Die Kolonie

As Long as There’s Life in Me

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.

Die Beteiligten

The body of young Christa Gellert is fished out of the water in a small town on the Elbe in the spring of 1964. Everything points to an accident - Christa drowned while picking willow catkins during an official trip with town councillor Stegmeier and his colleague Anna Sell. That's what the people involved say, but then rumors start to spread. Detective Hans Gregor investigates. His boss Erwin Müller, who has known the councillor for many years, is unamused. When questioning the witnesses, Gregor only comes across hints. An exhumation of the dead is carried out. It is discovered that Christa was pregnant. Her colleague Helga, a former student on probation, knows about the councilman's relationship with Christa. But she is afraid to testify. Gregor has to fight his way through a web of dependencies, career thinking and mistrust until he solves the case.

The Brigade-Leader’s Hat

Young construction worker Ralf Reider leaves his home village Katzsprung in the Rhön mountains during the "Berlin Initiative". In the capital, he wants to earn enough money in construction to build his own house for his wife and his child. But Ralf is an unconventional character who soon becomes an outsider because of his behaviour.

Brot und Rosen

At the VII Party Congress of the SED, a delegate tells a reporter his life story: 18-year-old returning soldier Georg Lendau ends up in a small village in 1945. He is starving and sick. Mayor Kallam helps. Later, they meet again; Kallam is now the director of a heavy engineering company. He gives Georg, who is a lathe operator, work. But Kallam has more plans for him and wants to send him to university. Georg refuses. An extra shift, which he only did so that he could buy his future wife wedding shoes, brings him into conflict with backward colleagues - and the realization that you first have to work better if you want to live better. He followed this insight with action, becoming a master craftsman, comrade and student.

Reserved for the Death

Former East German engineer Erich Becker had been lured to West Germany by promises of a high reward. Now residing in Stockholm, he is recalled to serve as a spy in the East. He is to convince Dr. Jadenburg to flee from the GDR with the help of his daughter Hanna, who works for the West. While travelling on the train with Hanna, he is told that he is also to murder another agent who betrayed and now works for the Stasi. The traitor is revealed to be a former friend of Becker, Harry Korb.

Tanz am Sonnabend-Mord?

A Saturday evening dance in the village pub is interrupted when the barn of local farmer Paul Gäbler catches on fire. The farmer himself is soon found – hanged. Sawmill owner Züllich claims that Gäbler committed suicide because he was forced to join an agricultural production cooperative, but others are convinced Gäbler was murdered. Officers Schneider and Anders must navigate their way through a complex maze of personal and political motivations in order to reconstruct the crime.

KLK Calling PTZ – The Red Orchestra

East German film about the history of Red Orchestra, a real life German pro-Soviet spy ring created after the rise of Hitler that turned into a resistance movement led by a leftist Nazi officer, Harro Schulze-Boysen, and Arvid Harnack.

Der Lude

Berlin in the early 1930s. Bello is an unemployed young man who loves the underage Frieda. In order to earn a living for both of them, Frieda goes on the streets. An inspector from the political department takes advantage of this to blackmail Bello into providing informer services. But that's not all. A jealousy murder among pimps, whose victim is a high-ranking Nazi, is blamed on the Communists, and Bello is supposed to be the key witness. He refuses. When the Nazis come to power, they reopen the case to turn the murdered man into a martyr. Bello still refuses. He now believes he is safe because Frieda is now of age. But he pays for his refusal with his life.

Irrlicht und Feuer

Jürgen Fohrmann works as a hauer underground. In the course of the coal crisis, his mine closes - he loses the work. In this mood, his wife's prosperity thinking gets on his nerves - his marriage threatens to break. The dismissed coal buddy applys, first becomes an auxiliary worker, but then receives a job in an automated operation of the electrical industry and believes to have socially risen through this "clean work". Fohrmann quickly realizes that wearing a "white coat" is only seemingly better than the arduous work in the pit and understands that he can no longer stay out of the work struggles of the buddies.

Brandstellen

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.

Schritt für Schritt

Zwischen Nacht und Tag

Episodes from the life of German poet and communist Erich Weiner: his stay in Paris, participation in the Spanish Civil War, years of exile in Russia. Moscow, May 1941. Children play in the sun, young people fall in love, make plans for their future. German emigrants, including 50-year-old Erich, are concerned about events in their homeland and sense impending disaster...

Skimeister von Morgen

Des Drachens grauer Atem

Professor Wilkers saw the trip to Thailand as a welcome change. But already in Bangkok, the starting point of his research into the origin of the drugs whose abuse he is trying to combat as a member of an international commission, he encounters extreme contradictions. The Swiss doctor is tempted to solve them, as the claims of the rich silk manufacturer Tracy Blake sound truthful and bitter, yet extremely strange. Leo Wilkers decides to embark on a life-threatening venture: He moves into the mountains near the border with Burma. Up there, in the village of Muong Nan, whose headman is at the same time in prison in Bangkok worrying about who in the capital might be interested in his arrest, Wilkers learns about the necessity of poppy cultivation in these areas.

Im Sonderauftrag

A warship returning from a training exercise was tasked with apprehending an unknown schooner that had violated GDR territorial waters. Although nothing illegal was found during the search of the ship, the ship's commander Fischer was suspicious of the owner of the schooner, Arendt, a former lieutenant of a Nazi coastal battery. Fischer's doubts were confirmed when a diver came aboard the schooner and photographed a military object underwater. The investigation showed that the detained schooner was on a sabotage mission, and the "activities" of Arendt, a former Gestapo Obersturmführer, were also revealed.

Family Gang

The worker Frank Raban lives with his wife and young daughter in a room in his mother's apartment. He builds his own home and sometimes procures materials illegally. When an after-work bricklayer wants to be paid in forum checks, Frank strikes outraged and ends up in front of the public prosecutor. His brigade vouches for him. His two West Berlin brothers Markus and Olaf help him out with money, but the price is high. Markus runs an antiques business - with stolen art treasures from the GDR. He uses the family ties to the East for his burglaries. When a museum guard is murdered by Markus and Olaf, Frank tells his wife everything. She tries to convince him to turn himself in to the police.