Moscow - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was working in East Germany in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell, is to recount his experiences of that time in a new documentary, reported Russian newspaper Kommersant Wednesday. Putin was based in the eastern German city of Dresden in 1989, working openly as an official with the KGB, the secret service of the Soviet Union. As such, that made him one of a minority of Soviet citizens who came into firsthand contact with democracy activists in East Germany as the country's regime collapsed.
In The Wall, a documentary being made by Russian television journalist Vladimir Kondratyev, Putin will speak for the first time about his experiences 20 years ago.
The documentary is to air on the broadcaster NTV on November 8, one day before the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall.
"In Dresden, a mass of people set the Stasi (East German secret service) building on fire and wanted to storm the villa where Putin and his colleagues were processing intelligence for the Soviet Union," said Kondratyev. "Putin managed to convince the mob to back off."
Russian media have reported in the past that Putin held off the crowd with a pistol, although Putin's own written memories of the events of November 9, 1989 make no mention of a gun.
Kondratyev also interviewed former Soviet leader and Nobel peace prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev for the documentary, as well as former East German leader Egon Krenz and former German president Richard von Weizsaecker.
Putin lived with his family in Dresden from 1985 to 1990.
