Back in 1990, East Germany was supposed to be heading into a brand new era. Instead, the entire economy was basically handed over to one agency with a nearly impossible job: figuring out what survives, what gets sold, and what just disappears.

The Treuhandanstalt ended up taking over 8,500 state-owned companies, millions of hectares of land, and pretty much the whole industrial backbone of East Germany. In just a few short years, thousands of businesses were either privatized or completely shut down, and millions of jobs just vanished.

So how did all this happen so fast?

This documentary dives into the currency union, the insanely rushed privatization process, some pretty shady deals (like the Leuna scandal), the political pressure, corruption probes, and the massive financial hole left behind when the Treuhand finally shut its doors.

The whole thing is way more complicated than just saying East Germany got “sold off.” It was a massive, rapid economic shift that completely rewired an entire country—and the effects of it are still being felt today.

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