music 10:52
Brissenden: For many there remains what they call a wall in the mind. 10:57
Music
Gortemaker: Many people in the east, especially young people, expected almost everything from reunification and they are very disappointed today that it didn't happen. Unemployment is very high, twice as high as in West Germany. The material expectations may have been fulfilled to some extent but still there is a kind of social discrimination of easterners in Germany and so social frustration is very high. 11:09
Gortemaker
There was not really an intense discussion about developments of the past. They dealt with it from a very strange perspective. They, the official position was that the GDR was a new German state, had nothing to do with the past and therefore was not responsible for it. 11:38
Dessau
Brissenden: Alberto Adrianno lived in Dessau in the east, a city that believe it or not was one of Germany's leading cultural centres, home to the Bauhaus and artists like Klee and Kandinsky. 11:59
Before two dictatorships intervened, Dessau inspired creative endeavour. Today many young people here find their inspiration in the bottle, drugs or extremist politics. 12:12
Sonntag-Wolgast
Super:Cornelic Sonntag-WolgastPrlt. Sec for Home Affairs
Sonntag-Wolgast: The main thing is that young people in East Germany don't understand that they can live in peace with foreigners and they're Northern Territory a threat to them. There are not many foreigners in East Germany anyway. These are the things we have to urgently clarify that foreigners and Germans living together won't create any major problems. 12:27
Rau
Super:Johannes Rau President, Germany
Rau: We want to send out a clear sign today a sign for our neighbours and friends in the world who are fighting as we are against hate against hate and violence towards foreigners and the weak. 12:55
Brissenden: Those who came to mark Kristallnacht were surrounded by their history. Inside the Reichstag the past is highlighted. The graffiti of liberating Soviet soldiers has been deliberately left on display. The past rings strongly through the politics of the modern state and probably always will. 13:17
Feldmann in office
But the irony is, it's the Jews, especially those from the former Soviet Union, who seem to be finding it easier to leave that past behind. 13:36
Boris Feldmann fled from Riga in Latvia as the Soviet Union collapsed. Germany, he says, is dealing with its past. Stalin's crimes have never been addressed and Germany today is a land of freedom with a terrible history. 13:49
Feldmann
Feldmann: Ten years of horror of Hitler can not destroy this. We have a lot of hope for the future and for Berlin this city will become a real metropolis a cultural metropolis and we are trying to do our part to speed this up. 14:04
Music
Credits:
Reporter: Michael Brissenden
Camera: John Benes
Sound: Mark Douglas
Editor: Stuart Miler
Mark Douglas
Research: Maike Rudolph
Brissenden: In Berlin, the capital that once threatened to deliver the final solution, Jewish life and culture is making a steady, defiant and symbolic return. 02:13
Music
Jewish family having photo taken
Brissenden: But it's a renaissance tinged with apprehension, guilt, resentment and violence. 02:30
Jews on street
Neo-Nazi: These people have always been treated badly. 02:37
Neo-Nazi Why have they been treated badly? Because they are inferior only good for slavery, or I don't know what. Personally I feel hatred for them. 02:41
Protests
Brissenden: The 21st Century could provide an opportunity for the country to finally break from its past. 02:49
But the behaviour of some suggest it is still shackled to the stains it left on the 20th.
Udo
Udo: We have no responsibility we cannot be blamed collectively. These times are over, and I think that Germany has paid enough reparation during the past fifty years. There must be an end to this at some point. 03:09
Crowd
Brissenden: An upsurge of neo-Nazi against blacks, foreigners and Jews has modern Germany worried. Last week the 62nd anniversary of Kristallnacht drew tens of thousands of people onto the street. 03:25
Sixty-two years ago the Holocaust began. This year that anniversary became a day of defiance, despite all that's changed, Germany is till haunted by its history. 03:39
Gortemaker
Super:Mannfred GortemakerProf. History, Potsdam Uni
Gortemaker: I think we have to understand particularly here in Germany that people all around us in Europe and elsewhere in the world are concerned about the new Germany and therefore today it's even more necessary to deal with the past. 03:50
Jewish memorial site
Brissenden: And evidence of that constant debate is impossible to ignore. In the former no-man's land that surrounded the wall, the spot where Adolf Hitler his last days in his bunker contemplating defeat, has been set aside for the biggest Jewish memorial of them all. This site will be filled with more than 2000 gravestone-like pillars, a quiet few acres of reflection in the middle of a modern, dynamic new capital. 04:06
Brissenden to camera What memorials like this are saying is the past will not be forgotten and will never be revisited but reconstructing the psyche of the people is proving to be more difficult. 04:35
Interior of synagogue Music 04:45
Brissenden: Today Jews are being drawn back to Germany by the opportunity it offers for a new life, and a chance to reconnect with their heritage. 04:57
Music
The population has reached a hundred thousand for the first time since the Holocaust, still a long way short of the community of 500,000 that lived here before the war. 05:10
Anna and Saira Makatov Brissenden: Well over half of them are from the former Soviet Union, like Anna and Saira Makatov, taking advantage of Germany's offer of an open door to Europe. 05:25
Saira Makatov: When I was in Azerbaijan I had no stability because of the war. I studied and worked hard. It was often not possible for people to find bread to feed themselves. Here we don't have these worries we are able to concentrate on our studies and to develop ourselves. 05:36
Brissenden: And there are plenty more who are keen to follow the Makatov's good fortune. 06:08
Brissenden: Five thousand Jewish families receive permanent visas every year now. Among immigrants they occupy a special privileged position. They receive full work permits, residence permits, full welfare benefits, free schooling for children and German lessons. 06:19
Guys in bar Guys: Cheers! Cheer to you and to Germany. 06:36
Brissenden: But the open door for immigrants has provided an opportunity of a different sort for some. 06:43
Guys singing: The thoughts are free, who can guess them? They fly past you like shades in the night. No one can know them. No hunter can shoot them. It's still true that our thoughts are free. 06:49
Brissenden: Udo Voigt is the leader of the far right German nationalist party, the NPD. His thoughts might be free but they trouble the government. 07:18
Neo-Nazi march 07:28
Brissenden: In the past few years, Voigt has cleverly tapped the resentment and disillusionment felt by many people in the east.
Udo
Udo: No skinhead remains a skinhead for his whole life there are also people amongst them with a brain. It's not just the beer-can Nazis we reach out to because it would be a catastrophe if we have ten thousand young people in Germany who have a sticker that says I'm proud to be German and we don't try to talk to these people. 07:41
Duo leaves headquarters Brissenden: For Udo Voigt the government's campaign to ban his party has been a welcome attack. The publicity has attracted hundreds of new members and thousands of inquiries from interested people. His party now finds itself at the centre of a national debate about the merits of restricting some freedoms to protect core democratic values. 08:04
??: Politicians, Justice and Police we demand that everything is done to protect the dignity of the people. Politicians, think about what you say and quit sparking fires with your words. 08:25
Brissenden at park memorial Brissenden: Attacks on foreigners have been increasing in Germany particularly here in the east but the death of Alberto Adrianno has had more impact than any other he was kicked to death in this park by three skinheads, since because he was black. The brutal and senseless nature of that attack has finally forced Germany to confront an issue that the country had until now been unwilling to address. 08:48
Trial of neo-Nazis The three youths convicted of killing Adrianno were unrepentant neo-Nazis, two of them were just 16. The other was 24. They were part of a loose knit group of Nazi sympathisers led by this man. Adrianno's wife simply can't comprehend why her husband was a target. 09:15
Mrs Adrianno
Mrs Adrianno; That my husband had to die in such a way he really did not deserve that. No human being deserves to die like this. They even punched out his eyes. 09:35
Neo-Nazi: She is a German she has to fend for herself. It could have happened two years earlier or two years later. For me there is absolutely no difference. The children are mixed. For me, that is as I said, inferior. I have no sympathy with them. 09:59
Shrine to Adrianno
Brissenden: The spot where Adrianno was killed has become a shrine. Even Gerhardt Schroeder, the German chancellor, has paid homage here. 10:14
Music
Brissenden: The neo-Nazi violence is, he says, a problem in Germany and not a specifically German problem, but the symbolism of the past has a far greater resonance among those who feel left behind by the new Berlin republic.
The west may have colonised the boulevards of the east but he fashionable boutiques are as alien as ever. 10:44
Disco Music 10:52
Brissenden: For many there remains what they call a wall in the mind. 10:57
Music
Gortemaker: Many people in the east, especially young people, expected almost everything from reunification and they are very disappointed today that it didn't happen. Unemployment is very high, twice as high as in West Germany. The material expectations may have been fulfilled to some extent but still there is a kind of social discrimination of easterners in Germany and so social frustration is very high. 11:09
Gortemaker
There was not really an intense discussion about developments of the past. They dealt with it from a very strange perspective. They, the official position was that the GDR was a new German state, had nothing to do with the past and therefore was not responsible for it. 11:38
Dessau
Brissenden: Alberto Adrianno lived in Dessau in the east, a city that believe it or not was one of Germany's leading cultural centres, home to the Bauhaus and artists like Klee and Kandinsky. 11:59
Before two dictatorships intervened, Dessau inspired creative endeavour. Today many young people here find their inspiration in the bottle, drugs or extremist politics. 12:12
Sonntag-Wolgast
Super:Cornelic Sonntag-WolgastPrlt. Sec for Home Affairs
Sonntag-Wolgast: The main thing is that young people in East Germany don't understand that they can live in peace with foreigners and they're Northern Territory a threat to them. There are not many foreigners in East Germany anyway. These are the things we have to urgently clarify that foreigners and Germans living together won't create any major problems. 12:27
Rau
Super:Johannes Rau President, Germany
Rau: We want to send out a clear sign today a sign for our neighbours and friends in the world who are fighting as we are against hate against hate and violence towards foreigners and the weak. 12:55
Brissenden: Those who came to mark Kristallnacht were surrounded by their history. Inside the Reichstag the past is highlighted. The graffiti of liberating Soviet soldiers has been deliberately left on display. The past rings strongly through the politics of the modern state and probably always will. 13:17
Feldmann in office
But the irony is, it's the Jews, especially those from the former Soviet Union, who seem to be finding it easier to leave that past behind. 13:36
Boris Feldmann fled from Riga in Latvia as the Soviet Union collapsed. Germany, he says, is dealing with its past. Stalin's crimes have never been addressed and Germany today is a land of freedom with a terrible history. 13:49
Feldmann
Feldmann: Ten years of horror of Hitler can not destroy this. We have a lot of hope for the future and for Berlin this city will become a real metropolis a cultural metropolis and we are trying to do our part to speed this up. 14:04
Music
Credits:
Reporter: Michael Brissenden
Camera: John Benes
Sound: Mark Douglas
Editor: Stuart Miler
Mark Douglas
Research: Maike Rudolph