Gerhard Lau
The five-part feature, based on the novel by Helmut Sakowski, focuses on the friendly but also rival relationship between Druskat and the self-righteous Max Stephan, an old pal with different attitudes towards life and socialism . Druskat came to Mecklenburg as a refugee after World War II, became an integral part of the community, but also repeatedly caused a stir. Since the death of his wife he lives only with his daughter Anja, although there were enough women who wanted to be with him. Now he´s chairman of the LPG, the "volutary" federation for agriculture and animal husbandry. One evening, two men from the public prosecutor's office come to pick him up. He seems prepared, but Anja doesn't know why. Her first way leads her to Max Stephan, LPG chairman in the neighboring village. She happened to be there during the last argument between them, Max threatened to literally destroy Daniel. Did he carry out this threat? In conversations with the villagers, she gradually learns the truth.
15-year old Klaus Kambor, called Kurbel, is living in a village in Lusatia and already thinks of himself as an adult. He can hold a lot of rhubarb wine and has already kissed a girl. But with his new method of lawn mowing, which he thinks is brilliant, Klaus makes a big mistake: He causes a wild fire in the forest. Then he does not react adult-like at all, but shirks the responsibility, which leads to the break-up with his girlfriend Daniela. Furthermore, Klaus does not realize that several of the places he likes the most in his environment are now going to be sacrificed to mining. When Klaus becomes friends with the teacher Konzak and with the construction worker Jule, he feels understood for the first time and starts to take more responsibility.
In 1920, Michael, the son of a German laboring man, decides to travel to Russia. As "red horseman" he wants to support the socialist revolution and fight for the welfare of the working class. The journey towards the east turns out to be both a big adventure and a severe ethical test for the young man. He has to escape the German Armed Forces and ends up at a traveling circus where he falls in love with Fanny, a dressage rider. He overcomes the temptation to stay with her at the circus and - after briefly joining a gang of teenage thieves - he eventually boards a ship heading east. Aboard the ship he finds out that the seamen are transporting weapons for the hostile members of the White Army.
August 1961. The former Foreign Legionnaire, King, has collected a gang of hooligans, with whom he creates mischief in the GDR. After some careless work on a construction site, an event during which two people lose their lives, they move to a campsite on the Baltic Sea. With sputtering mopeds, loud radios, and occasional outbursts, the gang makes the vacationers' lives living hell. Unfortunately for them, Lieutenant Czernik discovers the connection between them and the accident at the construction site. To stop them from fleeing to West Berlin, Lieutenant Czernik and the police need to arrest them, one at a time, with King as the last.
First of two propaganda films about German communist leader Ernst Thälmann that follows him from the Western Front in 1918 through the Hamburg Uprising of 1923.
