Irrlicht und Feuer

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.

South America at the beginning of the 1980s. A man is on the run from a group of armed pursuers. He does not manage to escape and is shot down mercilessly. Young Maria witnesses the cruel event and asks her friend, the journalist Oswaldo, to find out about the backgrounds of this case. The police also start to investigate the case and find out that a mysterious German farm is involved in the shooting. But the farm lies in an exterritorial area, thus the police officers cannot investigate any further.

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.

At a GDR farm, VEAB chief Amann bans cabbage in favor of cauliflower, enraging LPG accountant Gritt. Mistaking visiting writer Hans Brauer for a high-level inspector, Amann backpedals, clearing the harvest issue, while Brauer and Gritt spark an unexpected romance.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

Kurt, an apprentice in a fish combine, is an ambitious loner. He wants to show what a good sailor he is at a regatta, but fails because of his recklessness and the storm. Disappointed, he seeks affection from the girl Anke, but she loves the apprentice Hannes. During a trip together with Captain Laue, who presents himself as a fatherly friend to Kurt, the boys get into an argument. However, when Laue makes an unscheduled call at Bornholm and Kurt discovers that Laue wants to sell the cutter's catch and equipment and flee, he buries his differences with Hannes. Together and with the help of the old fisherman Jens, the boys rescue the cutter.

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.

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.

The story of a resistance fighter in the Nazi era: Communist Hans Löning was arrested in 1933, imprisoned in a concentration camp and tortured. The Gestapo plans to smash the resistance group around Löning. Despite the imminent threat to his life, Löning, together with his wife, organized the passive resistance of the Hamburg workers against the Hitler regime. In 1944, Löning was again taken and killed.