A Jewish ghetto in the east of Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from risking his life for a few potatoes, he...
Maria, a young student sees her brother Dieter going to prison for sedition against the state. She starts an affair with Paul, a judge who turns out to be the one who sentenced her brother, which eventually leads to a confrontation.
This elaborate two-part television film features a section from the life of communist worker leader Ernst Thälmann. It begins with the bloody riots on May 1, 1929 in Berlin, in which police officers shot at demonstrating workers, and ends with February 7, 1933, when Thälmann appeared as a speaker...
In an act of friendship and solidarity between two mining towns in 1929, the locals of Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, give their flag as a gift to the locals of Bergstedt, Germany in this GDR propaganda film. This quickly takes on a symbolic meaning for the miners in Bergstedt as the Nazi party demands that...
Four-part television film about the theologian Thomas Müntzer, who became a revolutionary and opponent of Luther during the Peasant War in 1525. December 1520: Martin Luther publicly burns the papal certificate threatening him with excommunication. The papal envoy demands the heretic's...
She is called Dona Juanita: the attractive young architect Anita Nachtigall, who manages a department on a large construction site with great success. She is said to have had many affairs and, so it is said, the death of a certain Sawallish. The evil afterspeech puts Anita so that she announces her...
Using the example of three generations of a Hamburg working class family, the rise of the working class from the founding of the Wilhelmin Empire to the First World War, over the time of the Weimar Republic and National Socialism to the destruction of the Third Reich.
Her brothers and fiancé are at war. In 1944, Marta struggles alone with her gardening business. One day, a deserter turns up at her house. What to do? Marta decides to keep Steiner with her. A life-threatening decision: military police scour the village...
Dr. Grunert, electronics specialist from the GDR, gets a visit from an old acquaintance from war times. Both worked back then on navy torpedoes. His former colleague wants to poach Grunert – to Schenectady, the headquarters of the largest American electronics company. With alleged war crimes, he...
The six-part film series tells in impressive stages of the work of important doctors at the internationally renowned Berlin hospital in its medical and contemporary historical scope. The period spans the beginning of the 19th century to the Second World War, bringing the viewer close to the work of...
The Ruhr area in November of 1918. 13-year old Achim Wolters and his friends get their hands on some potatoes on the market. They want to surprise Achim′s father, who works on a mine sweeper boat, with a decent meal. But Achim′s father does not show up – an informer at the train station has...
They are just 17 years old when Gaby and Eva receive the offer to play in a feature film that ambitious Hamburg filmmakers want to make. Despite their youth, the girls are suspicious because they have already experienced a lot. On the other hand, that would be the opportunity to escape the...
Civil engineer Berger is looking for his mother and learns that she has died and was last in a home run by the notorious construction company Huberty. When the company boss Huberty becomes the victim of an assassination attempt shortly afterwards, suspicion falls on Berger, but Huberty's death is...
Major Bert Harkus takes over the artillery regiment in Jesnack after graduating from the military academy. The troop proudly presents itself during an exercise. But apart from some good results in shooting, Harkus soon realizes that there are a few problems. As he does not believe that constant...
USA 1964: Three young men are arrested on suspicion of speeding. As it turns out, they are employees of a civil rights center in Mississippi who are fighting against the racist Ku Klux Klan. The disappearance of the activists leads to a political scandal in the USA. There are riots and...
In 1923, Judge Böhnsdorf and Inspector Dumke convict 22-year-old Fritz Bondersen of treason, accused of selling military secrets on the testimony of General Director Gotthardt, and sentence him to 15 years in a Zuchthaus. Despite his protestations of innocence, Bondersen can’t produce proof. Two...
An old ruin serves as the favorite playground for Christine and her friends. It is also the home to a pair of storks that have built their nest there. When the ruin is meant to be demolished, Christine is eager on rescuing the helpless baby storks that are not yet fully fledged.
