Radio Bremen

ABBA, Michael Jackson, Boney M., Chic, Edwin Starr, Lio and Gloria Gaynor: the biggest stars of the 1970s and 1980s took turns appearing on the German TV programme “Musikladen”. Here’s a selection of these cult moments to let loose to classic disco hits!

A documentation about the reconstruction and destruction of german cities after the 2nd World War.

For the first time since the legendary Apollo missions over 50 years ago, humans are once again setting out for the Moon on April 1, 2026. NASA’s Artemis II mission marks the beginning of a new era in space exploration, and Germany will play a key role. This documentary follows the four astronauts during their preparations and offers exclusive insights into the Orion spacecraft. German astronauts Alexander Gerst and Matthias Maurer, along with other space experts, explain how the mission will proceed and why it is being undertaken. It's a journey that blends science, adventure, and the fundamental question: Why do people risk their lives to reach other celestial bodies and distant worlds?

Painting is an unacceptable vocation for a woman in provincial Germany in the year 1900, but budding artist Paula Becker is determined to make her own rules.

Kim has her music. Kim has her dogs. Kim has her faith. Kim struggles, every day: with anxiety, for a bit of normality, to stand on her own two feet. Kim’s mother, Lore, was deported to Auschwitz at the age of six. To this day, Lore is a DP, a displaced person. Lore has her index cards. From morning till night, she transcribes articles from the daily newspaper, archiving them in boxes and baskets. All her life, Lore has been silent: about her mother, about the hiding place where she survived, about Tom, her son, Kim’s brother, who took his own life. Kim instead wants to talk: about her childhood with Lore, about Tom, about the scarred lives they both lead.

An elderly man lives a solitary and rhythmic life by a dilapidated mill near a river. His days are spent almost entirely in silence, fishing under the shade of a massive, ancient willow tree that seems as old and weathered as he is. One Sunday, while fishing, he witnesses a murder.

When chaos reigns, while barbaric and fanatical rulers, both ecclesiastical and secular, systematically burn entire libraries, book hunters, secret heroes of history, travel the world saving and copying texts, threatened by the madness of censors, with the noble purpose of preventing the ultimate loss of human knowledge.

The German documentary is dedicated to an influential figure of the 20th century: Petra Kelly spent her life campaigning for feminism, environmental activism, human rights and peace. She was a political co-founder of the Green Party in the 1970s and 80s and protested against nuclear missiles in West Germany at the height of the Cold War. Above all, however, she believed that one person could very well change the world and thus rose to become an icon of the peace movement.

Every year, 17-year-old Wolfgang from Hesse spends his summer vacation with his grandfather in Fischerhude in Schleswig-Holstein. In the north, he always meets his childhood sweetheart Nanni, whom he wants to marry soon. But the two of them are not destined for happiness. The war throws a spanner in the works. Love must fail.

For the USA, World War 2 was an all-out war - to mobilize the masses, the US government launched a huge propaganda campaign and cinema, the medium of the masses, was quite simply their most important weapon. Government authorities monitored the production of feature films and the military itself produced documentaries aimed at rallying the American people to support the troops. This film tells the story of four Hollywood directors of European origin, who returned to the "Old World" during the Second World War to make propaganda documentaries for the US Army at the front: William Wyler from Alsace, Frank Capra from Italy, Anatole Litvak from Ukraine and - in post-war Germany - Billy Wilder from Austria.

He was a bloodthirsty vampire, an androgynous Adonis and a psychopathic killer. He's a friend of the director Lars von Trier. He gives an impressive performance in almost every one of his films. His face and his pale green eyes have etched themselves into the minds of his audiences. Udo Kier is one of the few German actors to achieve global fame via Hollywood. In the past fifty years, he has been in more than 250 films, ranging from art-house productions to blockbusters. Kier first major role was as a sinister upright citizen called Hans. The fact that he ended up staying in Hollywood was down to serendipity, like so much else in his life.

She was the first to study gorillas in their natural environment: the high mountains of Rwanda, where she settled in 1967. For nearly twenty years, Dian Fossey lived with the gorillas, observed their behavior, and changed the way people viewed them. Her relentless fight against poaching prevented the species from becoming extinct. But in December 1985, the primatologist was murdered, and the mystery surrounding her death remains unsolved. Former colleagues, scientists, and biographers shed light on the impact of her work, but also on the darker sides of her personality and her uncompromising commitment.

Live performance of original punk rockers The Ramones on the West German television show 'Der Musikladen' in 1978. The band's 50-minute set features some of their best-loved hits such as 'Blitzkrieg Bop', 'Sheena Is a Punk Rocker' and 'Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment'.

Dr. Dieter Bartels, the star surgical resident, spares 2,000 DM on a Jugendstil vase for his chief’s 60th. Unbeknownst to him, the chief has already acquired a pricier version and dashed Bartels’s purchase. Humiliated, the chief withdraws his support, sabotaging Bartels’s career. Left with no prospects, Bartels resigns.