The Cold War and the Fall of the Berlin Wall (or) Farewell Comrades, Hello Capitalism!
9:30 a.m., Thursday, Sept. 11, 2008
Webster Hall Auditorium
Admission: free

The years of the Cold War produced stark images and memories for many who lived during this time. The film, Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) offers a chilling account of what it was like to live in the former East Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s. The film documents the lives of artists and everyday citizens who were subjected to the scrutiny of the Staatssicherheit (Stasi or Secret Police) without their knowledge or permission. This presentation will also focus on the developments of 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Clips from the film Goodbye Lenin deliver an important statement of how quickly life changed for East Germans in a relatively short span of time. Together the two films offer an exceptionally stark contrast of life in East Germany during the Cold War and a new beginning in 1989 because many East Germans were simply not prepared to operate in a free and capitalistic society.

Ann Stamp Miller received her Ph.D. in European history from the University of Hawaii. She has lived and studied abroad in Germany and Austria. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to teach in Germany in 2005-2006 and is the author of the book The Cultural Politics of the German Democratic Republic: The Voices of Wolf Biermann, Christa Wolf, and Heiner Mueller. Dr. Miller is an associate professor of European history at Simpson University in California, where she teaches Historiography, Nazi Germany, Modern Europe, and Cold War Politics and History.