October 1918: Karl Liebknecht is released from prison and Berlin workers celebrate his release. Although WWI is almost over, the German Kaiserreich in vain sends its last reserves to the slaughter. The working class is in a rebellious mood; the uprising of Kiel’s sailors against war and...
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...
Young seminary student Franziskus (Benjamin Besson) has been ceremonially ordained. He wants to escape the harshness and injustice of the world and devote himself to the service of God in the quiet seclusion of a monastery. He is also hoping to forget the beautiful lady Aurelie (Jaroslava...
This is part one of a two-part biopic about Karl Liebknecht. In 1914, Germany is arming itself for war. Karl Liebknecht, left-wing revolutionary Social Democrat, workers’ leader and a virulent antimilitarist, is one among 110 SPD members of Parliament who vote against approving war loans. From...
After causing a deadly hit-and-run motorcycle accident, Conny Schenk spends two years in prison, where he is able to complete a printing apprenticeship and is released early for good behavior. While he is still on probation, money is stolen at the company where he works and everyone is quick to...
During the Thirty Years' War, the camp-follower Anna Fierling, called "Mother Courage", travels the length and breadth of Europe with her covered wagon. She does not care if it's Catholics or Protestants she trades with as long as business thrives. She loses her three children as a result of the...
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...
In November of 1939, the British consulate in Norway receives documents saying that the Nazis are conducting secret rocket research in Peenemünde. But the British doubt the authenticity of the so called "Oslo report". Thus, the Germans continue their experiments unimpeded. At the same time,...
Two 17-year-olds, Werner Holt and Gilbert Wolzow, are pulled out of school and into Hitler's army. Gilbert becomes a fanatical soldier; but at the front, Werner begins to understand the senselessness of war.
Dagny Juell was the doctors daughter who left Kongsvinger for Berlin to study music, and became famous painter Edvard Munchs mistress and model. Than she ran into August Strindberg. They had a brief affair but after a couple of weeks Dagny left him for Stanisław Przybyszewski.
A wild story set in eighteenth-century Prussia. Alexander can do everything that a real devil of a fellow must be able to do: ride, shoot, love and devise clever plots. As a result, he is able to climb the ladder from herder to chamber master, where he makes a fool of the feudal lords.
In 1929 Berlin, the progressive editor-in-chief Bornstein is on trial for libel. An article in his magazine attempted to uncover the role that Reichsanwalt Jörns had played ten years earlier in the "clarification" of the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. The article explained that the...
It’s the spring of 1945 in a small resort town on the Baltic. Günter is 16 and firmly believes that the Germans will win the war. During the hunt for a forced labourer who is on the run, Günter catches him and watches as he is shot to death. He proudly accepts the award of an Iron Cross before...
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.
Russian soldier Grisha escapes from a German prisoner-of-war camp in the spring of 1917. He is caught and is to be shot as a spy. This decision is controversial. The dispute continues. Grisha is executed on the orders of the army high command.
During the Second World War, an old fortress is transformed into a detention camp for arrested allied generals who the Germans provide with every possible comfort. In the nearby garrison camp, however, hundreds of captured private soldiers try to survive hunger and cold.
