OUR COUNTRY IN THE 50s

"Prosperity for all!" was the motto at the end of the 1950s. With his slogan "No experiments!", Konrad Adenauer had achieved the highest result for the CDU/CSU in a Bundestag election. He was able to continue governing with an absolute majority. His eldest grandson of the same name vividly remembers the time when world politics was made from the tranquil village of Rhöndorf.

People invested, developed and consumed. The cities took on the appearance that still characterizes them today. The Cologne cable car was stretched across the Rhine for the first Federal Garden Show in North Rhine-Westphalia. The television tower was built in Dortmund and the Mannesmann high-rise in Düsseldorf was the tallest building in the country, exuding a touch of Manhattan on the Rhine.

America was the great role model: the rock'n'roll wave swept across the pond from there. Alice Schwarzer would have gone to the ends of the earth for Elvis Presley, she says in the documentary and remembers her crush and her first experiences at the dance school in her home town of Wuppertal.

No wonder that the first post-war generation wanted to free themselves from the war and the mustiness of the reconstruction years. Cars, televisions and washing machines were the new status symbols.

Wiltrud Urselmann from Krefeld swam numerous records and was Sportswoman of the Year in 1957. There was hardly a magazine that didn't feature her on the cover. She smiles as she talks about the very special controls of the competition courts. In soccer at this time, the clubs in the Ruhr region fought it out among themselves. Borussia Dortmund became German champions in 1956 and 1957. And the whole of Gelsenkirchen celebrated the heroes of Schalke 04 in 1958.

Great buildings such as the Severinsbrücke in Cologne were built with a belief in progress and confidence. More than almost any other structure, it symbolizes a modern ramp into a new decade: Let's move into the sixties!