In this Wednesday, June 17, 2020 photo Gunnar Dedio, German film producer and managing director of PROGRESS Film GmbH poses for a photo between rolls of film in the archive of PROGRESS Film, in Leipzig, Germany.
A new project is underway to digitize thousands of East German newsreels, documentaries and feature films 30 years after Germanys reunification.
The East German Augenzeuge, or Eyewitness, newsreel on the Kennedy visit trumpeted the prank as a triumph, scoffing that the American president got an āunexpected surprise instead of the great view into the East German capital promised by his Secret Serviceā and allegedly had to cut his visit from ā20 minutes to five."
Germany was divided into four occupation zones after World War II, the Soviet-influenced East Germany and West Germany's American, British and French sectors.
In 1950, the year after East Germany was established as a country, the authorities formed another company, Progress, as a state monopoly to distribute DEFA films and to import foreign productions.