Durchbruch Lok 234

"Durbruch Lok 234" (Breakthrough Locomotive 234) is based on a true story from December 5, 1961. At that time, the train driver Harry Deterling and his stoker Hartmut Lichy, together with several families, managed to escape to West Berlin with a steam locomotive and eight passenger cars from Oranienburg via the Berlin-Hamburg railway line after passing through the last scheduled stop at Albrechtshof shortly before the state border. I really liked this movie for two reasons. First of all, I liked the portrayal of everyday life in East Germany. Secondly, I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, and I understand well the difference between living in a dictatorship and a democracy. The USA gave me the chance to live in a democracy in the 1980s, and I still remember the sentence I said to an American immigration official: I'd rather clean offices in New York than be a big shot in a communist country. In the US I worked in IT for 10 years, but I still maintain my opinion from the 1980s.