THE WALL - A WORLD DIVIDED tells the story of the Berlin Wall through rare archival film and photos, as well as the unique historical insights of George H. W. Bush, Helmut Kohl, Mikhail Gorbachev and the people of East & West Germany.

In November 1989 the Berlin Wall opened - allowing East & West Germans to be freely united after 28 years. THE WALL - A WORLD DIVIDED tells those dramatic events from the perspective of ordinary Germans whose lives were dramatically changed by Cold War politics. This program also presents the lesser-known story of how the autumn of 1989 set the stage for three world leaders - George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Helmut Kohl - to come together and guide the completely unanticipated spiraling series of events that ended the Cold War.

This is the story of how on the morning of August 13, 1961, Berliners were stunned to find their city cut in two by a barrier of barbed wire and concrete blocks. No longer could East Germans leave their country by simply crossing the border into West Berlin as millions had between 1949 and 1961. Instead, they would have to find a way to escape under, over, or through the heavily guarded and ever growing Berlin Wall.

For 16-year-old East Berliner Elke Rosin escape required dashing a few hundred feet across the street outside her front door, getting caught could have landed her in prison or worse. Soon after her escape windows and doors along that border street were filled with brick but that didn't prevent others from attempting their own escapes, tragically many lost their lives in the process.

Veteran newscaster Daniel Schorr, CBS News correspondent in Berlin in those dramatic days, gives a chilling account of the tense military stand-off when the U.S. challenged the USSR over the border closure. He reported, ominously: "This could be a picture of how World War III starts."

Rudolph Mueller tells how his life as a young father change in 1961. For months after the Wall went up could see his wife and two sons only by climbing a platform on the west side and waving. By June of 1962 he had a daring plan: he would dig a tunnel under the Wall from west to east - tunnel into East Berlin - and bring his family out. His plan succeeds but a young border guard is killed in the process.

The penalty for Matthias Melster's escape attempt was prison. He describes the day-long interrogations and psychological tricks the secret police used to deprive him of any sense of self, and force him to betray friends and relatives.

But for the vast majority of 17 million East Germans, the Wall became a fact of life, and we see how by the 1980s East Germany had developed its own unique culture where freedom of travel was restricted, free speech was denied, and people made their accommodations as best they could.

THE WALL - A WORLD DIVIDED also tells of how the wall fell. Historian Frederick Taylor and other experts, believe that part of the answer lies in the Protestant churches of East Germany. For years the churches served as a sanctuary for a small but determined opposition movement. At the same time, forces of reform triggered in part by Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev were sweeping through other Soviet satellite states.

Surprisingly what finally opened the Wall on November 9, 1989 was a mistake. An East German bureaucrat misspoke at a press conference which in turn sent a flood of people rushing to cross into West Berlin. They confronted the uninformed border guards, who had little choice but to allow them to cross.

The situation was volatile, but calm political leadership kept the dizzying events under control, and in the months that followed President George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Helmut Kohl led the delicate diplomacy that brought the Cold War to a peaceful ending without a shot being fired.