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Society

The German-German Space Race

On August 26, 1978 the media of the German Democratic Republic reported something that had been kept absolutely secret until then: the first German was en route through outer space! A German cosmonaut, a native of Saxony, had orbited the Earth 125 times in a Soviet space station, landing eight days later in the steppes of Kazakhstan. Returning home, Sigmund Jähn was treated as a national hero. And the GDR experienced a collective space travel fever. For Jähn, it was a short step into the Soyuz spacecraft; for the people of East Germany, however, a gigantic leap: they had conquered outer space while triumphing over their capitalist rival, the Federal Republic of Germany, in the German-German space race. But this story is more than just another episode in the Cold War. It takes a tragic turn after the fall of the Berlin wall, and involves callous disregard and the toppling of monuments. And finally, an unanticipated happy end. A story of rivalry and friendship, of humility and respect, of the faint-heartedness of governments, of human greatness. In the end, we make a landing with Jähn in the here and now: in a world of space flight in 2019.

Buch / Regie

Nicola Graef, Florian Huber

Produktion

2020, ARD (NDR/MDR), eine Lona•media Produktion

45 min.

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