Hajo Gies

This TV movie focuses on an average East German citizen, who accidentally becomes a Cold War victim. Shortly before his wedding day, East German Stephan Busemann goes to West Germany to attend his brother Hubert's fiftieth birthday. At the same time, his son Martin and his daughter-in-law Bettina flee their communist home country in a balloon, what Stephan didn't know. As the East Germans believe he helped them to escape, he isn't allowed to return, so Martin writes a letter to the country's leader Erich Honecker. However, now the West Germans think that Stephan is a spy.

The shady businessman Klaus Mandel (Christopher Waltz) spends time in Belgium prison for allegedly having set fire to a building in an insurance scam, that cost the live of an accountant. In order to get time off, Mandel offers to testify against his former partner and best friend Krieger (Matthias Redlhammer). Retired Cop Schimanski (Götz George), now living on a houseboat in Belgium, is asked to transport Mandel across the border to Germany and hand him over to the authorities there. Schimanski agrees reluctantly, but the pair – snobbish Mandel and proletarian Schimanski, who once attempted to book Mandel – make uneven travel-companions. The journey is interrupted when a pair of Romanian hit men tries to kill Mandel. Now tied together by handcuffs, Schimanski and Mandel have to find their way to safety via car, train or on foot.

A routine mission ends up in a flaming inferno when a house suddenly explodes. It looks like a spectacular suicide attempt but the technical investigation reveals unexpected evidence. Beck and his men are soon on the tracks of a narcotic syndicate...

Pit is in his early 20s and meets the attractive singer Caro. He wants to impress her but lacks the resources. He comes up with the idea to saw off the roof of his car and turn it into a snappy convertible.

Christa Seeliger is proud and happy to work as a secretary for the boss of the traditional Hamburg company Hansecker, because his chocolate factory is famous for having invented the smiling chocolate Santa Claus. It would never occur to her that her boss would much rather be cruising the world's oceans than running his company. So she unsuspectingly allows herself to be used for his purposes when Hansecker secretly sells off the company.

In 1967, fate on a North German dike miraculously brings together the Black Forest cuckoo clock maker Gottlieb Dobischauf with his chosen one Leonore. The two marry, start a family and open the first cuckoo clock factory in the North, which achieves considerable success with the company motto "punctuality, precision, perfection".

Hans-Dieter Anhäuser, owner of a joke articles factory, is a creep. He cheats on his wife, neglects his children, bullies his employees - and all just before Christmas. But then he has an accident, falls into a coma and experiences his own funeral in a dream. In the process, he learns what everyone really thinks of him. To make matters worse, he meets his deceased father-in-law, the former factory owner, who tells him that he, Hans-Dieter, has one last chance. If he doesn't manage to make his family happy by Christmas, he will send him to hell on Christmas Eve.

The unscrupulous police commissioner Schimanski shakes down patrons of a techno dance club in the drug-drenched Ruhr district.