DEFA-Studio für Dokumentarfilme

Basing his work on documentary material, Andrew Thorndike tells the life story of Wilhelm Pieck: from young worker to fighter for the German working class, and from enemy of national-socialism to the first president of the German Democratic Republic.

Documentary about the sisters Lene and Berta who live in a village in Thuringia.

A documentary about German director Konrad Wolf (1925–1982).

Documentary film

The film follows on from "Mädchen in Wittstock", in which the director already portrayed young female workers at the VEB OTB (Obertrikotagenbetrieb) "Ernst Lück" in Wittstock an der Dosse. "Wieder in Wittstock" deals with the work and life problems of these young girls and women in the textile factory, with their demands, wishes and hopes as well as with what they have achieved and still want to achieve.

The film is an appeal by the International Democratic Women's Federation against a new war, calling on all mothers of the world to protect their children.

Archive footage of bomb detonations during the Second World War combined with abstract graphic elements which show the destructive potential of modern nuclear missiles. Together the images are a silent warning of armament and war.

Documentary (in colour) about the first youth meeting (Deutschlandtreffen der Jugend) in East Berlin in 1950.

Chile 1985, the repression of the Chilean people by the dictatorship and the resistance, accompanied by the music of the exiled composer Angel Parra.

A biographical documentary about the Bulgarian born film director Slatan Dudow (1903–1963).

A top administrator in the Federal German armed forces measures the machinery of murder at Auschwitz according to the effiency principle, and deems it a triumph. Militaria dealers market all the components for a do-it-yourself SS officer. The film assembles on, piece by piece, from a price list: the complete Hauptsturmführer for 2,921 Deutschmarks, ready to meet the trains arriving at Auschwitz with the appropriate aluminium lurex armband at 45 Marks.

Documentary on Bernd Köhlert, a West German mercenary whose death in the Congo caused a sensation

The “Raging Reporter” Egon Erwin Kisch (1885-1948) was one of the most significant journalists of the 1920s and 30s. He wrote from a communist point of view, in language that sparkled with humor. Historic photographs and footage describe Kisch’s eventful journalistic and political life, which brought him to important cities including Berlin, Moscow, Sydney, and New York.

Black and white short documentary about the patrol of the EMW radio car "Toni 14" of the Berlin police.

Documentary about the German poet Erich Weinert.

Portrait of a private coal company in East Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district in 1988/89. The feisty woman boss runs the business with humour and understanding. Her seven male employees respect her. To the outside world, they are all tough guys, but as they describe their jobs and personal situations, above and beyond the hard manual labour, their vulnerability starts to come to light.

Documentary film

Posing as West German journalists, East German documentary filmmakers Heynowski and Scheumann pay a visit to the notorious Nazi-turned-mercenary Siegfried “Kongo” Müller, pump him with booze, and get him to talk about his life and war campaigns in Africa.

This documentary shows the German Peasants’ War between 1524 and 1525 and looks at the role of Thomas Müntzer in it. Müntzer, who was a follower and admirer of Martin Luther, directed his resistance not only against the clerical authorities ruled by the papacy, but also against the secular worldly order. In Mühlhausen, Müntzer worked as a pastor in the Marienkirche and later became an agitator and promoter of the violent liberation of the peasants. Luther distanced himself from Müntzer at the beginning of the Peasant Wars. In the battle of Frankenhausen the rebels were completely defeated, Müntzer captured, tortured and publicly executed on May 27, 1525.

Portrait of the industrialist Walter Hunger from Frankenberg in Saxony. He left the German Democratic Republic in 1958 with his family and closest colleagues to build up one the most significant hydraulics enterprises in the Federal Republic of Germany.