Peter Köhncke

Twenty-year-old electronics technician Liane, desperate to escape her broken home, resists a demotion at work and falls for research student Jürgen. Fiercely defending colleague Kalle against unfair accusations, she overshadows her own troubles, including an unplanned pregnancy. When Jürgen betrays her, Liane collapses, and she wonders if a new beginning with steadfast Kalle is possible.

The starting point of the story is a scandalous affair that took place in West Germany at the end of the 1950s. It began with the unexpected death of a member of the Bundestag who was known to the public as a well-paid lawyer and influential man in politics. What was not known, however, was that he mysteriously died of poisoning in a foreign hospital for the poor. It was concealed that the deceased, as a contact person for a Swiss arms company, represented a West German arms contract worth 2.5 billion marks. The Military Counterintelligence Service tried everything to conceal the explosive events...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was the author of Werther, the romantic novel that was transformed into a play during Goethe's lifetime and which initiated the whole German romantic movement. The book's story tells of young love and suicide. In this East German film, based on a book by Thomas Mann, Lotte (Lilli Palmer) was the woman who served as the model for the heroine in the novel Werther. She comes to Goethe's hometown for a visit, and her experiences there eerily re-create episodes from the book. Goethe comes across as a pompous old bore, and his friends as pandering sycophants, in this very proper communist party-sponsored, anti-heroic movie.

Berlin at the end of the 1940s. Anneliese Weyher is working as a switchboard operator. She is living with her aunt after losing her parents in the war – a stroke of fate that has thrown the young woman off course emotionally. Indifferently, she is doing her work; her private life consists of an affair with a black-marketeer. Even when Anneliese witnesses an armed robbery, committed by infamous Wollnick and his gang, she stays lethargic and apathetic – she keeps silent instead of helping the inspector who is a friend of her aunt. It is not until Anneliese by coincidence meets her former lover, the watchmaker Kurt, that her life seems to take a positive turn.

Jakob is a poor farmer′s boy. Because of his timidity that even makes him run away from mice, he is often ridiculed by other people. Even the king is ill-disposed towards him. One day he sends Jakob to the devil to rob him of three golden hairs. This is supposed to be Jakob′s certain death. But naïve Jakob gets going and on his way even promises the oppressed subjects of the king to ask the devil for a way out of their misery.

The clever but poor farmer Klaus infuriates the rich big Klaus with his mischief. But little Klaus always manages to get out of the most difficult situations and emerge victorious in the end. But one day, big Klaus has a fit and wants to drown little Klaus. Now he once again has to rely on his intuition and his wit ...

University ice-sailing trainees face a hostel fire when caretaker Krenzel rescues Captain Klaus’s swapped suitcase, barring him from travel due to a stolen Hogarth print inside. X-rays reveal a hidden engraving; detectives Hübner and Lindt expose forger Sander and Krenzel. After Krenzel’s sabotage fails and both are arrested, Klaus is exonerated and rejoins his team for the international regatta.

Bruno Kappel is an established attorney in Hamburg who, in earlier times, belonged to an anarchistic student circle. His former girlfriend Karin Kunze is still a member of this scene. Bruno, who still has left-wing beliefs, becomes her attorney. But when Karin gets into a shootout with the police, she has to go into hiding. The prosecuting attorney Baller has also been a former member of the anarchistic scene. He does not want his past to be revealed by Karin′s apprehension and prosecution. Thus, he asks Kappel to find Karin and sneak her out to a foreign country.