 In the 1998 ZDF/TLC mockumentary "Der Dritte Weltkrieg", consisting largely of real-life footage of military and political figures presented out of context, Mikhail Gorbachev is ousted by an anti-reformist coup in October 1989 during his visit to East Germany (with the Soviet Union still in effective control of Eastern Europe, and hard-line rulers still firmly entrenched in nearly all of the satellite states – as such the events of that autumn are either brutally repressed by "Chinese" methods or simply never occur), and the actions of the paranoid, ruthless new General Secretary lead first to a brief conventional war (the filmmakers accessed previously classified war plans and consulted numerous high-ranking military officials on both sides).Just when the conflict seems to have ended, a Soviet radar malfunction, while US forces are on full SIOP alert, results in a civilization-killing nuclear exchange ("There is no further historical record of what happens next"); after "ending" just as the annihilation begins, the film rewinds to Gorbachev in East Berlin, and actually concludes with a montage of celebrations in Berlin as the Berlin Wall is freely crossed, danced upon and dismantled and the country is reunited ("History... took a different path").After the September 11, 2001 attacks, a scenario of World War III beginning as a result of a nuclear or other catastrophic terrorist attack became prominent.