Zahlen, bitte! "Elf 99" – The TV companion to the end of the GDR
Shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, an attempt was made on GDR television to promote socialism. But it went very differently than planned.
In 2019, the article about the program "Elf 99" in the heise forum caused many memories and discussions about youth TV during the fall of the Berlin Wall. We have taken the liberty of updating it and republishing it to mark the anniversary. We hope you enjoy reading it!
35 years ago, on September 1, 1989, "Elf 99" began broadcasting a television program that was not destined to grow old, but in its short lifetime wrote a piece of German media history. It was all planned quite differently, however, as an attempt by GDR television to lure young viewers away from Western television and get them excited about the German Democratic Republic. Funky outfits, Western pop music, the US TV series "Dirty Dancing" and young people's speeches were supposed to help. However, young people were no longer convinced by the GDR; instead, "Elf 99" was supposed to contribute to its downfall.
Advertising for the GDR
One month before the GDR's 40th birthday, the show went on air, initially every Friday for two hours and with many echoes of West German television programs. Reports, music videos, sport, entertainment series and discussions were planned. The opening credits featured the King of Pop Michael Jackson as well as a winking Karl Marx and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The name "Elf 99" stands for the zip code 1199 of Berlin-Adlershof, where GDR television was based and where viewers could send their comments by post.
Outside, meanwhile, the fall of a turbulent year began, with most of its historic events still to come. GDR citizens fled the country en masse to leave behind the lack of freedom, the economy of scarcity, propaganda and rigged elections. Many young people saw no future in "real existing socialism" and "Elf 99" initially focused on "passionate mambo and lambada courses", as Der Spiegel summarized shortly afterward. But "if you dance dirty, you get stupid ideas" and so more and more critical reports followed that would have been unthinkable just a few weeks earlier.
The young journalists opened up to developments on the streets of the GDR and tested out what was now possible on television. When they encountered resistance, they often simply swept it aside, as protagonists later recalled. It was helpful that they were also allowed to broadcast news, which until then had been reserved for the propaganda tool "Aktuelle Kamera". When a commentary on the wave of escapes from the GDR was to be prevented by the television management, the commentator presented a suitable text, but then spoke the original version live, Spiegel also reported.
Editors are getting bolder and bolder
"The impudence of the editorial team grew in proportion to the impudence in the country", Spiegel continued, and finally, in a discussion round, the powerful union leader Harry Tisch was asked to resign. This actually followed shortly afterwards. "Elf 99" reporter Jan Carpentier asked Egon Krenz about his alcohol consumption during a flight to Moscow and later classified it as "even the attempt to speak to Honecker without consultation would have been suicide". With the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, even more dams broke and the show achieved cult status, which it used for special broadcasts, among other things.
(Image:Â Screenshot/YouTube)
For example, an investigative report on the SED leadership's legendary forest settlement in Wandlitz entitled"Einzug in das Paradies"(Moving into Paradise) went down in television history. Carpentier demolished the legends and myths surrounding the strictly sealed-off place and showed a staid settlement that was not very different from the rest of the country on the outside. At the same time, the local department store sold fruit and vegetables in quantities that GDR citizens could only dream of. In a spontaneous interview, former Politburo member Kurt Hager described Wandlitz as the seventh internment camp in which he had ended up in his life. Carpentier himself considered his report on the dramatic situation at the "Felix Dzierzynski" guard regiment to be more important "Wandlitz was child's play by comparison".
Like so many things at that time, however, "Elf 99" was then overrun by the developments of the reunification period. When the GDR television stations were finally switched off, neither the new MDR nor ORB took over "Elf 99". The popular program ended up on RTL, where it was no longer of much use. The era of "Elf 99" came to an end in March 1994 on the new television station Vox, after less than five years. With Victoria Herrmann, Anja Kling, Ingo Dubinski, Jens Riewa and others, several well-known presenters and actors took their first television steps there. (mki)
