Bassam Abu Sharif

A documentary on Jacques Vergès, the controversial lawyer and former Free French Forces guerrilla, exploring how Vergès assisted, from the 1960s onwards, anti-imperialist terrorist cells operating in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Participants interviewed include Algerian nationalists Yacef Saadi, Zohra Drif, Djamila Bouhired and Abderrahmane Benhamida, Khmer Rouge members Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, once far-left activists Hans-Joachim Klein and Magdalena Kopp, terrorist Carlos the Jackal, lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, neo-Nazi Ahmed Huber, Palestinian politician Bassam Abu Sharif, Lebanese politician Karim Pakradouni, political cartoonist Siné, former spy Claude Moniquet, novelist and ghostwriter Lionel Duroy, and investigative journalist Oliver Schröm.

It is a horror scenario that unfolds on September 5, 1972, in the Olympic Village in Munich. Eight Palestinian terrorists sneak into the Israeli team’s quarters, kill two Israelis, and take nine others hostage. The German security forces are completely unprepared for such a crisis situation. When, after tough negotiations, the terrorists and their hostages are to be flown out, the police prepare a rescue operation at the Fürstenfeldbruck military airport. But that is when disaster strikes.

A documentary about the killing of American activist Rachel Corrie by an Israeli military bulldozer while she was protecting Palestinian homes from demolition in the Gaza Strip in 2003.

"Operation OPEC - Terror Attack in Vienna" - On December 21, 1975, six terrorists including the Germans Gabriele Tiedemann and Hans-Joachim Klein, led by Venezuelan top terrorist Carlos, attack the participants of the OPEC conference in Vienna and take eleven oil ministers and dozens of employees hostage. The action kills three people. The lavishly researched film reveals the background of the spectacular attack and establishes connections. The investigators, former hostages and some of the terrorists involved are heard.

The spectrum of topics ranges from political history with a focus on contemporary history (especially National Socialism and post-war history) to cultural history and social history. In addition, ZDF-History also regularly deals with pre-modern history, art and cultural history.