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75 years of NRW - WDR looks back at the zero hour and tells how the state gained momentum. The 1950s in our state are told like a modern fairy tale. From nothing, surrounded by ruins, the state becomes the engine of the young Federal Republic. From the worst possible starting conditions, NRW manages to take off from nowhere. The zest for life returns. Consumption and prosperity return.
On August 23, 1946, Rhineland and Westphalia became the state of North Rhine-Westphalia - at that time still with a slash. Lippe was added six months later. But what was life like in this new state? In the first episode of its new four-part series "Our state in the 50s", WDR takes a look at the years in which the people on the Rhine and Ruhr were busy doing one thing above all else: Building a new life.
But what kind of country was it? Millions of people on the Rhine and Ruhr were still living in bombed-out houses and hundreds of thousands of refugees needed a roof over their heads. The black market flourished, but here the necessities of life cost a fortune. And meanwhile, the economy in the Ruhr region was being restarted.
Filmmaker Kathrin Schwiering and her camera team met people who talk about life at the end of the 1940s/beginning of the 1950s. Judith Neuwald-Tasbach, for example, talks about her father, who returned to his home town of Gelsenkirchen immediately after the war to rebuild the Jewish community there with a few others. According to his daughter Judith, he wanted to prevent "Hitler from being proven right after all".
91-year-old Ruth Willigalla vividly remembers climbing onto the roof of the Düsseldorf apartment building where she lived with her mother and younger sister to repair the bomb damage. The entertainer Götz Alsmann is fascinated by the music of the post-war period. He explains why the stars of the time not only sang about longing for faraway places, but also about their favorite dishes.
But it's not just contemporary witnesses who have their say in the series. The teams from the production company "BROADVIEW TV" have also met people who live out their passion for the "Fifties" in the here and now - like the Krefeld classic car fan Hannes Altenähr. Together with his grandfather, he has restored a 1950 Ford "Buckeltaunus" - according to him, the only such convertible in the country that is still roadworthy. For him, a leisurely drive in his classic car is the ultimate relaxation.
