Ep4: Tunnel 29 - The Death Strip

Intrigue

BBC

True Crime, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.6 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2019

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

“If we could hear them, they could hear us.” The diggers reach the terrifying death strip. Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Helena Merriman tells the extraordinary true story of a man who dug a tunnel into the East, right under the feet of border guards, to help friends, family and strangers escape. The series is based on original interviews with the survivors as well as thousands of documents from the Stasi archives and recordings from the tunnel. Producer & Presenter: Helena Merriman Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore Translation and additional research: Sabine Schereck Editor: Richard Knight Joachim Rudolph's original interviews voiced by Mark Edel Hunt #tunnel29

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:21.0	We hit the floor again and again, and then suddenly it broke open.
0:28.0	If NBC wanted to film it, then they would have to pay us.
0:32.0	I said, OK, they have to give us a bill and we will pay it.
0:36.0	And return we have the right to film. Period.
0:44.0	From BBC Radio 4, this is tunnel 29, I'm Helena Merrimon.
0:48.0	Chapter 4, the Death Strip.
0:54.0	It's evening in Berlin and it's pouring with rain.
0:57.0	And there's a van driving through the street in the back of two men.
1:01.0	They've got blindfolds on, they've got no idea where they are.
1:07.0	Eventually the van slows down, turns and stops.
1:12.0	The men are taken out, pulled down a track and their blindfolds are taken off.
1:19.0	There's a door, they push it open, walk inside and then they see it.
1:24.0	The tunnel.
1:28.0	Those men in the back of the van, they're the NBC camera crew, two German brothers.
1:32.0	It's their first day filming.
1:34.0	And the blindfolds, that's so they wouldn't know where the tunnel is.
1:37.0	The diggers aren't taking any risks.
1:40.0	Now they're here, Peter and Klaus get to work straight away.
1:43.0	They pull out their cameras, lights and they start filming.
1:48.0	And here on the screen in front of me is the first shots from that day.
1:55.0	The first thing you see is a hand on a white rope.
	...

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