Opening the iron curtain - the East Germany’s day of dissent

It’s the summer of 1953, and, across East Germany, angry people take to the streets.

This isn’t a polite street protest.

This is a furious, red flag ripping, police beating, office burning rampage.

The crowds demand:

- better living conditions;

- the reunification of Germany; and

- free elections.

Instead, they would get:

- Trabants;

- the Berlin Wall; and

- another 35 years of hardline Communist government.

Could the 17 June 1953 uprising have ever been successful at bringing down Soviet-dominated eastern Europe?

Or were the people’s protests doomed to fail before they even started?

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Music credits

The theme music is Newsroom by Riot.

The other music featured in this episode was Cylinder Seven and The Life and Death of a Certain K. Zabriskie, Patriarch, both by Chris Zabriskie and Sunset by Kai Engel. All tracks are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).