Die Geburt der deutschen Nation: 1806-1849

TV-Documentary on German history

1989-01-01 | de

Die Mutigen 56 - Deutschlands längster Streik

Emma Freese is desperate when her husband Alfred falls ill at the Howaldtswerke in Kiel. How is the family supposed to get by without their wages? The war has scarred this generation, but now things are supposed to be looking up. The workers want their fair share and are fighting for an income that also gives them room to live. In October 1956, 34,000 metalworkers in the shipyards and factories of Schleswig-Holstein walk off the job to fight for justice and their dignity. This strike is still regarded as the toughest and longest in Germany. Employers and politicians stand in the strikers' way.

2024-04-28 | de

Die Bundesstrassen - Stiefkinder des Wirtschaftswunders

The mineral oil tax and its use are taken as an opportunity to examine the topics of road construction and motor vehicle traffic using the example of West German federal highways.

1957-09-19 | de

Wie konnte es geschehen? - Teil 1: "Deutschland erwache..." (1914 - 1938)

In 1945, 160 German cities lay in ruins and the loss of millions of lives, billions in material assets and countless cultural treasures was mourned throughout Europe... With the question “How could it happen?”, the film goes back to the year 1914, when the “primal catastrophe of the 20th century” took its course with the First World War.

2006-01-01 | de

Potsdam Builds Up

Documenting the rebuilding of Potsdam one year after the war under Soviet supervision.

1946-11-14 | de

Die Dichter und die Räterepublik

Documentary film with play scenes about the rise and fall of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 from the perspective of various well-known poets and writers who experienced the events as contemporary witnesses.

1990-01-01 | de

Die kalten Ringe

19 years after the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan, the Olympic Games of 1964 took place in Tokyo. In the midst of the cold war, the games are supposed to become a symbol for a peaceful world. Especially the divided Germany is expected to prove this: By order of the IOC, both German states must participate in Tokyo with a joint team despite deep ideological rifts. The fact that athletes from both German states still had to compete against each other in order to form a joint team for the 1964 Olympic Games in Innsbruck and in Tokyo is all but forgotten. The film tells the story of the East-West German team of 1964 for the first time and is simultaneously a current document about the relation of sports and politics in international relations.

2021-07-19 | de

Verbotene Liebe - Queere Opfer der NS-Diktatur

Sexual minorities were oppressed, imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis. Paragraph 175 criminalized homosexual men during the Nazi era – but the Nazis also discriminated against lesbians and trans people. They should be excluded from the national community. More than 50,000 queer people have been proven to have been persecuted. The documentary highlights three poignant fates in the context of Nazi terror.

2024-01-16 | de

Joan Baez: I Am a Noise

Since her debut at the age of 18, musician, civil rights campaigner and activist Joan Baez has been on stage for over 60 years. For the now 82-year-old, the personal has always been political, and her friendship with Martin Luther King and her pacifism have shaped her commitment. In this biography that opens with her farewell tour, Baez takes stock in an unsparing fashion and confronts sometimes painful memories.

2023-10-06 | en

Wilhelm II. - Die letzten Tage des deutschen Kaiserreichs

Documentary about the end of the regency of Kaiser Wilhelm II., Germany's last emperor.

2007-01-01 | de

Money for Bread

Women from Turkey and Mecklenburg are working together side-by-side at a fish-processing factory in Lübeck. As they work, they share stories about their lives, including their sorrows, griefs, hopes, and dreams, while expressing their longing for home and feelings of being lost in a foreign place.

1994-01-01 | tr

Time Loops - A Conversation with Christa Wolf

Journalist Daniela Dahn interviews the East-German author Christa Wolf during the German reunification: reflections on history, changing politics, life and work.

1991-01-02 | de

Nazi-Karrieren in der DDR?

It was a foundational myth of the GDR that it was anti-fascist and free of Nazis. But was that really the case? The film takes a critical look on the actual way the brown heritage was dealt with in the GDR.

2016-11-29 | de

Russen und Deutsche - Sieben historische Wendepunkte

2021-02-27 | de

Woher kommst du eigentlich? Schwarze in Deutschland

Prejudices, ignorance, and racism still leave their mark on the everyday life of black Germans, respectively Europeans, until today. How do Afro-Germans deal with their history? Which colonial-racist patterns still shape our society today? With insights into various historic epochs, it is made clear that THE history of the Black people does not exist. And neither exists THE history of white people.

2021-09-29 | de

Spielball der Weltpolitik – Als Elten niederländisch wurde

It is an unknown chapter of the German post-war history: On April 23rd, 1949, the kingdom of the Netherlands occupied German soil as a pledge for demanded war reparations. Part of the annexed territories was also the small municipality of Elten. While the people of Elten were initially afraid of the occupation, the time “with Holland” actually became a miracle of prosperity and economy about which many people from Elten still rave today. The occupation period ended with the largest organized smuggling in the history of the federal republic of Germany. The Documentary shows this in never before released 8 mm footage!

2021-05-06 | de

Hitler's Putsch: The Birth of the Nazi Party

The night of November 8, 1923, is arguably the most significant and transformative in the history of the twentieth century. A localised uprising in the Bavarian capital of Munich, led by a small man with a toothbrush moustache and a poisonous yet compelling grandiloquence, would have repercussions that would lead to the political shackling of an entire nation, the most abhorrent crimes of the century and a world war. You might say, Adolf Hitler came of age amid the smell of sweat and sawdust of a Munich beer hall. In the political chaos of 1923, he was a local irritant, gaining popularity among workers and soldiers, the ethos of his Nazi Party spreading like a virus. His first attempt at attaining true power came with an attempted putsch on the already separatist government of Bavaria, which left him imprisoned.

2023-03-21 | en

Countdown To 1990 : La Réunification de l'Allemagne

2020-01-01 | fr

Die Sekretäre

The film talks about the rise and fall of the two most influential protagonists in GDR-politics. In succession, over long stretches even together, Ulbricht and Honecker determined the course of the GDR, of course without ever getting out of being a satellite state to the big brother in Moscow. The film looks for the caesura and crucial points in the power game between Ulbricht and Honecker.

1999-10-07 | de

Kasama Kang Tumanda

A filmmaker follows her grandparents’ daily life after her chain-smoker and alcoholic grandmother is forced to stop drinking beer for a month.

2024-05-02 | tl