- German viewers tuned in to a taboo-breaking television
drama last night that for the first time tackled the plight of millions
of their countrymen who were driven out of what is now eastern Europe by
Russia's Red Army after the Second World War.
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- The lavish three-hour production - entitled Die Flucht,
or the March of Millions - was an attempt to face up to an issue that has
been a source of simmering resentment for many Germans for six decades
and which is currently the subject of a diplomatic row between Berlin and
Poland.
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- An estimated 14 million Germans were expelled from the
former eastern territories of East Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia and Sudetenland
at the end of the Second World War. The areas were annexed to Russia, Poland
and Czechoslovakia after 1945 and the overwhelming majority of those expelled
lost their property and homes for good.
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- Last night's film, which cost ¤9m (£6m)
to produce and involved the use of more than 2,000 extras to simulate a
gruelling trek of refugees across the frozen Baltic, dealt with the expulsion
of Germans from East Prussia in early 1945.
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- Starring Maria Furtwängler, whose great uncle, Wilhelm,
was a famous conductor feted by the Nazi regime, Die Flucht tells the story
of Lena, a Prussian noblewoman who shepherds her retinue of country estate
workers to safety by fleeing westwards to escape the invading Red Army.
To ensure political correctness, Lena ditches her would-be Nazi husband
and falls in love with a French forced labourer.
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- Furtwängler said: "I hope our film will stir
discussion among young and old about the worst chapter of German history.
Millions were expelled from lands their families had been on for 700 years.
I want my children to know what Prussia was and what its virtues were."
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- The actress, who in preparation for her role met German
women who were raped by Russian troops during the expulsions, also caused
a stir by publicly demanding an apology from the Russian President, Vladimir
Putin, for the Red Army's behaviour in 1945.
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- But in Poland, German expellees' legal attempts to get
their properties returned through the European Court of Justice have provoked
a storm of protest from the country's right-of-centre government. Poland
has also dismissed German discussion of the expellee issue as an attempt
to portray the instigators of the Second World War as victims.
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- Story first published 3-5-7
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