Erwin Geschonneck

The Cap Arcona Case (1996)

On May 3, 1945, with Hitler already dead and Hamburg and Berlin having surrendered, the Royal Air Force launched its last major air raid. The target was a collection of ships in the Bay of Kiel and Lübeck. The largest ships, the floating concentration cam ...

Matulla und Busch (1995)

Mensch, mein Papa...! (1988)

Pensioner Erich Zarling loves two things: his daughter Ulrike and his dog sports club, of which he is chairman. But this position is in danger, so he wants to make himself indispensable with a daring move: He wants to build a sports clubhouse. He has come ...

Like Father, Like Son (1987)

Grandpa Lörke is preparing for a contemplative, quiet Christmas Eve. But nothing comes of it, because his daughter Anne informs him that his 17-year-old granddaughter has disappeared. ...

Goethe in D. oder Die Blutnacht auf dem Schreckenstein oder Wie Erwin Geschonneck eine Hauptrolle spielt (1985)

Survivors of the concentration camp Dachau are recounting their limited cultural activities they had access to due to smuggling. ...

A Wigwam For The Storks (1985)

In the village of Medela, the village elder Fritz Schmal is buried with great sympathy. Beforehand, Till goes with his father to his property to check on the stork on its new nest. When they join the funeral procession afterwards, the stork has just return ...

Der Mann von der Cap Arcona (1982)

1982: East German actor Erwin Gregorek travels to Hamburg to shoot screen tests for a film about the sinking of the ocean-liner Cap Arcona in 1945 - a catastrophe he himself survived as a concentration camp prisoner. ...

Benno Makes Stories (1982)

Benno (Torsten Rennert), a bright boy from Berlin, is not really a problem case, although his parents have enough trouble with him. But that's not just because of Benno, but because no one really has time for him. During a train ride, he meets a pensioner ...

Meschkas Enkel (1981)

Eight-year-old Christian lives with his grandparents after the death of his mother. When his grandmother falls ill, grandfather Meschka wants to take the boy to live with his aunt at the Baltic Sea. But Christian is against it. On the trip, the two develop ...

Asta, mein Engelchen (1981)

Old Otto Gratzick is a porter at DEFA and a great admirer of Asta Nielsen. When the famous actor Hermann Gschwindner dies shortly before the end of his film, the director is looking for a double for the final scenes and discovers Otto in the movie theater, ...

Levin's Mill (1980)

In a small village in West Prussia in the 1870s, Germans, Poles, Gypsies and Jews live together as neighbors. One night Johann, a German mill-owner, secretly opens the dam gates and floods the mill of his Jewish rival Levin. After his business is ruined an ...

Herbstzeit (1979)

A retired head cashier, lonely after the death of his wife, lives in the hope of being able to move in with his son and his family after the latter builds a house. The son does not want to destroy his father's dream and conceals the fact that the family wi ...

Verlobung in Hullerbusch (1979)

In 1960, farmer Walter Wagemühl learns from the West that his life is coming to an end. In order to pass the farm into loyal hands, he sends his adopted daughter Catharina to the East to marry his prudent nephew Ewald. The surprising request puts him in a ...

Farewell to Peace (1979)

Prague 1913: The family of newspaper publisher Alexander Reither, traditionally reunited for a New Year's dinner, moves along convoluted and secretive paths in everyday life. Granddaughter Wally is impressed by the opaque businessman Marko Gelusich. Her co ...

The Thing in the Castle (1979)

A senior professor is kidnapped in the park by residents of a veterans home. Once there, he is asked to invent a "rejuvenating machine" to restore their youth. ...

Plantagenstraße 19 (1979)

Normal everyday life in an apartment building on Plantagenstraße in East Berlin is disrupted when a truck pulls up with the new tenants' furniture. And they include two small children - now, of all times, when old Matuschke's wife has just died and consid ...

The Big Ride of a Little Train Driver (1978)

Six years old Dirk wants to be a train driver, just like his grandfather. He is seriously impressed with all of the exciting rides through the desert and the mountains, of which the old man told. If you want to bulk, you must start small. So Dirk goes ever ...

Anton the Magician (1978)

A flamboyant comedy about love, work and money—revealing that the "planned" economy produced some unconventional entrepreneurial methods. ...

Die Millionen des Knut Brümmer (1977)

Tambari (1977)

Tambari - it's a name of an old boat which children of a small village on a Baltic sea shore got from an old fisherman Luden. But not all the village adults were ready to approve it... ...

The Island of the Silver Herons (1977)

The late summer of 1918. Paul, Willi and Heinrich from an age-old German town are good friends, although there is a great deal that divides them. Heinrich comes from an officer's family with an army tradition and is preparing to enter cadet college. Paul's ...

Ein altes Modell (1976)

The Light on the Gallows (1976)

Europe in 1793. For years, England and France have been at war with each other. Now, France sends three men to the British colony of Jamaica to organize a slave revolt. The envoys are Debuisson, the grandson of a Jamaican rum manufacturer, who knows the is ...

Bankett für Achilles (1975)

For thirty years, Karl Achilles has been working at the chemical collective in Bitterfeld. But now his last day as a master at the plant has come. He is about to retire; even if Karl, who finds ending his working life difficult, wanted to stay on, it would ...

Im Schlaraffenland (1975)

Who hasn't dreamed the sweet dream of the land of milk and honey, where roast pigeons fly into your mouth? But even the fairy tale makes it clear that such effortless indulgence is unhealthy because it makes you unproductive and unfit for life. Heinrich Ma ...

Censored: Kuhle Wampe (1975)

A detailed reconstruction of the censorship case against the landmark Weimar-era communist film, Kuhle Wampe, or Who Owns the World? (1932). Directed by Slatan Dudow, the crew and cast included left-wing luminaries, such as playwright Bertolt Brecht, compo ...

Looping (1975)

The thirty year old bee is a daredevil, everything seems to work for him. But suddenly a tragic event tears him out of his carelessness. In the explosion of a carbide furnace in operation, a colleague is killed. ...

Jacob the Liar (1974)

A Jewish ghetto in the east of Europe, 1944. By coincidence, Jakob Heym eavesdrops on a German radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow by steady progress towards central Europe. In order to keep his companion in misfortune, Mischa, from r ...

The Sinking of Emma (1974)

A funny adventures of a two young boys who are trying to rebuild the ship called "Emma" for their friend - the old captain. ...

Sun Seekers (1972)

A socialist story of "atoms for peace" and compulsory labor in an East German uranium mine under Soviet control. ...

We Buy a Fire Truck (1970)

Little Matti and his friends are restoring the old abandoned fire truck . ...

The Banner of Kryvyi Rih (1967)

In an act of friendship and solidarity between two mining towns in 1929, the locals of Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, give their flag as a gift to the locals of Bergstedt, Germany in this GDR propaganda film. This quickly takes on a symbolic meaning for the miners i ...

Stories of That Night (1967)

Four directors - four styles - four episodes, all relating the events of a single night which has entered the history books: August 12-13, 1961. There are thousands of complex narratives connected with the frontier drawn through the middle of Berlin, and e ...

Love-Letters 66 (1967)

Two narrators read the letters of unknown people and tell about the fate of individuals, their work, love and life. ...

A Lord of Alexander Square (1967)

Ewald Honig can't break his bad habit. Hardly has he crossed over into the GDR when the strapping, well-built man in his late fifties once again starts courting ladies with fraudulent intentions. His daughter Ina, burdened with the same genes, specializes ...

Berlin Around the Corner (1966)

Berlin in the 1960s. Olaf and Horst are two young metalworkers, who provoke their older colleagues with critiques of the antiquated equipment and lack of materials... not to mention their love of leather jackets and motorbikes. Olaf and Horst begin to be t ...

Tiefe Furchen (1965)

Germany in May 1945: the war is over, men are returning home and a new life begins in the villages. After 12 years in a concentration camp, the "Red Shoemaker" also returns to his home village. His wife is dead and others live in his house: Gebhardt, an em ...

Der Andere neben dir (1964)

Two doctors, a German and a Czech brain surgeon, meet in a Berlin hospital, unaware of how fatefully they are linked by events from a dark past. A trip to a congress in Prague and an encounter with the wife of his Czech colleague force the German chief sur ...

Carbide and Sorrel (1963)

After the second World War, Dresden has a lot of reconstructing to do. To get the cigarette factory he once worked for running again, Kalle has to travel to Wittenberg - the only place where carbide can be found. Once there, Kalle find himself in the unfor ...

Naked Among Wolves (1963)

Based on a true story of inmates at KZ Buchenwald that risked their lives to hide a small Jewish boy shortly before the liberation of the camp. ...

Ach, du fröhliche (1962)

It was supposed to be a cozy Christmas evening with the family. Labor Director Walter Lörke was particularly looking forward to it. But then his daughter Anne surprised him with her future son-in-law Thomas Ostermann. And that's not all: Lörke is to beco ...

Five Cartridges (1960)

It is the year 1936 and the Spanish Civil War is raging. When the German commander of an international brigade is badly wounded he gives his five comrades a message which he divides up and secretes into in five cartridges. All five shells must reach the ba ...

People with Wings (1960)

This film continues the story of radio operator Ludwig Bartuschek from "The Sailor's Song". Near the end of the Weimar Republic, Bartuschek (Erwin Geschonneck) is working as a mechanic in the Sperber airplane plant. Director Dehringer offers him the opport ...

Musterknaben (1959)

Two young building workers are more interested in girls than their work; complications ensue at home. ...

SAS 181 antwortet nicht (1959)

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 Han ...

Der Lotterieschwede (1958)

Bornholm island in 1880, where quarry worker Johan Jönsson lives a miserable life with his wife and children. He hopes to escape his poverty by winning a lottery ticket. But it doesn't bring him any luck. Instead of spending his little money on a doctor t ...

Die Geschichte vom armen Hassan (1958)

The land in poor Hassan's Central Asian homeland is stony and lacks water. Every day, he gazes longingly at the well in the garden of the rich merchant Machmud, which is full to the brim. One day, Hassan's parrot sits on the edge of the well and is attacke ...

Katzgraben (1957)

Castles and Cottages (1957)

Lifelong hard work for the count makes the servant Anton a cripple. Everybody calls him Crooked Anton. When, after the end of the war, the land of the count gets divided amongst the farmers, Anton receives a piece and hopes to be able to work freely. But a ...

The Captain from Cologne (1956)

Albert Hauptmann is an out of work waiter in Cologne who is often confused with a former Captain of the Nazi Army. Albert uses this to his advantage and becomes the Director of the Montan Corporation, and a member of the West German Parliament. Herr Karjan ...

Bold Adventure (1956)

In the 16th century, as Flanders is invaded by the Spanish, Till the Mischievous uses stratagems to enter the service of Ferdinand Alvare de Toledo, Duke of Alba, and from there organize resistance against the invaders. ...

Alarm at the Circus (1954)

Two boys from West Berlin, Klaus and Max, live in poverty. They dream of a career in boxing and save every penny in order to buy boxing gloves for training. Nevertheless, they cannot seem to save enough and so they let themselves be hired by the bartender ...

Die Unbesiegbaren (1953)

The film "Die Unbesiegbaren" covers an episode in German history, in which the Bismarck government tried to mitigate the rise of the social-democrat movement. ...

Schatten über den Inseln (1952)

On the Faroe Islands, people eke out a meagre existence by catching birds. Merchant Brause pays them little and does a good business. This comes under threat when Dr. Sten Horn suspects that the dangerous annual plague, which kills dozens of inhabitants, i ...

The Axe of Wandsbek (1951)

Hamburg, Germany 1934: An executioner is needed. Teetjen makes the biggest mistake of his life. Because his butcher shop is facing bankruptcy, he agrees to execute a group of political prisoners for the Nazis. Once this becomes known, Teetjen's life falls ...

Heart of Stone (1950)

Lavish adaptation of Wilhelm Hauff′s fairy tale: Young charburner Peter Munk dreams of joining the upper class. He makes a deal with the sinister Holländer-Michel, who offers to trade Peter′s human heart for one made of stone. Once he has the "cold he ...

Love '47 (1949)

A young man and woman meet on a bridge, both about to commit suicide by jumping into the river, and recount to each other their experiences. ...

The Beaver Coat (1949)

Mother Wolffen, a washerwoman, is a woman of principle: A poor man must do what he must to get through life, only he mustn't get caught doing it. All sorts of crooked deals contribute to the improvement of the daily menu and the increase of household funds ...

The Last Night (1949)

Set in German-occupied France in 1944 where a female resistance operative and a German army officer fall in love. ...

Finale (1948)

The fate of a pianist who returns from the Second World War with a wound to his right hand. ...

In Those Days (1947)

A car tells its story and the story of its seven owners during the years of the Third Reich. ...

Kuhle Wampe or Who Owns the World? (1932)

Kuhle Wampe takes place in early-1930s Berlin. The film begins with a montage of newspaper headlines describing steadily-rising unemployment figures. This is followed by scenes of a young man looking for work in the city and the family discussing the unpai ...