Original version

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

Witness History

Podcasts

Factual: Life Stories

Factual: History

History as told by the people who were there

History as told by the people who were there.

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service News Internet

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

Witness History: A Cold War love affair

Documentaries

A Cold War love affair

21/01/2022 GMT

BBC World Service - Witness History, A Cold War love affair

The story of a West German woman who crossed the Iron Curtain for love.

The story of a West German woman who crossed the Iron Curtain for love in the 1980s.

The East German authorities built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to keep their people in. Thousands had been streaming westwards. But a few people went the other way. Frauke Naumann was one of them. She grew up in West Germany but fell love with her cousin who lived on the other side of the border. So, in 1986, at the age of 22 she left home to join him. Frauke tells Tim Mansel about the joys and the miseries of making a new life in a foreign country under the watchful eye of the secret police.

PHOTO: The Brandenburg Gate in the 1980s with the Berlin Wall passing in front (BBC)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Witness History

A Cold War love affair

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

About BBC World Service