James Bond is the world’s most famous movie agent and has been under surveillance even in real life. Not only did a million people watch the Berlin scenes from Bond’s classic “Octopussy” (1983), but also the Ministry of State Security (Stasi).
Documents from the German Federal Archives, available to the German newspaper “Bild”, also show that the East German Stasi was particularly interested in filming the Bond movie in the German capital. In the film, James Bond (Roger Moore, 1927-2017) meets his boss, the head of MIT (Robert Brown, 1921-2003) in West Berlin and receives new papers there. Objective: to travel to the German Democratic Republic with a different identity. The scene was filmed on August 10, 1982 at the Charlie Border Checkpoint.
Eight pages with eight pictures
Exactly what happened at the scene was recorded in an eight-page report titled “The James Bond Film Filming in West Square of the Border Crossing Point Friedrich Zimmerstrasse” and eight photographs “are given in the records made by the officers.
«Car, license plate (…), Mercedes type, black color, occupied by three men, photographed from the Kochstrasse underground station when the car was coming from Kochstrasse on the left. Someone left the car there.” It is the legendary scene in which M says to James Bond: “Don’t forget 007, you are on your own now.” Some of the actors can be clearly seen in Stasi’s photos.
The Bund crossed the state border a few metres
In addition, there was an almost unfortunate incident with the authorities of the GDR. “When turning, the car violated the state border four times by about 4 to 5 metres,” Stasi noted. In the movie, Bond was driving to the GDR, during production, his car had previously been transformed.
This observation was not uncommon in East German times, says Professor Daniela Monkel, head of research at the Stasi Records Archive, in the German newspaper. “The documentation for the filming of the James Bond film was created at Checkpoint Charlie as part of a routine mission to monitor and document filming near the border and report any incidents.”
The next bond is due to start in the fall
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic in 1990, the Stasi also disappeared. Shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it had 91,000 full-time employees and 180,000 casual employees. The aim of the Stasi was to monitor the behavior of critics of the Socialist Unity Party government.
And while Stasi is part of history, he is too James Bond is still on a secret mission today. “No Time To Die,” the 25th Bond movie, is set to hit cinemas this fall. (IMH)
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