They are two people who could not be more different: Here, the general who had made his career in the party and the military, eventually rising to become the most powerful man in Poland; there, the electrician who challenged the powerful and became the leader of the first independent and free trade union in a socialist country. In the winter of 1981, the situation escalated and the military and state leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, knew no other way to contain the growing influence of the Solidarność union under his leader, Lech Wałęsa, than to impose martial law on December 13th.

Now, 40 years later, the film looks back on the biographies of the two dissimilar men who were closely interwoven for a decade – until the trained electrician succeeded General Jaruzelski in the office of President in December 1990.

The film tells the story of the battle between two rivals and lets close confidants and contemporary witnesses have their say. For example, the union leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Lech Wałęsa; the co-founder of Solidarność, Bogdan Borusewicz, who called on Wałęsa to take part in the great strike in August 1980; Wałęsa’s collaborator Anna Maria Mydlarska; former Le Monde Poland correspondent Bernard Guetta; the underground fighter and documentarist of Polish martial law Małgorzata Niezabitowska; Jaruzelski’s press spokesman Jerzy Urban and Stanislaw Ciosek, who on behalf of Jaruzelski conducted political negotiations with Wałęsa during his internment.

With the help of archive material and interviews, the documentation revives the turbulent times in Poland in the 1980s, thus providing an insight into this important chapter of contemporary European history. The GDR civil rights activist and long-time head of the Stasi Documentation Authority, Roland Jahn, believes that the fall of the Berlin Wall would not have been possible without the political events in Poland in the 1980s.

At the end of the film, Lech Wałęsa sums it up in his well-known pragmatic way: “I’m not a classical politician. I actually didn’t want it, I just filled it out. I was raised with the ambition that if I set out to do something, I have to get the best out of myself. “

available until 20.01.2023 in the ZDF Media Library

A ‘Loving mother’? The real Empress Elisabeth of Austria is the exact opposite of what the legendary “Sissi” trilogy from the 1950s shows. Throughout her life, the eccentric Sisi put her own interests first. How does she live with her children?

After her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1854, Sisi feels the pressure of her relatives: the continuation of the dynasty depends on the young woman. A year later, at the age of 17, she gives birth to her first child, Sophie. But even the birth of the second daughter, Gisela, does not fulfill the expectations for a male successor. When Sophie dies during a trip to Hungary in 1857, deep cracks appear in the parents’ relationship.

Only the birth of the heir to the throne, Rudolf, in 1858 defuses the situation. Sisi then takes off and leaves for two years. Her children grow up without her during this time – when Sisi returns, they do not recognize “the strange woman”.

In 1868, Sisi gives birth to her fourth child, Marie Valerie, in what is now Budapest. This “Hungarian daughter” is smothered with love and affection by her mother. When she emancipates herself, she marries into the “scandalous line” of the Habsburgs, expresses herself in a German-national way. Nevertheless, with her nine children and numerous grandchildren, she ensures that the family is still widely branched out today.

Sisi was only just able to prevent Emperor Franz Joseph from raising the heir to the throne to become a strict soldier. From then on, the emperor keeps him away from all decisions. Rudolf takes refuge in a world of drugs and alcohol excesses. He kills himself and his mistress. Sisi is caught off guard: the empress has turned away more and more from her family. She lives in her own world, which consists mostly of traveling, horseback riding and writing poetry. Meanwhile, Emperor Franz Joseph worries about his fatherless granddaughter Elisabeth-Marie, known as “Erszi”. She becomes a rebel at the Viennese court. After the fall of the empire, she begins a new life in SPÖ circles and marries a representative of the Viennese working class.