Deutschland 83

I have watched this new TV show for the past several weeks and think it's pretty interesting. I am surprised that so many Americans would watch it considering that it is in German with English subtitles and Americans don't like to read their movies or shows like most of the world does. I don't mind reading subtitles and like that Netflix allows me to watch so many foreign, non-English movies and shows.

 

The show is set in a divided Germany in 1983 and follows the main character (Martin Rauch) who goes from performing his mandatory military service in the East German Military to moving to Bonn (the capital of West Germany) and becoming a spy inside the West German Military and along with that inside of NATO. Marin's aunt is in the East German Government as well as the  Stasi and moves freely between East and West Germany. She gets him to become a spy because of his mother's kidney problems and his own strong personal Communist beliefs. The show focuses on how he infiltrates the West German headquarters as well as NATO headquarters in Brussels - trying to get the plans of the West's nuclear strategy for East Germany and the Soviet Union.

 

It is a little odd when you look at the cast of this show. Some were born in West Germany and are playing East Germans (like Jonas Nay- who plays the main character Martin Rauch and Maria Schrader  - who plays his aunt.) while some were born in East Germany and are playing West Germans (like Ludwig Trepte. There are some who were born in West Germany and are playing West Germans (like Ulrich Noethen) and some who were born in East Germany and are playing East Germans (like Carina Wiese - who plays Martin's mother.) Then there are a few (like Sonja Gerhardt) who "hide" where they were born and merely state it was in Berlin, Germany even though there was no Berlin, Germany at the time of their birth - there was only West Berlin, West Germany and East Berlin, East Germany. I have seen many Germans who are actors/actresses  or other performers who do that  - claim they are simply Germans born in Germany even before Germany was reunited in 1990.

 

Not many people know this, but the time period from 1982-1984 was the second closest the world has ever gotten to an all-out nuclear war (the first time was during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.) There were several very close calls (due to planned NATO exercises)  that almost led to the Soviets firing their missiles at both West Germany and the US. It was only through one or two Soviet soldiers, that went against their own country's orders, that nuclear war was avoided. I was living in West Germany at that time as my dad was stationed there. I was too young to know about how close we came to war, but  it is clear that had the Soviets fired their missiles all of West Germany would have been radioactive while "only" many areas of the US would have been. My parents later told me they had worked out a plan in case of an invasion (since there wasn't much you could do during a nuclear war.) My dad would have to stay and fight, but my mom would take us kids and my dog and drive to Switzerland as that has been neutral since the 1800s. They always kept a full-tank of gas in the car and a map of Germany and Switzerland with the route marked on it. We were stationed in southern West Germany at the time - closer to the East German border, but not far from Switzerland. Luckily, that plan was never implemented.

 

So far this show has kept my interest and I hope it continues to build on the East-West  Germany strain, the US-Soviet strain, and the NATO-Warsaw Pact strain that happened in the 1980s.