A Cold War love affair

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:36.0	You're listening to the BBC World Service and now witness history with me Tim Manzel.
0:47.0	In today's program a story from the time when Germany was divided,
0:52.0	the story of a young woman from one side of the border
0:55.6	who decided to make a life on the other, but not perhaps the one you'd expect.
1:01.2	When West Berliners wake up this morning, East German people's police had already been
1:06.5	at work for several hours digging up raids and erecting barriers.
1:11.2	The East German communists built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stem a tide of emigration,
1:17.0	thousands upon thousands of East Germans who thought they'd have a better life in the West.
1:22.0	An escape from economic hardship,
1:25.2	restricted travel opportunities, and the all-seeing eye of the security police, the Stasi.
1:32.0	But, odd as it may sound, there were a few who crossed in the opposite direction.
1:38.0	One of them was Frauka Nauman.
1:41.0	It's March 1986.
1:44.0	We're in March 1986.
1:45.0	We made a trip to IKEA to
1:48.0	We made a trip to IKEA to buy some furniture,
	...

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