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.
Lydia Kowalenko is fired from the pharmaceutical company where she has worked for many years because she refused to help cover up the use of a dangerous chemical. Her daughter Katja, however, has no scruples and risks an operation which is more beneficial to her own medical research than to 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,...
After a breakdown, Rita returns to her childhood village in 1961. As she recovers, she remembers the past two years: her love for the chemist Manfred, ten years her senior; how his enthusiasm about his new chemical process turned to bitter disappointment in the face of official rejection; how he...
After a fierce argument Steffi Zinn′s husband leaves the joint flat and stays away from home over night. The next morning, his wife Steffi has disappeared and is reported as a missing person. Captain Lohm takes over the case and at first looks for signs of a murder, but to no avail. Then,...
The architect Daniel Brenner is in his late thirties when he receives his first challenging and lucrative commission: to design a cultural center for a satellite town in East-Berlin. He accepts the offer under the condition that he gets to choose who he works with. This way, he reunites with former...
With a career that includes a 35-year tenure as composer of the Berlin Philharmonic and record sales topping 200 million, Herbert von Karajan is one of the most legendary figures in 20th-century classical music. Comprised of archival footage, performance highlights and interviews with the likes of...
Ede falls in love with Unku, a girl from a travelling circus. Love cannot run smoothly however because Unku is a Gypsy. Various adventures take place before love is finally allowed to run its natural course.
Inge Herold is in her mid-thirties. She is divorced and lives with her 15-year-old son. She works as a psychologist and social worker and is involved with a married man. Suddenly, Inge finds out she may have breast cancer, which would mean an operation the very next day. The 24 hours before the...
Last years in the Life of german Dramatican Georg Büchner. Around the year 1830 he and his fellow students try to initiate a revolution in Germany, but they are not successful. Büchner has to leave the country and seeks exile in France and Switzerland, where he falls ill with typhus.
While studying in Moscow, the GDR resident Christiane falls in love with Hatem, a fellow student from Syria. The two become a couple and have a child together. When their study draws to an end, Christiane and Hatem have to decide if they want to share their future together.
Otto Scheidel (Manfred Krug) has been captain of the Elbe steamer Jenissei for over twenty years, but his ship, the last of its kind, is going to be converted into a floating restaurant. Otto, whose his strong attachment to the ship has already cost him his relationship with his girlfriend Caramba...
Elias, born at the end of the war, receives an anonymous phone call on his 47th birthday: his parents are dead. He is now a successful politician, but thirty years ago he had fled from his home and parents in the East to seek a new life in the West. The return to his parental home causes Elias a...
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.
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...
