The Wall – Live in Berlin council meeting, and felt they needed some kind of an event to focus attention on it… So I agreed to have a meeting with Leonard Cheshire. And I was very impressed, and said I would do what I could, although I thought it was very unlikely that it would come off… Then, in November [1989], when the wall started coming down, we started negotiating." The show had a sell-out crowd of over 350,000 people. Right before the performance started the gates were opened which enabled at least another 100,000 people to watch. While this broke records for a paid-entry concert,
The Fall of Berlin (film) although generally approving of the film – criticized various aspects of the plot; many of them cited Ivanov's boyish conduct as unworthy of a Stakhanovite. Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeni Chernonog, a war veteran, watched "The Fall of Berlin" while intoxicated. He commented: "And where did this angel come from? We have not seen him there". He was arrested and condemned to eight years in the Gulag. The East German political establishment excessively promoted the picture, as well; It was officially classified as a documentary, and all servicemen of the Barracked People's Police were obliged to watch it. However, "The Fall of