The German Schoolboy Arrested for Writing a Letter
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 September 2017
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Karl-Heinz Borchardt was arrested just after his 18th birthday by communist secret police in East Germany. His crime was writing a letter to the BBC World Service in protest at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. He has been speaking to Abby Darcy about how he was caught out by the Stasi.
Photo: Karl-Heinz Borchardt at the time of his arrest. Copyright: Dr Karl-Heinz Borchardt .
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 |
| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:40.9 | My name's Linda Davies and I commissioned |
| 0:43.0 | podcast for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:45.0 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality, |
| 0:49.0 | featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:54.4 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 1:00.9 | poltergeist, cricket and conspiracy theories, and that's just a few examples. |
| 1:06.4 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over |
| 1:11.1 | at BBC Sounds. |
| 1:12.3 | Hello and thank you for downloading witness, the History Podcast from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:18.0 | I'm Abby Darcy and today I'm taking you back to Communist East Germany in 1968 and the story of a German school boy arrested for writing letters to the BBC in protest at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. |
| 1:32.4 | Troops had gone into the country at the end of Czechoslovakia. |
| 1:33.0 | Troops had gone into the country at the end of August to crush an uprising against Soviet rule. |
| 1:39.0 | Across the border in East Germany a school boy, Carl Heinz Borchad was secretly listening to the radio. |
| 1:50.0 | This was a bit scribble that the Soviet panse. I was hearing about Soviet tanks rolling into Wensler Square. |
... |
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