Neil MacGregor examines the story of the two Germanys, East and West, created in 1949, through objects including a wet suit used in an escape attempt from the East in 1987, which was later used as a training device by the Stasi, the East German secret police.

Neil also focuses on another Stasi training device, a model of Friedrichstrasse Station, a border crossing point in the divided Berlin, and reflects on the life and work of the East German writer Christa Wolf.

Her novel Der Geteilte Himmel - The Divided Heaven, or The Divided Sky - was published in 1963, two years after the Berlin Wall went up. It made Christa Wolf's reputation, and has been seen as the definitive account of the divergence of the two Germanys, as seen from the East. Yet Wolf's own position within the East German state was not simple, and she later questioned whether her own memories were reliable.

Producer Paul Kobrak. Show less