Hötensleben is a small town around 15km to the south of Helmstedt just inside the border of Middle Saxony. No trouble getting there today but before 19 November 1989 it was much more difficult.
This was a border town but not a border crossing and the remains of the wall that divided Germany for more than forty years can clearly be seen here.
This is the first part of a film I made on 1 May 2008.
Duration : 0:9:40
The Bruce Springsteen song “Across The Border” from the CD “Western Wall/The Tucson Sessions” by Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. Neil Young joins in on harmony vocals and a mean harmonica (my favorite harmonica solo next to Stevie Wonder in “Isn’t She Lovely”). Bernie Leadon (an original Eagle) on mandocello. This was a really underrated CD in my opinion. The Jackson Browne song “For A Dancer” was another highlight.
Most of the beautiful desert photography comes from a guy named mtflyer2005 on webshots.com. Thanks mtflyer2005, tried to contact you but couldn’t figure it out.
Duration : 0:6:14
This is a short clip of a documentary that will soon be completed.
http://www.bleedingborders.com
We are in post production of a documentary about the US/MX border. Originally, we went down to the border to make my film to embarrass the US Government into doing their job. What we found is they are doing their job. The border is much more secure than it was in 1995. Now, they are building too many fences.
http://www.bleedingborders.com
Our film crew traveled the entire border from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, filming and interviewing on BOTH sides of the border. After compiling all of the interviews from folks working and living on both sides of the US/MX border, the conclusion is inescapable. The walls we have, don’t really work, and are only a “Speed Bump.” New walls will not work. (Except as a multi-billion dollar speed bump) All the walls in Tijuana have done is drive up the death rate of undocumented workers.
http://www.bleedingborders.com
BLEEDING BORDERS is a fresh look at the US/MX border issues. While the border is not completely secure right now, it is much more secure than back in 1995 when thousands of people streamed across nightly. You cannot completely secure a 2,000 mile long border, it would take an Army of at least 200,000 soldiers, and we are not at war with Mexico, they are our second largest trading partner.
http://www.bleedingborders.com
One thing stands clear after all of our interviews. It is STUPID to build a wall on any River Section of the Border. The river itself is a natural barrier. It is easier to put a ladder over a wall, than make it across the river without drowning. Undocumented workers from all over the world drown in the river all the time.
http://www.bleedingborders.com
As they say in Mexico, “La Frontera Una LLaga Abierto” Mexico is our second largest trading partner in the world.
Duration : 0:3:32
The Department of Homeland Security held its third and final “open house” meeting on Dec. 13 in Rio Grande City. Property owners and leaders in Starr County expressed their concerns.
Duration : 0:4:47
Cumbres Querétaro (opponents) question our arguments. This is part 4 of 7 of the Bachillerato Anáhuac English Quarter Final Round Debate. Topic: “Will the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico be effective or will it damage diplomatic relations between the two countries”. Our position: to defend the border wall’s effectiveness and to defend why it will not damage diplomatic relations.
Duration : 0:9:44
http://www.ceepackaging.com
http://www.pbn.com.pl
http://www.youtube.com/alanheath
DDR border at Marienborn – Die Grenze von der DDR an Marienborn – Восточногерманская граница на западе
The inter German border control post at Helmstedt – Marienborn was the largest border point within the entire Soviet empire.
The point controlled the motorway leading to Berlin and beyond from West Germany.
Whereas there were few problems for people getting in if they were going to Berlin, it was a different story for those going to any other destination.
And of course it was designed to stop people getting out.
Most of the frontier fence is no longer there and in places it is no longer obvious where it was. However many remains are still evident and in some places have been preserved. In other places they are still standing, but abandoned and the broken glass and chipped paintwork demonstrates their fate.
There is an excellent museum at the former Helsmstedt – Marienborn border crossing which does not take much of a detour for those travelling along this road.
This film also shows photographs of Hötensleben, 12km south of Marienborn where the wall has been preserved. Here the wall was breached on 23 November 1989 and traffic allowed to run both ways for the first time in many years. However the locals preserved the wall in many places.
I crossed the border point at Marienborn several times from 1982 – 1987 both by train and by car. It was extremely interesting to see it from the other side.
I have now posted a three part film of the border control post at Marienborn which may also be of interest.
Some other information as well as my blog about this and other visits can be found on www.pbn.com.pl
Duration : 0:4:55
SAN DIEGO, California, USA. An illegal alien putting an end to his attempt to cross from Mexico into the United States in broad day light as American Border Patrol surveillance cameras watch on. The man quickly climbs over the first fence into to get back into Mexican territory before one of the rapidly deployed patrols catches him. Enrique Morones lives on the American side and has been observing this kind of activity for the past twenty years. He plants water bottles along the border for clandestines who have often come from far under unbearable heat. According to him the construction of the wall has only made the journey more dangerous for illegal aliens.
Duration : 0:2:45
http://www.ceepackaging.com
http://www.pbn.com.pl
http://www.youtube.com/alanheath
This is the journey through the Polish – German border at Zgorzelec – Goerlitz and may well be the last time I film this part of the route in Poland. The A4 motorway is close to completion which will now link up the German border at Goerlitz and Kraków (via Wroclaw and Katowice) with wall to wall motorway!
This is my one thousandth film on you tube which is a first for Polish you tube as far as original amateur films are concerned!
My channel is one of the most prolific from Poland, although not amongst the most visited. With almost one film per day, one may be forgiven for thinking I do nothing else but I do have a day job as well. I have produced around 1,000 original films, most in English but also in Polish, French, Italian, Spanish and the occasional hint of German and Hebrew. My big interest in life is travel and history but I have also placed films on other subjects
Please feel free to ask questions in the public area or to comment on things you disagree with. Sometimes there are mistakes because I speak without preparation. If I see the mistakes myself, I make this clear in the text. Please also leave a star rating!
There are a number of films here on the packaging industry. This is because I am the publisher of Central and Eastern European Packaging — http://www.ceepackaging.com – the international platform for the packaging industry in this region focusing on the latest innovations, trends, design, branding, legislation and environmental issues with in-depth profiles of major industry achievers.
Most people may think packaging pretty boring but it possibly effects your life more than you really imagine!
Central and Eastern European Packaging examines the packaging industry throughout this region, but in particular in the largest regional economies which are Russia, Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Ukraine and Austria. That is not to say that the other countries are forgotten, they are not, but obviously there is less going on. However the fact that there are so many travel related films here is not from holidays but from business trips attending trade fairs around the region. Every packaging trade fair is a new excuse to make another film!
In 1997 I founded Polish Business News http://www.pbn.com.pl .There are a number of business related films here and I intend to do many more on CRM (customer relations management).
My blog can be found via http://www.ceepackaging.com and http://www.pbn.com.pl and contains background information and more details of many of my films. This information is in English.
Duration : 0:10:38
This was one of the standard East/West Berlin crossings: the S-Bahn Friedrichstrasse station. The station was in East Berlin and was itself divided in half – one part being the end station of an eastern line, the other part being the end station of a line going to West Berlin. To walk from the “eastern” to the “western” part of the station you had to go through the passport and customs controls, obviously. On the “western” part of the station one could purchase things like cigarettes and alcohol duty-free (for western marks) so it was not uncommon to see drunks from West Berlin popping in at the Friedrichstrasse station buying some liquor and going back West (no control). That sort of folklore went way beyond James Bond, IMHO 
This clip begins at Friedrichstrasse as we’ve just hopped on a westbound S-Bahn. Soon after the train takes off, we are inside the wall, you can see the no man’s land as the tracks run parallel to it for a while. The actual border is seen just before pulling into the first station in the West (Lehrter Stadtbahnhof) – it’s the boundary between the water and the land in the canal we cross over. Another train is leaving back to Friedrichstrasse (carrying those drunks and cigarette smugglers perhaps?) and we walk closer to the Reichstag from where one can see the train tracks we’ve just ridden along. Another S-Bahns go both ways plus a random long distance train leaving East Berlin.
NOTE: I added a reverse angle view in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwzFBATwXuY
Duration : 0:4:51
Former East Germany officer Klaus-Peter Renneberg defended the border for almost a decade. He speaks to Telegraph TV in Berlin about those that got across and the careless joke that cost him his commission.
Duration : 0:2:44