Heinz-Dieter Knaup

When the two children of the Menzel family are found murdered, the parents come under suspicion of having killed their own children. The fact that the father Andreas is an alcoholic and the mother Katrin has been having an affair for years only makes them even more guilty in the eyes of the public, also thanks to local reporting...

At the beginning of the 1960s, a German turns up on behalf of the NATO in the British village of Rocksmouth. NATO wants to establish a naval base in Rocksmouth, but first, the German envoy has to salvage an old ship wreck. In 1942, the "Princess of India" was supposed to bring children to safety in Canada but was sunk by a German submarine at departure. 58 people were killed, most of them children.

This documentary details the life of Klaus Fuchs who was a spy for the Soviet Union while working on nuclear research in the United States and Great Britain. It also discusses the contributions of German scientists to the atomic bomb.

At the beginning of the 50s, two extremely disparate men meet in a private sanatorium for consumptives: an officer in the People's Police, Josef Heiliger; and a young Protestant curate, Hubertus Koschenz. On account of their consumption, they have to share a room. Initially, this is the only thing they have in common. The film explores Hubertus's struggle with his sexuality within the context of both the church and the socialist state.

A study of German 19th Century Romantic art through the writings and paintings of Carl David Friedrich and his fellow artist, Carl Gustav Carus.

While Dresden is in ruins in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, over two thousand paintings by artists including Rembrandt, Raphael, Rubens, Giorgione, and Vermeer have disappeared from the city’s Old Masters Picture Gallery. Red Army captain Leonov and his soldiers are ordered to recover the lost paintings.

Unknown assailants threaten the life of British scientist Dr. Ronald Fergusson. Only by chance does the attempt to shoot him in the street fail. Fergusson, who does not believe in police protection, hires private detective Weber for his personal safety. And time and again, the headstrong scientist makes it difficult for his bodyguard to fend off further assassination attempts. Despite being expressly forbidden to do so, he leaves the house. Full of bad suspicions, Weber looks for his client in the morgue, but Vivian, Fergusson's employee, doesn't know the dead man...

A story about massive robbery from the safe of German railways set in 1946.

A 15-year-old girl goes into the woods with some friends at night. She is raped by three men. Those who witnessed the crime did nothing and are not keen to testify. The girls father wants justice or revenge.

The young and rebellious Werther is passionately, but hopelessly, in love with Lotte. Although he knows that she is married to somebody who can offer her a secure future, Werther tries to be near her. Lotte cannot decide between these two men. She eventually rejects Werther, who does not survive her decision.

At the end of the 1950s, the production of optics in the German Democratic Republic has reached top quality and instigates interest in the West. When national demand rises strongly and at the same time the export to South America heavily decreases, the Volkspolizei - the GDR police force - starts to look into the case. Two seemingly unrelated cases are the starting point for the investigation by second lieutenant Schellenberg of the department for optics racketeering: An old woman who was arrested in the Berlin city railway for trying to smuggle a pair of binoculars to West Berlin, and a dead person in an area of allotments who was involved in obscure dealings with optical devices.

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 Thomas Mann, Lotte (Lilli Palmer) was the woman who served as the model for the heroine in the novel Werther. She comes to Goethe's hometown for a visit, and her experiences there eerily re-create episodes from the book. Goethe comes across as a pompous old bore, and his friends as pandering sycophants, in this very proper communist party-sponsored, anti-heroic movie.

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 at the illegal meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Germany in goat neck. This period was marked by the struggle of the Communists against the ever stronger National Socialists and the rise of Adolf Hitler.

The 17-year-old commercial student Doris, a young, blameless girl, lives with her relatives without parents. It is the nerve-wracking circumstances that make her very unhappy - the dream and longing for a fulfilled life seems far away. Then she meets a young man who recognizes her situation, takes advantage of it and puts her up as a prostitute in a bar. However, Doris escapes this milieu and works as a nanny in Austria. When the stepson of the house falls in love with her and her past comes to light, disaster strikes.

Victory and demise of the first proletarian dictatorship in the history of mankind, about the struggling, bleeding workers of Paris who enthusiastically defend their historical initiative. The little Cabet family from Rue Pigalle and their friends let the spectator participate in the action.

The magician of the court feels offended by princely arbitrariness and senses for revenge. For this, cinnabar alias "Klein Zaches", a misguided being, seems suitable for him. Unsightly, without mind and talent, Zaches is now endowed with wonderful features. Thus, according to the will of the magician, he shines through the benefits and achievements of others, divides lovers and makes a career at the court. Soon he becomes a threat to the whole country. With united forces, the people try to put an end to the haunting.

A teacher at a German high-school in the nineteen thirties has issues with his students who seem to be getting less human and more convinced of Nazi ideals as time goes on.

In 1896 the Berlin noble doctor Dr. Wilhelm Holtfreter takes over his well-to-do wife Mathilde and takes over the country doctor's office in the Prussian district of Westprignitz from the late Dr. Tochtenhagen. His decision was met with incomprehension everywhere.

The play tells the story of the chronic drunkard and landowner Puntila. When he is drunk, he is virtually free of himself; he develops immense strength in these phases and can really be a human being. Then he wants to fraternize with his chauffeur Matti, wants to give him a forest and a sawmill, and even wants to give him his daughter as his wife. Puntila could accomplish many, many more good deeds in his frenzy, but when he returns to a sober state, Puntila reveals himself to be the "black sheep" of his capitalist class and an insignificant person. His classmate reads him the riot act and shows him the limits of this species, which Puntila can never break. GDR television showed the play in a production by the Berliner Ensemble.

In Chicago of the 1920s, crime gangs are fighting a bitter battle for power. Gangster boss Bill Cracker plans a bank robbery with his cronies in Bill's Ballhouse just as the ladies of the Salvation Army enter. Among them is the magical Lilian, who Bill immediately falls for. This has an impact on the planned coup. Shootouts, chases, and the fight for the big money are the ingredients to this comedy, whose famous songs Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill wrote.

Polizeiruf 110 is a long-running German language detective television series. The first episode was broadcast 27 June 1971 in the German Democratic Republic, and after the dissolution of Fernsehen der DDR the series was picked up by ARD. It was originally created as a counterpart to the West German series Tatort, and quickly became a public favorite.

Peter Strohm is a private detective with radical methods. His work begins where police work ends; he takes on sensitive cases that require a certain scale, or explosive situations that can lead to international crises.

A funny comedy about a various adventures of Körner (Grains) family and their dog.

Vera is Secretary at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. During a business trip to the USA, she learns that US nuclear missiles are to be stationed in Western Europe.

Galileo Galilei seeks evidence to support the Copernican model of the universe, but the new theory contradicts Church dogma. Based on the design of a telescope sold in Holland, he constructs a telescope for astronomers, which he uses to substantiate his hypotheses..