[church bells chiming]
[birds chirping]
["Hymme Der Ddr" playing]
♪ From the ruins risen newly ♪
♪ To the future turned, we stand ♪
♪ Let us serve your good weal truly ♪
♪ Germany, our fatherland ♪
♪ Triumph over bygone sorrow ♪
♪ Can in unity be won ♪
♪ For we shall attain a morrow ♪
♪ When over our Germany ♪
♪ There is a shining sun ♪
[crowd clamoring]
STASI SCOUNDRELS
[crowd chanting] Stasi go home!
[Böttcher] We didn't think the GDR could ever cease to exist.
We didn't see this coming.
I only realized afterwards that it was possible.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] The media tell us
the murder of Treuhand Boss Rohwedder was the work of the RAF.
However, looking at the execution, its presumed planning,
and ideological background, this assumption appears to be wrong.
There are, on the other hand, many indications
that the assassinations could have been planned and carried out
by remaining structures of the East German Ministry of State Security,
known as Stasi, that were still operational at the time.
[grunts]
[trainees shouting]
[heavy breathing]
[Matschke] In the Rohwedder case, I see only one possibility:
I see that this was carried out by dissatisfied citizens
of the former GDR.
I am absolutely certain of that.
[dramatic music playing]
[Matschke] These people must have had excellent military training,
including training to become a sniper.
[dramatic music continues]
I see this as a revenge killing.
[interviewer] Is this really possible or highly unlikely?
When it comes to the Stasi, no evil is out of the question.
[heavy breathing]
GERMANY
[upbeat theme music playing]
A NETFLIX ORIGINAL DOCUMENTARY SERIES
The German Reich…
Nobody has any intention of building a wall.
West and East Germany, a divided nation.
♪ Unity and justice and freedom… ♪
Red Army Faction.
…insane attacks by barbaric terrorists.
♪ …Fatherland ♪
♪ Risen from ruins… ♪
[Reagan] Tear down this wall!
Our fatherland, reunited.
♪ Flourish, German fatherland ♪
OCCUPIER
[reporter] Mr. Rohwedder has been killed. What are your thoughts?
Has he? That's news to me.
Haven't listened to the news yet today.
-You haven't heard this? -No.
He was the boss at Treuhand. Do you…
Oh, well…
I guess they had their reasons.
I can't blame them.
And if I had a chance to contribute, I'd take out a few more.
We've never been screwed like this before!
If you ask me, the West German government should have realized long ago
that this is no way to run their politics.
Perhaps this will make them realize that the five new federal states
are a bomb waiting to go off.
Something was bound to happen. Everyone could see that.
I have my doubts whether this was really done by RAF terrorists,
as they say in the news.
I don't know, it could have been some people from the Stasi.
[Diestel] I am quite sure
this was not just some madman or politically…
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR, GDR PETER-MICHAEL DIESTEL
…irresponsible people, like the RAF.
I think the execution of Detlev Karsten Rohwedder
was for economic reasons,
because of decisions he made, measures he was responsible for.
[helicopter whirring]
[narrator] Berlin, city center.
One office building was the most important address
for wealthy investors from the West
who wanted to invest in the GDR.
[investor] We are in negotiations about buying a company.
[reporter] What's going on?
-What's going on? We are buying a company. -Which one?
I don't have to tell you. I don't want to tell you here.
I'm only visiting.
-[reporter] What for? -Just to see what's up.
-You wouldn't be here without a reason. -Why not? I'm visiting old friends.
[Matschke] I experienced Treuhand myself, and I watched…
FEDERAL OFFICE FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE CONSTITUTION
…people queuing up in order to get their hands on whichever company.
Business people came over thinking,
"Hey, what a bargain.
I can buy a fully equipped company
for one euro.
I'm exaggerating,
but the general impression was,
"Here come the occupiers,
breaking up all sorts of companies…
TRUST AGENCY
…to sell them off for a quick profit.
[Hillmann] I don't know what to call them…
GDR MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN TRADE KURT HILLMANN
…those who exploit things wherever they find something to exploit.
They invaded our little country like locusts
and…
I would like to say, they not only added to the chaos,
they also aggravated the personal misery of people.
And you couldn't help…
thinking,
"So you are supposed to be our brothers and sisters?"
[upbeat techno music playing]
[Rohwedder] At the moment, we are indeed in a phase
when companies, when the whole economy
needs to sweat out any remains of socialism. We'll have to endure this.
And the quicker we dive into this crisis,
like a sick person, the quicker we'll come out the other end.
[Diestel] Detlev Karsten Rohwedder was the most powerful German business tycoon
of his era.
I imagine that some people did not like some of his decisions.
It feels a little bit like the Wild West,
and some people are so insolent in dealing with Treuhand.
This would simply be impossible in West Germany.
Of course, privatization policies,
uh, carried out as forcefully as Treuhand did in our country,
are always met with both approval and disapproval.
ASSISTANT ROHWEDDER PETER BACHSLEITNER
Thinking back to spring of 1991,
Rohwedder seems to have been hated by everyone.
[Bachsleitner] And we did ask ourselves, "Are we safe here?"
Um, we had received a few threats already.
Staying at the Grand Hotel,
we often took the opportunity
to walk over to the Treuhand building in the morning.
Right across the Street, there was the so-called "House of Democracy."
And he said, "Look, if someone wanted to kill me,
he could sit over there and bump me off without being caught.
We have no control over who goes in and out over there."
[thunder rolls]
So…
Now we can…
[telephone rings]
[suspenseful music playing]
[telephone rings]
[telephone continues ringing]
[Classen] In our telephone conversations, Mrs. Rohwedder always maintained
that the Stasi must have been behind it…
CRIME REPORTER GÜNTHER CLASSEN
…because their old networks were unhappy
with her husband dissolving the GDR.
[Classen] In his work, he had come across clues
where the Stasi might have stashed away
several hundred million that had disappeared.
And the Stasi were worried he might find their hiding place.
Here are a few telexes
that I sent to the State Criminal Police Office,
Department for the Protection of the State.
[telex machine clicking]
[narrator] The evidence strongly suggests
that a new form of terrorism is emerging,
outdistancing the RAF and dwarfing their efforts.
Not only are they far more numerous compared to the RAF,
those ex-Stasi members are also far more professional
with regards to training, communications, financial means,
logistics, inside knowledge, and experience.
And they are blindly obedient.
The Chief Security Office of Saxony-Anhalt,
Klaus-Dieter Matschke.
[Matschke] Yes, I meant
what I said here.
It would only have benefited
those who believed the sell-off,
the total dissolution of the country
could be stopped by killing this man.
My name is Klaus-Dieter Matschke.
I used to work for the Federal Intelligence Service (BND),
later for the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
In that job, I was moved to the former GDR
to investigate
who worked for the Stasi before Reunification.
What did they do?
It was my job to report all my findings
directly to the Prime Minister.
I made contact
with former Stasi generals.
We spent a lot of time together,
including drinking together.
If I needed more information on a subject,
I just asked one of them, and he would give me an answer.
I asked the generals about the Rohwedder case,
and they had come to the same conclusion:
the murder had likely been carried out by their own people.
STASI, LIEUTENANT COLONEL EBERHARD BÖTTCHER
My name is Eberhard Böttcher.
I used to work for the Ministry of State Security (MfS/Stasi).
My last job was in Branch XXII,
as Head of Department 1, and my rank was Lieutenant Colonel.
[Böttcher] My sole reason for joining the Stasi
was my deep wish to help prevent yet another war.
I experienced World War II firsthand.
My hometown Plauen was bombed and 80% destroyed.
There was hardly a building left standing.
I know what it means to fear for your life while cowering in a basement.
This experience has stayed with me and has shaped who I am.
No more war!
THE YOUTH OF THE GDR GREETS THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD
[crowd chanting] Friendship, friendship, friendship with our Russian brothers!
[Hillmann] The GDR was an anti-fascist state,
and that made it the better Germany.
You have to remember
that any Nazi who was keen to get away,
who did not want to be caught and tried by the Russians,
made their way to the Western Zones.
This led to the Western Zones
being crowded with Nazis of all descriptions.
The same people
who had wanted to kill me too, just a few years earlier,
because I am Jewish.
UNKNOWN
[Diestel] And if you look back at this horrendous period
of our country's history, the Holocaust, the devastation of World War II,
the appalling injustice
Germany brought upon its European neighbors and the USSR,
bearing all this in mind,
we do not deserve the great bliss of being re-united.
Though not deserving it at all, we have achieved it.
[Hillmann] From an economic point of view, the GDR was bound to collapse,
but I would not have expected this with regards to its concept of society.
[Böttcher] There was betrayal in our ranks as well.
People became susceptible.
Some were just plain frightened. They would have done anything…
out of fear.
[Böttcher] We had hoped that socialism could reinvent itself.
We were waiting for this to happen.
But what happened instead?
Total collapse, as ordered by Gorbachev himself.
[crowd chanting] Gorbi! Gorbi!
[Waigel] The Soviet Union was in deep economic trouble.
MINISTER OF FINANCE THEO WAIGEL
In the summer of 1989,
Helmut Kohl asked me
to grant the Soviet Union, and thereby Gorbachev,
an untied loan of five billion DM,
as Gorbachev was in massive financial difficulties.
Under normal circumstances, I was only allowed to grant an untied loan
if I was 99% sure to get the money back.
In this case, I was 99% sure
we would not get the money back,
but we just brushed our financial regulations aside.
This was a very important trust-building gesture,
signaling to Gorbachev
that he could rely on Helmut Kohl and his government.
[upbeat techno music playing]
[Rohwedder] Mr. Secretary General,
if you press the left-hand button on this gadget,
you will see a picture of today's guest of honor: yourself.
[applause]
And, Secretary General, our most important message to you is
thank you for the speed and dynamics of your politics.
[cheering and applause]
[Waigel] We wanted to achieve a change in attitude.
The Soviet Union was starting to think,
"Maybe we are better off
having a good relationship with a reunited Germany,
rather than having West Germany as an enemy."
At the German-Soviet summit in Moscow,
Chancellor Kohl and Head of State and Party Leader Gorbachev
spent four hours in private talks.
[reporter] The Soviet leadership was
impressed that Helmut Kohl came to Moscow
with a generous offer for economic support.
[Kohl] Gorbachev and I agree
that the German nation should have the sole right
to decide
whether it wants to live together again in one country.
He was like…
Let me shake your hand.
It was a good day's work. We can be proud, really proud.
I think we should celebrate and get drunk right now.
[Böttcher] The GDR had to perish
in the face of West Germany,
because it had lost all its allies.
That's the truth!
Do you all have a drink?
-Yes! -Yes!
Here's to Germany!
[upbeat music playing]
[Böttcher] Because of Gorbachev's betrayal,
our country perished.
My world came crashing down.
I was depressed, sad.
And my job was gone. We had to go.
[reporter] The last staff members of the Stasi
left their workplace for the final time today.
The police officer in charge told me…
[police officer] First we'll have to collect their weapons
and put them in storage.
Then at a central depot, they'll turn in the uniforms they used to wear.
[Böttcher] We did not want to be identified as former Stasi members.
Bad press in the newspapers,
on TV, and elsewhere caused a great deal of anxiety.
There was even talk
of labeling us as a criminal organization.
DOWN WITH THE STASI
[Fischer] Minister for the Environment, Karl-Hermann Steinberg
was an undercover Stasi informant.
[reporter] Minister, would you like to comment on this?
I must reject Mr. Fischer's accusations.
MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
[reporter] We would like to ask you a few questions
regarding your work for the Ministry of State Security.
Where did you get that idea?
-May we ask you-- -No. And stop taking pictures of me.
[reporter] We are looking for Mr. Pirne.
Pirne? That's me.
-You? -Yes.
-Can you stop this, please? -[reporter] Are you a Stasi officer?
-No. Can you stop this, please? -Were you a Stasi officer?
There are documents stating
that you are an Officer on Special Deployment.
Well, I was.
-You were? -It's in the past, of course.
But you were an Officer on Special Deployment?
Yes, I was.
-And you openly admit to it? -Yes.
Why should I deny it?
Mr. Rohwedder, were you able to dismantle the old SED networks
in order to have more of a free hand?
Mr. Lohse, if you're referring to Stasi members,
we don't have any at Treuhand,
not anymore.
I wouldn't be the head of an organization where such people work.
[Diestel] Many people were just fired
and got no recognition for their life's work.
It was unjust,
and it hurt me a lot to see them simply being sacked
by the self-perceived victors of history.
After all, there was no victory.
If anyone won, it was us, the East Germans.
[Matschke] Overnight, they became nobodies.
Today a General, tomorrow begging in the street.
This had a massive negative impact
on all the former armed forces,
not just the Stasi.
[typewriter clicking]
[narrator] Everyone should understand that the former Stasi members are enraged.
Their loss of social standing is a catastrophe, to put it mildly.
[narrator] Former high-ranking commanders have either been sacked,
unemployed, or have found terrible jobs at the bottom of the social ladder,
well below their true capabilities.
[Diestel] And these are all people who stepped down from power voluntarily
in order to find their place within this new, democratic system.
[Diestel] Of course, I wouldn't rule out the odd nut-case.
The Stasi had 100,000 full-time employees.
There might well have been someone bearing a grudge.
Revenge attacks in order to kill someone?
Unthinkable.
Although the possibility was there.
[Böttcher] We had the weapons.
If we had been ordered to go somewhere and use our weapons,
of course, I would have gone.
But I don't know if I would have actually fired a shot.
In fact, it wasn't big news to me that this man was shot.
It was meaningless to me.
I had more important things to deal with, such as getting back on my feet
in order to earn a living.
I was lucky to meet the boss of a security firm.
He hired me immediately.
But it still felt like
being downgraded from being the head of a hospital
to becoming a porter.
[Fox] Back then, we employed a lot of people
from the GDR's special forces.
In the Düsseldorf/Essen area, we had about 30
working in various positions.
We were glad to have them as they knew how to handle a weapon,
had a military mindset, knew how to guard,
how to patrol and protect.
So they were our preferred recruits. There wasn't anything immoral about it.
We had no means of checking their full background anyway.
[narrator] There were four private security firms
operating in the VIP area around the Kaiser-Friedrich-Ring in Düsseldorf.
Did they have a bad apple among them,
spying out the Rohwedder house?
How else could the gunman have known
that the office window on the second floor of Rohwedder's house
was not bulletproof?
There is a lot a security guard can pick up.
[Fox] I don't want to rule out that people kept talking,
to whoever, when off-duty,
and that comments were made such as, "Look at this house! He must be loaded!
What are his security arrangements?"
And that details of private security
and police presence may have been revealed.
All those theories are not that far-fetched, really.
[Bachsleitner] I ask myself to this day,
who is ultimately responsible for the killing of my former boss?
I did gain some insight into the former Stasi early on
while working at Treuhand,
but investigating Stasi structures and misconduct
was not our primary concern.
We were managing wealth.
A lot of things have happened that are rather unsavory,
and I sometimes feel like the Deputy Sheriff being blamed
for everything that has gone wrong over the past few months.
That's rather unfair.
[Diestel] Mr. Rohwedder had to make some bizarre decisions,
which were unpopular with some people.
And if there was a rogue among those unhappy people,
who thought he could protect his interests by using a weapon,
then it could have been one of the reasons for his death.
4 WEEKS
UNTIL THE MURDER
In March 1991, we had discussions
about employing auditors
to analyze and establish
whether there were any hidden assets we needed to take control of.
I am Kurt Hillmann,
born in Berlin.
I studied international trade
and worked in the GDR's Ministry for Foreign Trade.
I was assigned to an international trade company called IMES.
IMES
[dramatic music playing]
Their business
was the sale
of weapons and ammunition.
[dramatic music continues]
The main weapon was the AK-47.
Where did we sell them?
Africa.
South America.
IMES was part of KoKo,
the Department for Commercial Coordination.
[Webers] It was a whole network of many people,
often conducting normal business
in order to earn foreign currency for the GDR…
…so that purchases could be made for which the GDR Mark was not accepted as payment.
But they also had some rather questionable practices.
There were crooked deals such as an emergency appeal
to donate blood for the victims of an earthquake in Romania.
But the blood ended up being sold to the Red Cross in Munich.
[Hillmann] Medical equipment, the art trade,
weapons, and ammunition…
There was a whole range of goods involved.
How they made their money and how much they made
only became known after the Wall came down.
[narrator] The weapons on offer included far more than the well-known AK-47
and its ammunition.
[explosions]
Trading in weapons…
from a business point of view,
whatever makes money.
It doesn't matter what you trade in,
be it buttons or heavy machinery.
[Webers] Make no mistake,
this was a well-organized department that made the most of capitalism.
[Hillmann] The head of the department was Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski.
[dramatic music playing]
If there was corruption, fraud, dishonesty,
this is for others to investigate, not us.
But we will do our share to shed light
on the Schalck-Golodkowski affair.
Uh... we are doing what we can,
but it's an explosive matter.
[narrator] Pictures of his rare public appearances.
Schalck was one of the most important mediators between East and West.
[Bachsleitner] Why didn't they ever really chase
the missing millions?
Could it be that some people had an interest
in delaying this?
SCHALCK-GOLODKOWSKI WANTED
Authorities are searching for the former State Secretary
of the Department of Commercial Coordination,
Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski.
[dramatic music playing]
[reporter] Business expert Schalck-Golodkowski,
who yesterday was still in Bonn for talks,
is accused of exploiting his position and of embezzlement.
SEARCH FOR STATE SECRETARY
[Webers] Dr. Schalck-Golodkowski was on the run.
They flew him to the Federal Intelligence Service Office in Munich.
And we were left wondering, "Is he really getting away with it so easily?"
SCHALCK-GOLODKOWSKI FIRST PROCESS
The initial court hearing took place today at Berlin State Court in the case
against the GDR's foreign currency procurer Schalck-Golodkowski.
I think he got a suspended sentence of 18 months,
and he must have been laughing about it.
I remember we had another court case against him,
but the hearings had to be postponed
because the accused sat
in the German government airplane on his way to China
to advise on trading with the East.
From then on we knew that we couldn't expect much from the state prosecutor.
Someone held a protective hand over the man.
ALLEGATIONS REJECTED
Today, Minister of the Interior Schäuble repudiated a report in Stern magazine,
claiming he had helped SED foreign currency procurer
and Stasi officer Schalck-Golodkowski
to escape GDR jurisdiction.
He had no case pending against him in the West.
But we agreed that he should be helped on a humanitarian level,
and the church social welfare organization did just that.
[reporter] Wolfgang Schäuble is someone who would have been
central to the investigations.
He knows a lot about the events and said very little.
The whole government kept a low profile and documents under lock and key.
[Webers] We got quite angry
when we heard Schalck had sent letters to Schäuble.
He must have mentioned details
about companies, assets, etc.
We never got hold of these letters.
At first, Schäuble couldn't remember. Then he declared the letters "private"
and claimed he was under no obligation to hand them over.
And anyway, he could not remember whether they were still in his possession.
And we were supposed to find the money?
Secure it? How? We had nothing.
[dramatic music playing]
[narrator] The object of special media interest:
the contents of possibly five suitcases, full of explosive documents.
Schalck calls them his life's work.
Political dynamite in a reunited Germany.
Schalck-Golodkowski had a very adaptable, flexible personality.
He couldn't have known anything about my affairs,
and I don't know anything about his.
[Kinkel] Addressing concerns that there might be someone…
MINISTER OF JUSTICE KLAUS KINKEL
…supporting, shielding, protecting Mr. Schalck,
I can only repeat what I have said on numerous occasions before:
complete nonsense!
[Diestel] Files on West German politicians
have been destroyed.
I won't name names,
but the political elite knows to whom I am referring.
This means we'll see those immoral,
ignorant, evil figures in all sorts of functions
because no files will ever be found. They're all gone.
[eerie music playing]
But I know one thing.
In spring, 1991, there were no Stasi structures left
that could have executed people. They simply didn't exist.
STATE CRIMINAL POLICE OFFICE
HEAD OF DEPARTMENT FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE STATE, BERND WAGNER
The fact that this murder
could be politically exploited back then is interesting.
Being politically aware and also thinking in criminological terms, I ask myself,
who could have gained from it?
I could imagine someone
who had nothing to do with the Stasi or the RAF.
He could be an independent killer, but acting on orders…
on the orders of some powerful Western political stakeholder.
[suspenseful music plays
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