Christian Twente

Nowadays we associate Johannes Kepler with his famous laws of planetary motion. But the history of his discoveries is a drama of Shakespearian proportions - full of intrigue, passion, depravity and corruption.

On 13 November 2015, Paris is rocked by terrorist attacks. The football stadium where the German national team is playing is also affected. Documentary featuring Oliver Bierhoff and others.

Since September 2023, Tommi Schmitt has been accompanying national team players Marc ter Stegen, Robin Gosens and Niclas Füllkrug in the crucial preparation phase before the European Championship.

The story of the Trojan Horse is probably one of the most famous stories ever told: after ten years of bloody war, the Greek coalition decides to lift the siege and depart, but not before leaving at the gates a huge wooden horse, which the Trojans confidently lead into the city. A few hours later, the once invincible Troy goes up in flames. What exactly happened? Is this myth true or false?

Artificial intelligence harbors opportunities and risks. What if humans were to build machines that make faster and fairer decisions? Could such a machine make the world a better place - or would it be our downfall? It tells the fictional story of Mari and her husband Tom. In the near future, the lawyer is replaced by an AI: it works more efficiently.

The documentary tells the exciting story of the beginnings of surgery through to its specialization - a fascinating journey through time from the Stone Age with the first skull openings through antiquity and the early modern era to the first heart operation. The film was shot at the most important locations in the history of surgery - including Italy, France, Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Hungary and the USA. The film contains fascinating and partly unpublished archive material.

Behind the myth of Alexander the Great, romanticized by centuries of history, the reality of the character tends to fade. Here's a rereading of the story of a multi-faceted conqueror.

On operated by Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck the German Empire is finally founded in 1871 on the floors of Versailles castle, ancestral seat of the French monarchy.

The final decades of the Roman Republic: For nearly a hundred years, the rival aristocratic cliques that dominated politics had been fighting each other for power. The newcomer Octavian, underestimated by many, fought ruthlessly and cruelly for sole rule. He was the nephew of Julius Caesar, who allied himself with Mark Antony after his assassination. Soon, these two, too, were fighting each other. Historians have called Octavian a "butcher." Yet, with the honorary name Augustus, "the Exalted," he went down in history as a peacetime emperor.

On June 26, 1813, Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens von Metternich went to meet Napoleon Bonaparte at his headquarters in Dresden, in the Kingdom of Saxony. Although the French emperor still dominated Europe, the disastrous Russian campaign had sapped his military power. Could France continue to count on Austria's support? A nine-hour private meeting would decide the fate of Europe.

On the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth, the docu-drama paints a multifaceted portrait of the most influential German thinker of modern times. The world-famous actor Mario Adorf embodies the equally contradictory and contradictory world spirit, in the dichotomy of prophetic confidence and fear of failure. An exciting cinematic journey through his life and work.

Augustus is reputed to have been a violent, adventurous, power-hungry and unscrupulous warlord. Yet as founder of the Roman Empire, he ushered in a period of peace and prosperity. Drawing on the analysis of several historians, this documentary traces an extraordinary destiny: posthumously adopted by his great-uncle Julius Caesar, Octavian, the future Augustus, accepted an inheritance fraught with consequences. Having made his own empire prosper, he wrote his political will at the age of 76, without naming an heir. How was the succession of this childless strategist organized?

They say it's over 2000 years old, and more than 4,000 miles long. But even today nobody really knows for sure. The Great Wall of China is one of the world's famous buildings but it is still the least known. British writer and historian William Lindesay has lived in China for twenty years. Exploring the Great Wall has become his lifetime obsession.

Dany Dattel, a survivor of Auschwitz, where he was deported as a child, returns to the concentration camp eighty years later and tells of the two persecutions to which he fell victim in the course of his life.

Germany loves biathlon – and you’ve never been this close to the stars. The documentary series accompanies them through a dramatic year and shows tears, pressure, and emotional moments from the inner workings of the team. It tells of fierce competition and the struggle to return to the top of the world in 2024/25. The camera is there when there are arguments, laughter, and celebrations behind the scenes – as in the case of Franziska Preuß’s spectacular overall World Cup title.

MISSION X tracks down the mysteries that triggered spectacular turning points in our history. Alert minds with the courage to go new and different ways, with ideas and a sense of adventure, created the remarkable turns of events that were responsible for making us what we are today.

The German national football team wants to be the world’s best once again at the World Cup in Qatar. After being eliminated in the preliminary round of the 2018 World Cup and in the last 16 at the 2021 European Championship, the former world champions want another title. But again their journey ends in the preliminary round. Exclusive behind-the-scenes insights show their dramatic failure.

Die Deutschen is a German television documentary produced for ZDF that first aired from October to November 2008. Each episode recounts a selected epoch of German history, beginning with the reign of Otto the Great and ending with the collapse of the German Empire at the end of the First World War. In November 2010 the second season of Die Deutschen was published in German television, beginning with Charlemagne, the Frankish King, and ending with Gustav Stresemann, the Chancellor and Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. Historical events are recreated through a combination of live action scenes and computer generated animations. The series was filmed at over 200 different locations in Germany, Malta, and Romania at a cost of approximately €500,000 per episode.

This series deals with the mass migration of Germanic tribes at the very beginning of European history, when Rome raced toward collapse.