Trading Germans (2014) - full transcript

Nobody likes to leave
their own homeland...

... the place where they opened
their eyes upon this world.

Homeland also includes the circle
you move in, the people there.

Homeland is not only
a geographic space.

Homeland... very difficult to define.

Something that touches your heart,
that comes from your soul

but if you must put it into words:
point 1, point 2, point 3...

It doesn't work!

Things that have to do with a sense of security
within our immediate family !

that is homeland for me.

It is a safe childhood.
It's love!



Freedom is to be able to decide
where you can settle down

and where you want to try your luck.

In Romania they told you:
this is happiness.

The definition of homeland?

Well, I think
the definition of homeland

is where you spent your youth,
where you grew up, where you

This strikes a chord!

I have often thought of my father,
who died back there in 1978,

and who always said
We can't just leave everything!

This is what our ancestors have built
over centuries, we can't get up and leave!

But that was the course of history
and no one could avoid it!

... Germans from Romania...

... panic ensued...

No one wanted to be left behind...



like an epidemic of plague
befalling the Germans...

It was a huge humanitarian action,

it was the liberation
of ethnic Germans from Romania,

who wanted to leave Romania
of their own free will

but weren't allowed to
because of the political conditions.

It was the purchase of freedom!

I don't know of any precedent,

of any other such case in history.

I think the nature and dimension

of this operation were unique.

It began rather like an adventure,

which required quite
a bit of courage and perseverance.

All sorts of things
could have happened to me.

One had an idea of how the
Eastern Bloc secret services worked.

It was risky!

Of course I took the risk,
because I too believed in the cause.

I travelled as a lawyer !
as a tourist, practically !

without any diplomatic
(or any other kind) of protection,

and one never knew
who was on the other side.

The presumed partner was
the Securitate, the Romanian secret police...

It had an extremely
bad reputation in Europe.

As the Stasi ! the East German
secret police ! used to do

the Securitate created a file on me
File no. 3673, codename EDUARD.

Eduard, that was me!

Hüsch was a highly dependable,
secretive man,

highly regarded by his own party.

He was the man to trust!
And we did.

I mean, he did all that under
four federal chancellors!

And this had to be approved
again each time.

Back then it was a secret, and
it has remained one, if I may say so,

to this day ! unknown
to the general public.

Key politicians were aware of

the issue of this ransom, of course.
They played dumb.

It didn't play any role
in domestic policy.

We were interested in helping the people.
This was our governing rule.

And if it was only possible
through secret negotiations,

then these negotiations
had to be carried out confidentially.

The governments washed their hands
of this matter and passed it on to us.

They said: "Talk to them!"

"Don't ask us.
They are the ones in charge."

But it was not true. Because
behind us stood the government.

That is, both the German
and the Romanian governments.

As far as authority and
responsibility went,

we were not allowed
to do what we did.

So from the point of view of law
in Germany and Romania alike,

what we did was illegal.

The negotiations took place
in a back room of the Hotel Ambasador,

which was not especially inviting !
I called it a sleazy dump once.

The first condition was:
absolute confidentiality.

In case of breach of confidentiality,
we would abort the mission.

Second: there would be
no German lists [of names],

only confirmations for the number
of approved emigrations.

The Romanian side expected some sort
of financial compensation in return

through a method of payment
that remained to be developed in detail.

In cash, in Deutschmarks...

with no receipts.

Romania's relations with Germany
were, however,

better than its relations
with any of the other Western countries.

This was justified, of course,
because Germany was interested

in retrieving a number of ethnic
Germans from Romania.

For the first time, the Federal Republic
has welcomed a communist head of state,

the Romanian president Ceaușescu.

Thank you for offering us

these wonderful works by Beethoven.

Of course, on the Romanian side,
there were no humanitarian considerations.

There were only strong
economic interests behind it all.

The issue was quite unique

because there had been no expulsions

from Romania after WWII.

While Germans had to leave their homeland

in other European countries,

in Romania they were allowed to stay.

Romania had a different attitude

because it had acknowledged

how important the German minority was

to the economic development of the country.

That is why this problem reached
such magnitude only in Romania.

The government has a responsibility
towards people with German background.

According to our constitution,
they are Germans.

So if they are in need,
you are bound to help.

With Romania, it was
emigration or nothing.

We could not help on-site.
So only the alternative remained.

The deal was: if you pay,
you can have them all.

All right, so we paid!

This is the suitcase
in which the money was carried.

This briefcase that I used could fit
about 6 to 6.5 million DM.

You had to press the notes a bit,
if they were new.

That way more would go in.

If there were used notes,
which are known to be rather dirty,

then you could not fit that many in.

But you still had
to press them down a bit!

All right, imagine you
had to carry 20 million.

I don't know how
you set about doing that

You must do it while keeping
absolute secrecy on the topic,

on the time, on the operations.

On one occasion I was even accompanied
by a police escort.

I had to transport
20!24 million DM, to be precise.

There were amounts
in the millions sometimes.

I had a gun,
which I carried with me.

Of course,
not in the Romanian Embassy.

Then I would leave it in the car.

But I carried it in the street,

or here, in my office.

This is the table where
many negotiations took place:

calculations and
the preparation of new contracts.

They were usually signed
in Bucharest.

Well, there they had microphones,
here we did not!

Top Secret

Confidential Agreement

Special Agreement

Bucharest - Nürnberg train ticket:
216, - DM

monthly emigration permits

11,000 persons per year

With Dr. Hüsch we did nothing other
than settlements.

He would ask me for the lists.

I would present the list
of those who had left,

not who had been approved.

The approvals were more numerous
than the people who left,

as they could not all leave at once.

Based on that list, Dr. Hüsch would say

...they must enter Germany!

Some did not set foot in
the Federal Republic at all,

but went directly
to America or Austria.

So we said
We are not paying for those!

Only for those
who actually enter Germany.

And then we would calculate
and Dr. Hüsch

would either provide a cheque
or make a direct transfer.

I preferred direct transfers,
which kept things simple.

Anyway, not cash.

This was the beginning
of the list business, so to speak.

The accounting meetings
took place every two or three months.

And that meant 2000 names or 1000,
depending on the flow of departures.

In any case,
they had to be ethnic Germans.

The only problem was what
we should do with the ethnic Germans

who had Romanian spouses

We handled those cases
rather generously.

Let me give you an example:
in August 1983

we settled for February,
March, April, May and June 1983.

According to our calculations,
the Romanian side had to receive

11,534,636.90 DM.

After the amounts were calculated,
they were recorded in a document,

per each month,
where you had, for instance:

claims from Romania
for March '83: 936 people.

Not identified: 42 people;

listed twice: 6 people;

not taken into consideration
because of the second entry,

since we are not paying twice:
one person.

And foreign ethnicity !

it should actually have been
not of German ethnicity: 2 people.

"The approvals were more numerous
than the people who left,

as they could not all leave at once."

So the result was 885 people, not 936,
and we agreed to pay for these people.

... the calculation of the overall sum...

I do believe that Germany
was well aware of the fact

that the emigration of
the Germans from Romania,

the Transylvanian Saxons
and the Banat Swabians,

meant the extinction
of a centuries-old cultural tradition.

It was clear to me that Germany
would pay for me as well.

It was a business transaction,
you were handled by bookkeeping.

Needless to say,
I didn't have a good feeling about it.

No question about that...

This is where I live now,
in Sandhausen, Heckengarten.

Behind and around this area !
the burden: streets bearing the names

of Mörike, Hauptmann, Lessing, Brecht,
Hölderlin, Kant and Hegel.

But if you look closely, though,
they are only alleys.

Will everything be fine?

The view is straight over Odenwald.

And no sooner had I learned to write
again that I now have to learn anew.

The new orthography requires it.

But this I can avoid.

The issue of family reunification
originated in the 1943 treaty

between Hitler and Antonescu,

as Germans from Romania were allowed
! as it were !

to enlist of their own free will !

that is, as people said,
of their own "compulsory free will",

in German military units.

The worst thing about
coming to terms with the past,

regarding Nazism in Transylvania,

is that it caused
ambivalence in the family,

because people could have two ideas
in their own family.

Not all Saxons
were that interested

in considering that being German
was to be of the highest value.

There were Saxons who wanted
to live with the Romanians.

Yes, you speak German,
yes, you have your German schools,

but you do not feel you are part
of this Aryan people!

So those people
did not think in such terms.

And then there were others
who swallowed this idea.

We were in a special situation,

as my father's uncle,
Anton-Peter, was the Gauleiter of Banat

and his role was to spread propaganda
so that the Swabians in Banat

should voluntarily allow themselves
to be drafted into the German army,

and his own nephew, that is, my father,
could not stomach this idea.

This led to huge tension.

Young men who had been soldiers

and had not served
in the Romanian army,

but in the German Wehrmacht,

were discharged directly
in the Federal Republic of Germany.

That meant that a son or a brother
from the family was already in West Germany

and that's why they could
talk of family reunification.

The parents wanted to be with their son,
the brother with his brother,

the sister with her brother
or the wife with her husband.

So there were always humanitarian
points of view at play.

Expropriation began as soon
as March 1945!

There was a special decree
of the Romanian government,

directing that
ONLY Germans were expropriated.

Those Romanians who had property
were not expropriated before 1948.

For a Banat Swabian, the land,
his land was actually everything

People simply didn't get that.

As soon as my great-grandmother
heard that our land was gone,

that it had been nationalised,
expropriated, she kept saying:

No! That cannot be.
We are in the land register!

She could not understand
that one's land could be registered

and then someone
could come and say:

This doesn't belong
to you anymore,

now you are at best a wage worker
on your own land.

So that was a huge blow
to our confidence.

After the war everyone tried
to make do somehow in this country,

although they had been
expropriated.

According to the motto
life must go on,

people tried to make the best
of the situation they were in.

- Hello Hansi!
- Hello Franz!

I went to his house to say goodbye.

I cried, we had grown up together.

Plastic windows...

See...
Here lies Katharina Bittenbinder.

She was his wife,
my grandfather's.

But she died in Germany.

And now we want
to bring my mother here, too.

She also died in Germany.

And then we're all here!

My mother told me that,
when she was deported to Russia,

some 55-year-old women and
13-year-old girls went as well.

Some pregnant women were taken too,
although they should have been exempted,

or women with children
less than one year old.

They even deported two
mentally disabled people,

who died miserably there,
of course.

Wiseschdia had about 500 inhabitants.

All in all, around 200 people
disappeared from Wiseschdia alone.

Only men over 45

and women over 30 were left
in the village, and the children.

Besides them, all these villages
were practically depopulated!

While being transported to Russia,
between 15 January and !

! it lasted until 7 February 1945,
when they arrived there !

my mother found out that
she was pregnant - she missed her period.

Less than nine months later,
on 30 September,

I was born in Nakievo,
in eastern Ukraine.

She had taken two pictures
of her daughters with her

and ! on the day of my birth

and then during her journey home !

she wrote this text
on the back of these pictures:

Today, 30 September 1945,
my little Hartwig Joseph was born.

I see him beside me,
a small helpless human being,

so gentle and sweet like a flower.

After these bitter agonizing days,
I feel deeply happy

that I may hold him in my arms.

He is my everything,
the only thing I have here.

How happy ! she now speaks
directly to her children !

how happy was I with both of you too,
my little girls.

But I was not alone then!

There were so many people there
who loved us more than one can say.

I am alone here ! here she changes
perspective again and addresses her mother,

I am alone here,
mother dear.

You don't know what it's like
to be so alone.

And when I look at this photo
of my sweet lovely little girls,

then this great sorrow
presses upon me twice as hard.

Only when I am with you once again,
will I thank our Lord for every day

that He allows me to live
with my loved ones in our homeland.

This picture was taken in the autumn of 1946,
so some 7 or 8 months

after I had returned home to Romania
from the Soviet deportation,

with my mother, who is holding me
in her arms here.

Today we see the Frankfurt skyline
in the background.

In 1946, no one could
have imagined that!!!

One more thing!
There was this Baragan action in 1951,

the relocation of the Banat Swabians

who lived 30 km from the Serbian border.

They were abandoned in the middle of
the Baragan steppe,

where they spent their first winter
in earth houses.

After this, their trust in Romanians
or in that society was totally lost.

They broke down gates and doors
in the middle of the night

and they were suddenly there,
these soldiers with their weapons

and none of us knew
what was going on.

Then, within 2 hours' time
they were all gone.

20 kilos each ! that is all that those
poor people could take with them.

Then they were loaded
into cattle wagons.

They waited 2 or 3 more days
at the train station.

Then at some point they left,

loud sirens shrieking all around.

My mother suffered all her life
because, whenever a train came,

she could still hear
this locomotive.

That night was frightening to
everyone in the community.

About a third of the people there
were deported to the Baragan Plain.

That is the so-called
Romanian Siberia.

After 5 months we heard that
my great-grandfather had frozen to death.

I regard it as a great injustice
that we, the Banat Swabians,

should have been thrown
into the same pot with Nazi Germany.

We, the Banat Swabians,

started neither the First -,
nor the Second World War.

But we were held responsible.

That left me deeply scarred
and made me think:

you need to leave this place
at some point.

And then sport
came to my rescue.

The Floreasca sports hall in the capital.

The Romanian handball players !
in white T-shirts !

have successfully re-entered
the arena of world supremacy.

Graduation exam: the difficult match
against the world champions,

the Czechoslovakian team, was won
definitively by the Romanian players

with a score of 21 to 13!

I was seen as an unpolished diamond

who could, later on, hold the flag
of Romanian sport a little higher.

So I enjoyed certain privileges
in this state that,

because of my ethnic origins,
did not like me so much.

Then we went on a tournament to
Hamburg, Essen Rheinhausen, Köln.

I stayed with the team !
we won all the matches!

I was standing there
as a German

and they played the Romanian anthem.
We all sang it. Me too!

Then the German anthem was played
in Kiel or somewhere else

You know how the verse goes:

Two souls
are dwelling in my breast!

Well, it wasn't easy.

I defected in Köln,
at midnight sharp.

I had no idea
about these things.

I went to a man in a pub
and asked him:

Do you have your car here?

He confirmed and then
things took their course.

I was separated from my family...

I assumed that I wouldn't get to see
my parents and my sister,

! to whom I was very attached,
for the rest of my life.

Of course, my father lost
his position as a doctor.

That was a huge problem.

The death penalty was actually given
for what I had done:

defecting to the West.

Since I was a soldier,
I would have been condemned to death.

European Cup finals.

Hans Günther Schmidt in the centre.

He is the goal scorer
of his club [Vfl Gummersbach].

9 goals in the European Cup finals
against Steaua Bucharest alone!

Hansi Schmidt was above all
! for me, of course,

! less so for Genscher, who was not
so enthusiastic about sport !

so for me, he was an important and
well-known figure in handball.

We knew that he had come here
with the Romanian team,

that he had defected
and had then been sentenced in Romania.

Then there were extensive
amnesty negotiations,

which also cost
a lot of money.

The solution was to have Hansi Schmidt
given amnesty and thus remove the obstacle

that prevented his parents' and
his sister's emigration from Romania.

And it worked.

We said that if
they were allowed to leave,

we would make another special payment,
which we did.

Hansi Schmidt again!

Yes, the Gummersbacher
is really first class!

If I remember well, we paid the
equivalent cost of a dentist's equipment:

70.000 ! 72.000 DM.

The fact is that Romanians have fled

and all the German Saxons from Romania
have gone away and left the land empty...

So why wonder now that
there are more gypsies?

I mean, it is pure mathematics.

That is why there are so many gypsies,
because everyone else has fled.

So this was the rear side,
the bellows of the organ.

That was probably the upper side...
of the bellows,

which was used to pump.

And this used to be there,
at the back.

I remember, when we were children,
you also helped pump air into the organ

We would do that every now and then.

When I left in 1979, it looked as if
it would be another 200 years

before all the Saxons
in Transylvania could leave.

And a lot of them wanted to leave!

But then it went quite fast.

Twelve years later,
here in this village...

... there were practically
no Saxons left.

I had a price.

But when I think that it was somewhere
between 2 and 10 thousand DM,

then we were sold quite cheaply,
weren't we?

In the 70's, a lot of Transylvanians
wanted to leave Romania.

Some, for economic reasons,

others for the love of freedom,
more or less.

I left because
I could not stand the lying anymore

and I wanted to travel
and see the world.

If you can travel !
that is how I imagined it !

then you can come back
at some point.

Or you may travel a lot and
never come back

because you have found
something better somewhere else.

But freedom means being allowed
to decide for yourself

where you want to settle down
and try your luck.

There was this slogan !
Helmut Schmidt, take us with you!

and on the German side
there was the statement in the press:

The Chancellor has taken care of it.

I could not comment on that.
And I did not.

... humanitarian issues that regard
family reunification

and marriages between
citizens of both countries,

based on resolutions confirmed by
bilateral and international documents

will continue to be handled
in good faith.

They really swindled him.
First they raised the price per capita.

Then, there was no guarantee regarding
the number of emigrations.

That was already bad enough.

The existence in Romania

of a nationality of German origin,

today Romanian citizens,

should constitute a bridge
in developing the relations

between Romania and
the Federal Republic of Germany.

I really did not get my hopes up.

I already had a plan
to get out one way or another.

I had had enough of the workers'
and peasants' paradise!

That was one of my strongest reasons:
to get away from the fabrications.

In the last couple of years
before my departure,

during and after
my military service,

I had recurring contacts
with the secret police.

It's known that most people who talked
to the Securitate were informers.

Otherwise, the Securitate came
and broke your teeth.

How come they did not break your teeth?
So you must have been an informer, right?

They hinted repeatedly that
we could actually work well together

and that it would be
mutually advantageous.

I always played the card
of my nationality and said:

How come you want a German?

How come you want me
as a collaborator

when my relatives
are in Germany?"

Those were considered the least safe
people, the greatest traitors

But apparently they wanted me
for that very reason.

What bothered me most
was their deviousness ! the fact

that they were always so subtle and
got you into embarrassing situations

in front of your colleagues,
friends and relatives.

In 1979 I arranged to escape
with a friend.

We planned it in detail and
when the decision was made,

we left Sighișoara quite easily and
a couple of days later

we crossed the green border
into Yugoslavia.

I was glad to be alive,

and that my bones were sound
and that I still had my teeth!

One evening a couple of weeks later,
a fellow from the Securitate,

whom I knew, came with another one
to my grandfather's door !

! that was in Lörrach [Germany],
for I was living at his place.

They wanted to recruit me,
they wanted me to work with them,

for the good of Romania.

Probably in Germany,
as a Romanian agent.

It wasn't difficult for me
to get rid of them.

They went away and
I never heard from them again.

Then I left Germany for Switzerland
and worked there.

In 1980 I left for Canada.

Something bothered me in Germany.

It was not that half-utopian country
that the Saxons,

the ethnic Germans,
had dreamt of.

Something was missing.

The human factor,
as Graham Greene called it.

Something that should be there.

It is not enough to have a full
fridge, to drive the newest car.

What is missing is
the human element

I am very grateful that !

this sounds really cynical now,
but that's how it is !

that history took the course
that it actually did.

I liked to dress well and

wanted to stand out through clothes
that came from the West,

for then I would be
somehow different,

probably ! I felt !
somewhat better.

That's what I wanted
when I was eighteen.

Germany was the country where
you could shop to your heart's desire.

I can still well remember
a Neckermann slogan:

If to Gina you aspire,
Neckermann's for your attire!

They meant Gina Lollobrigida.

And I clearly aspired to Gina!

So I was craving this consumerism!

If the devil had proposed a pact
to me, running something like this:

Hartwig, you now have the opportunity
to dispense with your past,

with the last 31 years,
and replace them

with a purely
German experience.

You have no more
Romanian background,

I would have accepted
this offer with delight in 1976.

Only later did I
gradually begin to discover

what a huge treasure it was, and still is,
to have this particular background,

namely not altogether German,

not purely German.

And in no way, IN NO WAY,
would I want to do away with that.

I am glad that I spent my childhood
in Banat and not somewhere in Hessen

and this because I was
very well prepared

for the globalised world
due to my experience in Banat,

where there were
so many national minorities.

My sister came to Romania
and took pictures of me.

My sister's boyfriend

went to the passport issuing authority
in Frankfurt with my pictures

and applied for a passport
with my photos.

Since we were of similar ages
and heights, no one noticed.

I had booked a trip
to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast,

without an overnight stay !
a 16-hour trip that was approved.

Then in Bulgaria I took his passport
and went to Istanbul with it.

And in Istanbul I went
to the Hilton Hotel

and I spent two nights there,
looking onto the Bosphorus.

I really thought
I was entitled to that!

I am frightened when I think about it
today, but that's the way it was.

This reconstructed mediaeval tower
is what I imagined Germany to be.

These skyscrapers
were not here in 1976 yet.

Not one of them, I think!

I was 31 years old back then,
I was healthy, well trained.

A couple of years later
I already started to pay taxes !

! quite steep taxes!

I think I was a good deal.

If I had something of
a cultural shock,

it was the permanent
building sites in Frankfurt.

Building sites everywhere!
And it is the same today.

Then at some point I complained
and someone told me:

that's the way it has to be in healthy
capitalism. Building all the time.

If nothing is being built, then
it is not good! It seems to be true.

In fact, in Germany too,
as Jack, the normal consumer,

you are nothing more than
just that ! a consumer.

The man who goes to work
in order to earn money

so that he can come home
and spend it as fast as possible,

so that he can go back to work
the following day,

so that he can have more money
in order to buy himself something else

that he absolutely needs
and without which he cannot live.

I only want to have a small farm.

That is why I had a reason

to come back
to Transylvania and to Romania,

because agriculture
is really neglected here.

If you think how much
unused land there is here,

how many people work in other
countries to earn a couple of euros

and here everything lies untilled

It is a country with a future.

Therefore, the future does not
lie in the West for me anymore,

but in the East.
That is, in Transylvania.

The decay of the country
happened gradually,

so that one could not quite
perceive its scope.

But in the early 80's
everything happened so fast

It was the showdown!

And suddenly we read in the newspaper
and heard on the radio

that the Romanian state
had issued a decree

stating that Germans
were allowed to emigrate

only after they had paid back
all their education costs.

This would have been
a very large sum of money for us,

so we would definitely
not been able to pay anymore.

And suddenly the state requires you
to pay your tuition fees

in foreign currency.

And it was known
that this foreign currency

could be obtained
either from relatives abroad,

or from the black market.
Both ! illegally.

And I spoke to many people:
there was general panic!

We would not have wanted the intellectuals !
the engineers, the teachers...

... the lawyers etc. to leave.
It is normal!

After having studied
free of charge...

For both parties
admitted to this:

here you did not pay for high-school,
university, Ph.D's and all that.

On the contrary.
They were given stipends.

So they were even subsidised!

That is a beautiful lie
of the Romanians.

First of all, there were many children;
there were many retired people.

The proportion of active population
was perhaps a third or a quarter.

We took over the entire
burden of retired persons.

We took over the entire burden of the
children's education, costs included.

I do not mean burden
as imposition, but as expenses.

We were supposedly getting
trained people in return.

We could not employ a Romanian
teacher here ! even if he was German.

He needed qualifications for that.

These people did not have
the money to pay.

So I made a point of this to Ceausescu,
so that he should understand

that we did want
the people, on the one hand,

but that he should not exaggerate.

The press should write better
about our relations.

They always write
about what happens.

The more journalists attend,
the more balanced coverage we get.

We have found a loanword for that,
that is: plurality!

Yes, but let them
write the truth!

The ultimate truth, Mr. President,
we are in search of.

German foreign minister Genscher
negotiated with Romanian president Ceausescu

that the special tax
collected over the past months

from Romanians willing to
leave the country should be abolished.

Romania had called
the now abolished special claim

from emigrants
tax on education.

Germany officially announced:
Genscher has achieved this.

It was not the case.

It had been stipulated
in the agreement for a long time.

The price was the increase
of the cost per capita.

Do you want
to buy vegetables?

No, but this
is worth looking at.

Look, they have lamb gigot.
And lamb chops.

But you have to be able
to cook it.

42 Euros a kilo!!!

Crazy!

People came from Germany
saying my horse, my car etc.

and did not say a word
about the rest:

Watch out,
homesickness will be a problem.

They will not welcome you
with open arms.

You go there and you want something.
No one said that.

Not that it would have stopped us.

There was simply
no freedom to breathe!

Black!

... a little shadow here...

When you go to a concert
that you like, which touches you

words are almost powerless.

Only the feelings matter.

It is stupid to say
It was overwhelming!

Maybe it is an exaggeration.

It is difficult to define.

Yes, homeland is like music.

We did not know that Germany
was paying for us.

We were not aware of it.

Maybe towards the end

But we did not make the difference
between the two types of payment.

We thought that if we were paying,
that was all there was to it.

I got into this passport business.
Let's call it a business.

The Germans were so naïve,

that if you entered their yard and said:
Listen, do you want to leave?

they would look at you and
give you the money in 5 seconds.

And so I started little by little

and got to figures you would be
astonished to hear.

What range of figures
are we talking about?

You can imagine
I didn't keep track.

But I would estimate
in the millions!

Tens of millions of Deutschmarks,
around 7 billion Lei

The German state
was paying an amount,

and probably
the Romanian Communist Party,

through its good leaders,

was careful to round the sum.

And let me tell you one more thing:
no member of the Securitate

or the Police could work
without the backing of RCP,

the Romanian Communist Party.

And there,

! pardon my French, which
might not go well with television !

there were some cavemen saying:
More! Faster! Better!

Things always revolved
around two people,

whose names were repeatedly mentioned:
Bogdan and Capraru.

This is Nicolae Capraru's house.

Here was the springboard
for the Germans, in this house.

It has an entrance in this street,

where they would go in,
and an exit in the other street.

Capraru worked with a Securitate
officer whom I knew very well.

He told me to keep an eye on him,
to take care of him...

How could I keep an eye on him?
The Germans were going in

as if it had been Mecca.
20, 30, 50 of them every day. To pay.

Then we rang. At the fence.
The house was a little farther away.

And then this man came out,
walking slowly, grumpily.

What did he say?
Ce vreti?

What do you want?

We want to go to Germany.

Education?

Philology: 14,000 DM.

Polytechnics: 16,000 DM.

Children? 10 years old.
They don't have to pay.

For me it was 6,000 DM. For my husband,
who had a degree: 12,000 DM.

So a total of 18,000 DM.
The daughter was still a minor.

She did not have to pay.

The kitchen table was
a greenish wooden table.

And on it ! plenty of
one hundred DM notes.

All blue.
In little stacks, but this high.

The recklessness of the payments

and the lack of any guarantee

You didn't even get a receipt
or anything!

You just gave him 15,000 DM...

and he lived
in an absolutely regular house

I had also heard of people
who had already paid

and had been waiting for their passport
for 10 years and it had not come

I had no confidence in that system.

I did not know about that;
it would only have increased my aversion.

But that would not
have made a difference.

I was not a key minister
or a major politician,

but my personal aversion
would have been increased,

thinking that we have to pay
a load of money to this Ceausescu,

this unlikeable character,
so we can ransom people,

and then these people there
have to pay extra money

so they can get out of there.

That was just
an additional disgrace, to be honest.

You should have seen the demand
And I wasn't the only one handling it all.

I told you there were
several networks.

And not only in Timisoara,
but also in Brasov, Arad, Bucharest, etc.

I stepped into a church.

The priest went:

We thank the Lord
that there are 5,200 of us,

we are ethnic Germans,
and so on...

A month later: We thank the Lord
that there are 4.400 of us left,

700 have gone away, etc.

This happened once, twice
and then the third time

the priest said:
Herr Bucur, when do I get to leave?"

They knew me by now.

Don't you think the people
who'd paid waited quietly.

I talked to him and...
in the end, the priest left too.

He just closed up shop and left.

And then a call from Capraru!

He had never called before.

No, never!

You can come now.

So we went, buoyantly,
grinning from ear to ear

We got there and then Capraru
was the first to come out.

In handcuffs.
And then Bucur came out and said:

So! You all want to go
to Germany, do you?

I'll show you Germany,
he said in his offhand manner.

And him... him we'll
lock up straight away.

He meant Capraru.
Well, that sounded convincing.

I caught Nicolae Capraru
from Timisoara red-handed,

carrying 2,211,000 German marks.

Of course I arrested him and took him
to the Police Department in Timis

in order to investigate him.

But no sooner did I set foot
in the Police HQ

than I was called in for questioning.

And my colleagues from the Securitate
told me to leave Capraru alone,

to let him go on with his business
but to watch him.

I could have lifted Capraru !
catching him with foreign currency !

and opened a case file on him.
He would have gone to prison.

Prosecution... all by the book.

So that I shouldn't do that,

they allowed me to confiscate some
money from him every now and again.

And those were, so to speak,
the achievements of the Police.

But the money came...
Let's say it got into my hands.

I had to draw up minutes
and then hand it in.

This money ended up
in the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank.

I kindly ask you to go now,
people are starting to gather round.

Three people have come out already.

Of course it was a huge burden
for the Germans who wanted to leave.

We did not want that.
And it affected our prices.

Large sums were paid.
I know cases ! 42,000 Deutschmark...

And cases of even larger amounts
have been reported.

And we paid four,
five or seven thousand!

Those who left for good had
the right to take a 70-kilo parcel.

People who left as tourists
took their bags.

They just carried a bag
and that was that.

And then he [Bucur] came and showed us:
These are your passports.

We got tourist passports.

We knew that
we would lock up our house,

our two-room apartment,
get into the car and drive off!

And that it would be
a one-way road!

Then, when we arrived at a transit camp
in Karlsruhe, we realized:

Goodness, we've got debts of 30,000 DM
to repay to our friends!

One of our friends had
even taken a loan from the bank.

And so, for a year
we scraped money together and

saved, saved, saved!

On this land, Romanians, Germans,

Hungarians and other nationalities

have been living and
working together for centuries.

It stands to reason
that everyone

can learn in their
own language in schools,

that they can organise cultural
activities in their own language.

But also together!

We knew that the Securitate...

... was keeping an eye on us.

I think the best way
to understand this

is to read the poetry
published in German in those years.

It is imbued with melancholy
and an apocalyptic atmosphere.

And hopelessness.

There was no meaning there.
The sun was up, above the stadium.

There had been no meaning
there for a long time.

Soon it would get cold again.

And the next
loathsome winter would come,

and the president's
next loathsome speeches

and the next shortage,
the next weeks without milk,

the next days without bread,

the evenings without electricity,
the next media rubbish,

the next ID check, the next humiliation
and the one after that.

It was enough.

Stirner looked over the stadium.

Behind it was the gloomy steaming
industry, the silent country.

He stood up, went to the cupboard,
placed the typewriter on the table,

took the cover off,
inserted two sheets of paper into it,

carbon-paper in-between,
and started to type:

To the passport office.

We hereby apply
for permanent emigration.

Our reasons are...

Many people risked a lot
by applying for emigration.

By applying for emigration,
you became an enemy of the people.

There was no official form
by which you could apply.

There were hand-written models;

you knew what the application should
contain from those who had applied before.

Then one learned
from clerks, typists -

who had secretly typed

- what this application
that people filled in should contain,

and these forms circulated
on the black market.

I applied for emigration in 1986.

Because I couldn't see any possibility
of living in this country anymore.

We knew, for example, that we,
German-speaking writers,

would not be able to live
in this country anymore.

This railway station will stay in the
memory of all the Germans in Banat,

or of those who have emigrated.

The night that they spent here
was the night

when they said goodbye
to their relatives,

and they always had the feeling
that it was goodbye forever,

as one didn't know back then

whether one would ever return
to this country.

Then everything was programmed
according to a certain timetable.

People had to be there
before midnight.

The train left in the morning
around 5.

Then the relatives were
all thrown out of the waiting room

and only the person who was leaving
was allowed to stay.

Then they were lined up here
on the platform,

guarded by soldiers with
machine guns and sometimes with dogs.

Then you took your suitcase
after having gone through customs.

Then you got on the train.

In a file and under command,

... like convicts.

They made people feel that
they were betraying their fatherland.

These are emotional moments
that keep coming to your mind.

It was actually
the saddest moment of the emigration,

because you knew
it was the end.

Not the beginning!

We left from the
Curtici border crossing.

With a heavy heart, having left
half of our life back there.

It was always so uncertain

you didn't know when
you would see each other again.

We were tired and heading
for an uncertain future.

You also worried about
the family that stayed behind.

It was not easy.

The bus! The bus is coming!

We came to the country
of our ancestors.

We definitely had that feeling.
We were prepared for that.

We had always known that,
we had always carried that within us.

Namely that
we had always been Germans.

We came from the only
Eastern Bloc country

in which Germans had had
the freedom to speak their language.

We were very fortunate,
we must say!

This even included being able to take
a German Abitur in Romania,

so we didn't have
any language problems.

This was
a very great advantage for us!

The adaptation was difficult

because things here were
quite different from a dictatorship.

But we were so positive

and only wished to find a job

and integrate more or less
into the new environment.

We managed to do that
quite fast and well.

And we were grateful for that.

When the Soviet Union broke off
relations with the West at the end of 1983,

all the arrangements for
visits to Germany were cancelled.

Whether it was Honecker,
who had already been invited,

or the Polish president,
whatever his name was,

they all cancelled, under
pressure from the Soviet Union.

Only one came. Ceausescu !
whom we actually wanted the least.

But he came!

Kohl said: If we manage to get
that hardliner, Ceausescu, to relent,

then the last hardliner
Honecker,

in whose behaviour
we are very interested,

will not be able to resist.

We would also make
humanitarian improvements.

This man did not accept
to be dependent.

That is,
if he lacked funds,

he would not settle matters
at his own expense,

but at the expense of his people.

Just look at his decision to repay
all the external debt of the state:

he let his people live
in such poverty!

What people endured in Romania
back then was almost unbearable.

This man was utterly ruthless.

Romania has no external debt left,

it no longer pays tribute to anyone
and is truly independent,

both economically and politically!

Oddly enough, it wasn't just us,
but the entire population

who were convinced
that it could not go on like this.

On the other hand, however,
people lived with the fear

that this regime would last forever.

So this was a contradiction in itself:

they saw the end but they were
also afraid that it wouldn't come.

And that it would get even worse.

The whole country
suffered from a psychosis of fear

and despair, of bitterness.

There was an apocalyptic atmosphere!

He terminated our agreement
on 4 December 1989

and fell from power
on 20-22 December.

Dear viewers, Nicolae Ceausescu
and Elena Ceausescu

have been detained by groups
of citizens and soldiers

while trying to flee abroad.

This one isn't working!

This one must be tuned first,

and then the sound
will be beautiful and pure!

We'll do it next time!

Andronic! Last action...

We had no winner,
it was an equal result.

Everybody lost and everybody gained.
It was a win-win situation.

That's the most important point.

If yourself believe you are the winner,
you shouldn't show it.

It was first of all
a humanitarian question.

From our point of view.
From yours and from ours.

No, it was business.
No, it was business!

We didn't consider it
business because it...

... it was a business...

Lost?
Lost!

Loss of people, indeed,
but gain of money.

A gain of money, lots of it...

I agree it was a great loss
for Romania and a gain for Germany.

But mostly
it was a gain for liberty.

That's right!
And humanity.

But the liberty cost
you cannot evaluate.

Yeah, we are thinking
in the field of human rights...

Why did it have to happen this way?

Why did fate deal us this card?

Why did we have to
walk this hard road?

The operation was profitable
for the Federal Republic,

not only for the people in question.

I mean, we won back
our fellow countrymen.

Their knowledge, their expertise,

their cultural input ! we won it
all back, to ourselves, so to speak.

I feel very good here.
I particularly feel very good in Bavaria!

I am happy with my life as it is!

As Romans used to say: veni, vidi,
and then we'll see what happens!

And now we'll see what happens
in Transylvania, right?

I bow to Germany! All my respect!

If someone else, other than Bucur,
maybe a second Bucur,

had asked for one more payment,
rest assured that the Germans

would have paid ! only to be able
to take home their own people.

The reunification of the nation:
you'll never see Romanians do that!

For all its brutal nature,
it all went so smoothly!

We were able to help
over 300,000 people.

What more could one wish for?

One can only say:
Thank You, dear God!

Shall I hold this glass now?
No. Just drink a bit.

See how everything
is ruined there!

And how many children
are there in this village?

Lots! - How many?
20, 30, 50?

... and he says to my husband:
Why did you marry a German?

And how do you get along
with the Germans?

Shall I tell you something...?
No. Just shut up.