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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 militarism sets off a call for revolution led by Liebknecht. On November 9, Liebknecht declares the Free Socialist Republic of Germany. But pro-Kaiser military and right wing Social Democrats oppose him.
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.
Mechanic Hannes Blaschke and his wife Maxi, who works as a bus driver, have just become happy parents of twins. Now they have a serious transportation problem: Their Trabant is far too small for the grown family that furthermore includes two sons and a dog. Thanks to the support of a state secretary and of his brigade, Hannes acquires a Tschaika – a limousine that is normally restricted to representational purposes – for a small price. Whereas Maxi views the state carriage only as a useful means of transportation, Hannes enjoys the unusual pre-emption he is receiving for the spectacular car. Hannes, who normally is just a humble guy, starts to grate his colleagues with his new affectations. Thus, they teach him an effective lesson: They decorate the state carriage with flowers and thus bring Hannes back down to earth in a humorous way.
The World War II. 1944. Nazis staged a cache which stores archival documents of its agents, rescued from the east during the retreat, near a small German town Ostburga.
Film by Kurt Jung-Alsen.
In 1523, young Thomas Müntzer arrives with his wife Ottilie in the Thuringian village Allstedt to assume the rectorate. As a follower of Luther′s teachings, he finds in the Bible not only reasons for clerical, but also for secular reforms. But when Luther turns away from the rural population after a discord with Müntzer, it is Müntzer who becomes the peoples′ spokesman. He is forced to go to Southern Germany, where he convenes with revolting farmers. But his way leads him back to Thuringia. In 1525, he and Heinrich Pfeiffer form the centre of the Thuringian peasant uprising in Mühlhausen, but their success is diminished by the fact that peasants and craftsmen don′t seem to be able to work together. In Frankenhausen, Müntzer becomes the leader of a peasants′ army that is set to fighting the ruler′s army – and sustains a devastating loss. Müntzer is arrested and sentenced to death by decapitation for his insurgency.
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 then on, he is considered un-German and a traitor to the fatherland, and his own party’s leadership turns against him. Despite threats, Liebknecht speaks up against the war and writes the manifesto “The Main Enemy Is at Home.” Even when he is arrested and charged with treason, he does not surrender.
A pianist from Poland visits a town in West Germany and starts to remember details about her life during the war.
A fearless Antigone, refusing to allow the dishonored body of her murdered brother Polynices to be devoured by vultures and dogs, defies the Thebian tyrant Creon by burying him.
In this German drama, Brock, a railroad inspector, witnesses a robbery at a train depot. He recognizes the thief, but turning the man in would mean acknowledging he knows him, thus revealing his own complicity with the Nazi war machine. When Brock’s daughter and her boyfriend begin to question him about the incident, will the secret he’s kept for nearly 20 years finally be exposed?
This film continues the story of radio operator Ludwig Bartuschek from “The Sailor’s Song”. Near the end of the Weimar Republic, Bartuschek (Erwin Geschonneck) is working as a mechanic in the Sperber airplane plant. Director Dehringer offers him the opportunity to train as an airplane constructor if he is willing to give up his communist beliefs under oath. Bartuschek will not allow himself to be bought and instead joins the underground resistance movement.
The bricklayer Ulli has received a letter from his girlfriend Sabine asking him to come to her from Berlin as soon as possible. Sabine works as a sales clerk in a small village in the Zittau Mountains near the border with Czechoslovakia. However, when Ulli arrives at the station, Sabine is not waiting for him. He goes alone to the Fuchsbau inn. Sabine's friend Traudel only knows that Sabine has made her way to the station. When she notices that Sabine's room has been cleared out, she calls the police. All the police find in Sabine's room is a map showing a trip to Hamburg. They now consider Sabine to be a fugitive from the republic.
Wolfgang is a bully, but overall he‘s not a bad guy. However, not everyone in Thuringia, where he goes to school, is sympathetic to him and his buddies. His daring adventures often go too far - up to and including stealing three bottles of liquor. Meanwhile, the new head of the boarding school knows how to use the undisputed skills of hooligans for the common good. Together with them he founds the "Cabaret of Debaucheries". With sharp jokes and music, they now pounce on slackers, slackers and drunks - and in the process slowly change for the better.
A new world full of excitement and temptation opens up for 18-year-old Erika when her father flees from Krüselin, a small village in Brandenburg, to West Berlin, taking his daughter with him. Her uncle's luxurious house, the turbulence of life in the big city, and her cousin's progressive thinking and quick wit all turn her head at first. But behind all this glitter and tinsel lurks the cold, hard world of money and Erika begins to feel homesick for the town where she grew up and for Rolf, her first real boyfriend.
It is the 65th birthday of Wilhelm Lehmann, foreman of a chemical company. All members of the large family are expected. Preparations are also being made in the company: Wilhelm is to be awarded the »Labor banner« and, as every year, the sons are responsible for the may bowl. But instead of family members, telegrams with rejections flutter into the house.
During the unloading of the freighter "Florida", West German dock workers discover napalm bombs instead of the specified precision machines - and a deceptive maneuver by the American occupying forces: the workers had already refused to unload the ship in France, where it was named "Chicago". It was refloated on the voyage to Germany. The German dockers also went on strike. Among them was Hein Jensen, who found it particularly difficult to take part. He had just found work again with difficulty. He needs the money because he wants to get married. His bride Helga has just given birth. When the Americans try to blackmail him into changing his colleagues' minds, he knows where his place is. The strike turns into a huge peace demonstration.
During a weekend spent on the island Hiddensee, the snobbish high school student Jan, who has just been expelled from school, meets Christine. Christine is impressed with his bragging attitude although he just uses it to hide his insecurity and his remorse about the fact that he was sacked. Naturally, he keeps quiet about his current situation. Christine’s companion Hannes is less thrilled about Jan. Later on, the three of them meet again at a dockyard in Stralsund. After the disreputable end of his school career, Jan is assigned to the very brigade in which Christine and Hannes work as a crane operator and a brigadier respectively.
In 1944, SS-Obersturmbannführer Becher arrives in Budapest in order to obtain material for the Waffen-SS. At the same time, he starts to gather private property by offering an insidious choice to the corporation′s Jewish majority shareholder, Dr. Chorin: Either Chorin assigns the company to Becker "on his own free will" – thereby obtaining the permission to travel abroad - or he his family will end up in an extermination camp.
Kurt Kars, the young, enthusiastic but rather inexperienced captain of a fishing vessel, lets his ambition drive him into a risky venture. According to a newspaper report, there are excellent fishing grounds in the Arctic Ocean. Against the orders of the combine, he heads for them. A collision with drift ice puts the crew and ship in extreme danger. Kurt proves his worth in this emergency situation, but is called to account on his return. Initially, he wants to resign out of defiance, but then comes to his senses, realizing his guilt. The older captains, who have always kept their fishing grounds a secret and hardly ever passed on their experiences to the collective, realize that they too were not entirely innocent in the "Kars case".
