In this East German teen musical, a group of girls are planning to take their summer vacation together on the Baltic coast. When a loud and obnoxious group of boys intrudes on their holiday, the girls are horrified to learn that the boys have the same vacations plans as them. The two groups quarrel...
Magdalena and Michael have loved each other since they were children. But when the Nazis come to power, Michael rebels against the regime and is sentenced to fifteen years in a concentration camp. Magdalena, meanwhile, goes underground with the help of a friend and later immigrates to the Soviet...
This film is the first of a two-part historical and biographical portrait of the communist politician and anti-fascist Ernst Thälmann. In early November 1918, Ernst Thälmann is an unwilling soldier serving on the western front. As the revolutionary movement at home is threatened by the betrayal...
A Jewish chief of surgery in 1933 Germany remains blind to the rising Nazi threat, dismissing political dissent from his son and a patient, until his family faces increasing anti-Semitic persecution.
Railway employee Fritz Marr is not regarded well by his superiors. It is the year 1920, and trains regularly pass the railway hub of Erfurt to the East to secretly transport weapons for the fight against the young Soviet Union. Marr knows about this and wants to mobilise other workers to stop these...
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.
It is a fateful moment: during one of his concerts, Jewish pianist Klaus Seiser discovers Gestapo officer Dr. Becker in the audience. He had imprisoned and harassed the young Seiser in 1943 because of a leaflet. Although the musician had managed to escape from prison at the time, he was caught at...
This film continues the story of radio operator Ludwig Bartuschek from “The Sailor’s Song”. Near the end of the Weimar Republic, Bartuschek (Erwin Geschonneck) is working as a mechanic in the Sperber airplane plant. Director Dehringer offers him the opportunity to train as an airplane...
13-year old Thomas Berndorf, the son of the rich business man Alexander Berndorf, becomes friends with Hannes Wille, whose father works as foreman. They get to know each because Hannes sometimes is allowed to polish Berndorf′s Mercedes 300. They make a bet whose mother is the most beautiful....
Based on an authentic case from the 1920s. The head country constable Heinz Lippert arrests the Polish farm worker Jakubowski on suspicion of murdering a child - his adopted son. Although he has insufficient evidence, public prosecutor Becker takes the case to court. Jakubowski is sentenced to...
Was it an act of sabotage or willful negligence? The non-party engineer Heinz Solter is suddenly arrested and accused of approving a defective pipeline that caused a half million loss to his company. At first, the case seems clear-cut for the state prosecutor, but when he probes deeper, he...
At the VII Party Congress of the SED, a delegate tells a reporter his life story: 18-year-old returning soldier Georg Lendau ends up in a small village in 1945. He is starving and sick. Mayor Kallam helps. Later, they meet again; Kallam is now the director of a heavy engineering company. He gives...
Frieda and August Walkowiak celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. However, the marriage has been in crisis for some time. August wants to spend his old age in peace, while Frieda has no intention of giving up her position as LPG chairman. The problems in the countryside are huge,...
The construction of five houses for a workers' housing cooperative has been delayed due to a shortage of workers. It is winter and it is foreseeable that the houses will be completed in the fall at the latest. However, this takes too long for the young electrician Gustav. He is frustrated and wants...
Two boys from West Berlin, Klaus and Max, live in poverty. They dream of a career in boxing and save every penny in order to buy boxing gloves for training. Nevertheless, they cannot seem to save enough and so they let themselves be hired by the bartender Klott for a twisted scheme. However, Klaus...
A Saturday evening dance in the village pub is interrupted when the barn of local farmer Paul Gäbler catches on fire. The farmer himself is soon found – hanged. Sawmill owner Züllich claims that Gäbler committed suicide because he was forced to join an agricultural production cooperative, but...
Jürgen Fohrmann works as a hauer underground. In the course of the coal crisis, his mine closes - he loses the work. In this mood, his wife's prosperity thinking gets on his nerves - his marriage threatens to break. The dismissed coal buddy applys, first becomes an auxiliary worker, but then...
