In April of 1945, Germany stands at the brink of defeat with the Russian Army closing in from the east and the Allied Expeditionary Force attacking from the west. In Berlin, capital of the Third Reich, Adolf Hitler proclaims that Germany will still achieve victory and orders his generals and...
East-Berlin, 1961, shortly after the erection of the Wall. Konrad, Sophie and three of their friends plan a daring escape to Western Germany. The attempt is successful, except for Konrad, who remains behind. From then on, and for the next 28 years, Konrad and Sophie will attempt to meet again, in...
A young soldier enters Germany with Soviet troops at the end of WWII, feeling like a stranger in his homeland. As he meets Germans, he grapples with his ambivalence, realizing he is both a victor and one of the vanquished. His inquisitive nature leads him to confront the atrocities and lies he...
Edgar Wurlitzer is on his way home when a woman suddenly jumps in front of his car. He quickly drives on and enlists the help of his friend Werner for a conclusive alibi. However, before they can arrange the alibi, the police are already at the door. Soon Edgar finds out that he has run over and...
Frank and Kamminke study informatics in Leipzig and have developed a program that enables a computer to automatically find and correct errors in its software. Freshly graduated, they are relocated to a remote Thuringian village after causing a computer breakdown. There, they are supposed to work in...
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was the author of Werther, the romantic novel that was transformed into a play during Goethe's lifetime and which initiated the whole German romantic movement. The book's story tells of young love and suicide. In this East German film, based on a book by...
When Momo leaves his small home town to go to university, he is full of enthusiasm and confidence, but slowly the pressures of study and campus living begin to grind him down. Half way through his course he finds himself at a crossroads with both his relationship and studies.
Gerrit Frings is facing ruin at the age of 34. After the end of his company and the suicide of his partner Markus, he is also sued by his widow Sandra. Allegedly, Gerrit owes Markus a lot of money. In reality, however, it was the other way around and his self-denial of his own situation was...
A farmer receives land from the king and discovers a buried golden mortar. He decides to give it to the king out of gratitude, but his clever daughter warns him that the king will surely want him to bring a corresponding pestle as well. When the king throws the farmer into jail for fraud, he...
After trying to smuggle a package into prison for his father Willi, Harry and his girlfriend Marlies also end up in jail. While Harry is billeted with Daddy, Marlies is housed just one floor up in the cell of the ageing prostitute Jutta. With Christmas just around the corner, the four of them join...
It is 1944 and Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels narrowly escapes an assassination attempt on the way to Obersalzberg. It is whispered to him that his rival Heinrich Himmler is the mastermind and that he has also hidden a double of the propaganda minister. Goebbels sets off immediately....
Fritz Schmenkel, a farm worker and soldier in the fascist Wehrmacht, deserts in Belarus in 1941. He wants to survive, makes his way to Russian farmers and comes into contact with Soviet partisans who, after long interrogations by the German teacher and current partisan Miron, take him in as one of...
In a small village in West Prussia in the 1870s, Germans, Poles, Gypsies and Jews live together as neighbors. One night Johann, a German mill-owner, secretly opens the dam gates and floods the mill of his Jewish rival Levin. After his business is ruined and his calls for justice go unanswered,...
The Lübeck merchant Friedemann owes his crippled figure to a wet nurse "devoted to drink". He lives a secluded life with his three simple-minded sisters and his bedridden mother, loving only the theater and music. Only Gerda, the unhappy wife of the district commander of Rinnlingen, makes him...
Johann Paul Schroth is a 20-year-old barber's apprentice who breaks out of the barber-surgeon's trade. Schroth wants to realize his dream, which is to put aside the beard knife and use the scalpel in such a way that people are healed and not tortured...
A Czech woman is kidnapped in Berlin and forced into prostitution. The man behind the kidnapping is a respected businessman. He is on the wanted list, but so far nothing has been proven against him. This changes when a young female detective becomes involved in the investigation.
A train travels through the vastness of Russia, a train with German prisoners of war returning home, and Viktor Kleist, a young German communist from an intellectual home in Munich, travels back home with them. During the journey, the stations on his way to Lenin wake up again.
