A film about the historical uprising of the seamen in Kiel: During the Russian October Revolution of 1917, German and Russian soldiers start to solidarize with each other. By disarming the officers, machinist Henne Lonke and stoker Jens Kasten prevent the attack on a Russian freighter. When German...
It is the year 1936 and the Spanish Civil War is raging. When the German commander of an international brigade is badly wounded he gives his five comrades a message which he divides up and secretes into in five cartridges. All five shells must reach the battalion in order for the message to be...
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...
Alma Krause is the proud owner of a thoroughbred French bully. Even otherwise, she nurses and harbors several two- and four-legged friends in her apartment - just as one would expect from a veterinarian's widow. Her nephew Heinz, on the other hand, is kind of beaten. Not as for the love of animals,...
Irene Klaussen, a brilliant, tomboyish Berlin student, falls for new classmate Peter Lemke. To prove herself, she follows him, first to a school dance in a borrowed gown, then to a year’s stint on a remote oil‐plant construction in Granow. Ostracized at first, she wins respect under FDJ...
The young Walter Retzlow, drafted into the guard team of a foreign labor factory in the last year of the war, receives the papers of a murdered anti-fascist by chance. He adopts the new identity, which promises him security.
On the way to the holiday camp, 16-year-old Steffi falls in love with Norbert, whom she has known for a long time from visiting grandfather in Pinnow. She made a quick decision to change her future plans and decided to become a milker, because Norbert is the newly appointed apprentice trainer for...
Professor Heger's son was shot by the Gestapo during the war. Dr. Bram was also responsible for his death. After the war, working in Heger's clinic, Bram tells the professor about his guilt. Considering Bram a traitor, Heger refuses to work with him. Bram flees to West Germany. Soon the professor,...
The children of Herbert and Hella, two single train conductors, are going to vacation at Baltic Sea. Unfortunately the parents are to busy to go so the oldest sister is in charge.
Alexander sits in the pub and wants to be left alone. The fake sailor Konstantin sits in the pub because he can't leave his fellow men alone. That evening, however, he has his sights set on Alexander and won't let up until he reluctantly tells him about his accident at work. After the accident, he...
In the 1930s, the Soviet ship "Chelyuskin" embarked on an expedition to the Northern Ocean. But soon there is an accident in the ice and the team can save themselves on an ice floe. Two months, the over one hundred people have to persevere there until rescue from the air finally approaches.
In South Africa, few white people realize that colonialism and apartheid are outdated and that the commandments of humanity must apply to the entire South African population. One of them is Jan Snider, a young lawyer. But he is alone with his progressive ideas. Captain Brook, who had overheard a...
In spring 1946, Warsaw historian Wojtek arrives in a Polish provincial town to study the Renaissance. He soon becomes entangled in the fierce postwar power struggle between the Soviet-backed People’s Government—nationalizing industry and land—and reactionary exiled forces waging “bandit...
Karlemann is very often found in his own 'Robinson world', a secluded place on earth. There he travels the river in his special all-weather boat, and he has his domicile on the river, all built himself. One day he meets two soldiers of the National People's Army who got lost in Karlemann's empire....