german history
41 movies and shows
The Painted Bird
Thu, 12 Sep 2019
After losing his parents, a young Jewish boy wanders Eastern Europe, seeking refuge during World War II.
Fabian: Going to the Dogs
Thu, 05 Aug 2021
In 1930s Berlin, Dr. Jakob Fabian, who works by day in advertising for a cigarette company and by night wanders the streets of the city, falls in love with an actress. As her career begins to blossom, prospects for his future begin to wane.
Ordinary Men: The "Forgotten Holocaust"
Tue, 25 Jan 2022
Six million Jews died during World War II, both in the extermination camps and murdered by the mobile commandos of the Einsatzgruppen and police battalions, whose members shot men, women and children, day after day, obediently, as if it were a normal job, a fact that is hardly known today. Who were these men and how could they commit such crimes?
Das Boot Revisited: An Underwater Success Story
Sun, 10 Jan 2021
In 1981, a film about the misadventures of a German U-boat crew in 1941 becomes a worldwide hit almost four decades after the end of the World War II. Millions of viewers worldwide make Das Boot the most internationally successful German film of all time. But due to disputes over the script, accidents on the set, and voices accusing the makers of glorifying the war, the project was many times on the verge of being cancelled.
Stammheim - Zeit des Terrors
Thu, 24 Apr 2025
The Stammheim trial against the leadership of the first generation of the RAF was one of the most elaborate in the Federal Republic of Germany. Through this trial, Stammheim also became a place of identity for the RAF. The docudrama uses the perspective of Horst Bubeck, who as a prison officer in the cell wing had the most intensive contact with the prisoners, to shed new light on the history.
Goering's Catalogue: A Collection of Art and Blood
Sun, 14 Mar 2021
For more than a decade, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler's right-hand man during the infamous Third Reich, assembled a collection of thousands of works of art that were meticulously catalogued.
Love, Deutschmarks and Death
Thu, 06 Oct 2022
Cem Kaya’s dense documentary essay celebrates 60 years of Turkish music in Germany. An alternative post-war history that is at the same time a musical Who’s Who – from Yüksel Özkasap to Derdiyoklar and Muhabbet.
Hitler's Hollywood
Thu, 23 Feb 2017
Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1933, when the Nazis came into power, until 1945, when the Third Reich collapsed. (A sequel to From Caligari to Hitler, 2015.)
Merkel
Thu, 24 Nov 2022
Driven by extensive archive material and interviews with those who know her, this is the astonishing story of how a triple outsider – a woman, a scientist, and an East German – became the de facto leader of the “Free World”, told for the first time for an international audience.
The Wannsee Conference: The Documentary
Wed, 19 Jan 2022
It was arguably the deadliest conference in human history. The topic: plans to murder 11 million Jews in Europe. The participants were not psychopaths, but educated men from the SS, police, administration and ministries. The invitation to the meeting at Wannsee came from Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office. The Wehrmacht's campaigns of conquest in Eastern Europe marked the beginning of the systematic murder of Jews in Poland and the Soviet Union. In mid-September 1941, Hitler made the decision to deport all Jews from Germany to the East. Although there had been transports before, Hitler's order represented a further escalation in the murderous decision-making process. Persecution and discrimination had been part of everyday life since 1933. But as a result, the living conditions for the Jews in the Third Reich became even more difficult, among them the Berlin Jew Margot Friedländer, born in 1921, and the Chotzen family.
Die Mutigen 56 - Deutschlands längster Streik
Sun, 28 Apr 2024
Emma Freese is desperate when her husband Alfred falls ill at the Howaldtswerke in Kiel. How is the family supposed to get by without their wages? The war has scarred this generation, but now things are supposed to be looking up. The workers want their fair share and are fighting for an income that also gives them room to live. In October 1956, 34,000 metalworkers in the shipyards and factories of Schleswig-Holstein walk off the job to fight for justice and their dignity. This strike is still regarded as the toughest and longest in Germany. Employers and politicians stand in the strikers' way.
Verbotene Liebe - Queere Opfer der NS-Diktatur
Tue, 16 Jan 2024
Sexual minorities were oppressed, imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis. Paragraph 175 criminalized homosexual men during the Nazi era – but the Nazis also discriminated against lesbians and trans people. They should be excluded from the national community. More than 50,000 queer people have been proven to have been persecuted. The documentary highlights three poignant fates in the context of Nazi terror.
Landauer: Gefeiert, verbannt, vergessen
Thu, 18 Sep 2014
Documentary about Kurt Landauer, the long-time Jewish president of FC Bayern München, who led the club to its first German championship, was persecuted and forced out of office by the Nazis, and rebuilt the club after the war.
Avenging Evil
Thu, 02 May 2019
In 1946, just after the end of World War II, a secret organization of Holocaust survivors plans a terrible revenge: since the Nazis have killed millions of Jews, they will kill millions of Germans.
Tage des Sturms
Wed, 07 May 2003
On June 17, 1953, there was an outrageous action between the Elbe and the Oder: the people in the GDR refused obedience to their political leadership. The story takes place in Bitterfeld and tells the story of a family involved in the political events around 17 June.
Spielball der Weltpolitik – Als Elten niederländisch wurde
Thu, 06 May 2021
It is an unknown chapter of the German post-war history: On April 23rd, 1949, the kingdom of the Netherlands occupied German soil as a pledge for demanded war reparations. Part of the annexed territories was also the small municipality of Elten. While the people of Elten were initially afraid of the occupation, the time “with Holland” actually became a miracle of prosperity and economy about which many people from Elten still rave today. The occupation period ended with the largest organized smuggling in the history of the federal republic of Germany. The Documentary shows this in never before released 8 mm footage!
Hitler's Putsch: The Birth of the Nazi Party
Tue, 21 Mar 2023
The night of November 8, 1923, is arguably the most significant and transformative in the history of the twentieth century. A localised uprising in the Bavarian capital of Munich, led by a small man with a toothbrush moustache and a poisonous yet compelling grandiloquence, would have repercussions that would lead to the political shackling of an entire nation, the most abhorrent crimes of the century and a world war. You might say, Adolf Hitler came of age amid the smell of sweat and sawdust of a Munich beer hall. In the political chaos of 1923, he was a local irritant, gaining popularity among workers and soldiers, the ethos of his Nazi Party spreading like a virus. His first attempt at attaining true power came with an attempted putsch on the already separatist government of Bavaria, which left him imprisoned.
German Watergate
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An aspiring young politician named Willy Brandt wants to become German Chancellor, but the current Chancellor Konrad Adenauer wants to prevent this at all costs and by any means necessary. Adenauer has the secret service and old alliances with a Nazi past on his side and has Brandt's election campaign spied on and torpedoed by informants in the party executive. He pulls out all the tricks to outdo the charismatic Brandt. The Federal Chancellor does not stop at damaging his reputation and defaming him - all in order to maintain his power and defeat the supposed communist "enemy".
Karajan: Portrait of a Maestro
Sun, 22 Sep 2019
An account of the life and work of controversial German orchestra conductor Herbert von Karajan (1908-89), celebrated as one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century.
Die Dichter und die Räterepublik
Mon, 01 Jan 1990
Documentary film with play scenes about the rise and fall of the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 from the perspective of various well-known poets and writers who experienced the events as contemporary witnesses.