NBC NEWS SPECIAL: THE TUNNEL (TV)
Summary
This special program combines recreation and real footage of the plan of students in West Berlin who dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall and on September 14, 1962 led twenty-six people through the tunnel out of East Berlin to the West. The three students, who had engineering training and detailed knowledge of the Berlin Wall, re-enact their April 1962 scouting of an appropriate site. Actual footage commences as the three and other helpers begin round-the-clock excavation. As the work progresses, rain and water main flooding must be dealt with and a similar tunnel is betrayed to the East Germans by one of the workers. The tunnel is completed at the end of the 1962 summer, despite great obstacles, and the very dangerous task of escape begins. The refugees congregate at No. 7 Schonholzerstrasse in East Berlin and film shows them emerging from the tunnel after crawling for eight to twelve minutes. A total of fifty-nine people escaped through this tunnel before it flooded. Anderton notes that in the first thirteen months of the Wall's existence, thousands have escaped to the West. Commercials deleted.
Details
- NETWORK: NBC
- DATE: December 10, 1962 Monday 8:30 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:19:05
- COLOR/B&W: B&W
- CATALOG ID: T76:0061
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Communism - 1962; Berlin Question, 1945-
- SERIES RUN: NBC - TV, 1962
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Reuven Frank … Producer, Writer
- Piers Anderton … Writer, Narrator
- Ray Lockhart … Director
- Peter Dehmel … Camera
- Klaus Dehmel … Camera
- Eddie Safranski … Music by