London Calling: Cold War Letters

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Lucy Tregear

Emily Oliver

Bill Treharne Jones

Susanne Schadlich

Peter Sahla

Gunter Burkart

Karl-Heinz Borchardt

Rolf-Joachim Erler

Christian Hans Schulz

Rachel Hooper

Britta Kirchner

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

BBC Four - London Calling: Cold War Letters

How a BBC radio programme gave a voice to the citizens of communist East Germany.

How the BBC radio programme Letters without Signature, which ran from the 1950s to the 1970s, provided a voice for the citizens of the former communist state of East Germany.

For over 25 years, the BBC gave voice to the silenced people of East Germany by inviting them to secretly write in to a radio programme called Letters without Signature. Broadcast on the BBC’s German Service, the programme gave voice to ordinary East German citizens who wrote about life under the repressive communist regime. 

On the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, this documentary explores an unknown story of the Cold War. It looks at the impact of the Letters without Signature series on both the letter writers in East Germany - who faced jail if discovered - and the producers of the show in London, particularly its mysterious presenter, Austin Harrison. 

Using never-before-seen Stasi files and recordings, London Calling: Cold War Letters documents the tit-for-tat propaganda war between the Stasi and BBC. It reveals a fascinating world of spies, secret state subterfuge and individual acts of bravery.

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