Ulrich Tukur

http://braidedthreads.blogspot.com/2008/09/lives-of-others.html ...This dramatic thriller is set in East Germany during the socially repressive era just before the fall of the Berlin wall. Gerd Wiesler, played brilliantly by the late Ulrich Mühe, is a member of the Stasi secret police and is an expert in surveilance and interrogation. But his beliefs are brought into question as he engages in an assignment that has him listening in on the conversations that take place in the appartment of a German intellectual and playwrite (Georg Dreyman) thought to be a threat to the ruling German Democratic Republic. As he listens in on Dreyman's life, Wiesler begins to awaken from his stringent existence, and experiences wonder, joy, and sorrow as if for the first time.