Walter E. Fuß

Sonntagsfahrer

The Golden Goose

An Old Love

Junges Gemüse

This film is the first of a two-part historical and biographical portrait of the communist politician and anti-fascist Ernst Thälmann. In early November 1918, Ernst Thälmann is an unwilling soldier serving on the western front. As the revolutionary movement at home is threatened by the betrayal of the Social Democrats and fissures in the working class, Thälmann calls on his fellow soldiers to put down their weapons and unite with the workers in the communist struggle at home. Thälmann’s qualms about which side he is fighting on continue, but when the local police attempt to prevent a shipment of provisions and supplies from reaching the people in Petrograd, he intervenes and the ship is unloaded. With this moment of clarity, Thälmann continues to follow his political convictions and joins the workers at the Hamburg uprising in October 1923.

In this German drama, Brock, a railroad inspector, witnesses a robbery at a train depot. He recognizes the thief, but turning the man in would mean acknowledging he knows him, thus revealing his own complicity with the Nazi war machine. When Brock’s daughter and her boyfriend begin to question him about the incident, will the secret he’s kept for nearly 20 years finally be exposed?

Meine Frau macht Musik

Hated by her jealous and bloodthirsty stepmother, Snow White flees a murder attempt and seeks shelter in the woods with seven kindly dwarfs. Feeling she is safe from harm, Snow White welcomes the disguised queen into her home...with fatal consequences.

The Rabbit Is Me was made in 1965 to encourage discussion of the democratization of East German society. In it, a young student has an affair with a judge who once sentenced her brother for political reasons; she eventually confronts him with his opportunism and hypocrisy. It is a sardonic portrayal of the German Democratic Republic's judicial system and its social implications. The film was banned by officials as an anti-socialist, pessimistic and revisionist attack on the state. It henceforth lent its name to all the banned films of 1965, which became known as the "Rabbit Films." After its release in 1990, The Rabbit Is Me earned critical praise as one of the most important and courageous works ever made in East Germany. It was screened at The Museum of Modern Art in 2005 as part of the film series Rebels with a Cause: The Cinema of East Germany.

Poor weavers Hans (Horst Drinda) und Kumpan (Werner Lierck) try to enter a town surrounded by a tall, impenetrable wall, where everyone is apparently very happy. When they finally make it inside, the tyrannical Emperor Max demands they make him new clothes that would "bring all creatures to their knees." Hans and Kumpan claim only intelligent people can see the robe, and in order to prove himself clever, the emperor haughtily displays himself before his subjects wearing his new invisible regalia.

Film by Bärbl Bergmann.

Germany 1932, constant fights between Communists and Nazis tear the country apart. When a Communist is found dead, the police accuses another Communist being his murderer. But the Communist youth group follows another trail - the murderer left a characteristic boot print at the scene of the crime.

Adam receives a flashlight with special powers: every liar it shines on flies into the air. Production was cancelled in 1965/66 due to the film's political content. Only in 1989/90 could the director reconstruct the film, where missing sounds and images are replaced with script inserts.

The marriage of Katrin and Richard Lot has become a routine. She has a career and he, as a Marine officer, comes home only once every fourteen days. The children greet him with joy, but she greets him only with anxiety because their marriage is missing its key ingredient: love. She wants a divorce, but he refuses mainly out of comfort as well as due to pressure from the party. Katrin finds a strange solution: she shoplifts and is put on probation for three months. This is enough to force Richard into a divorce because he is concerned about the "moral liability" of his wife.

Film by Rolf Losansky.

Die schwarze Galeere

Co-pilot Horst Schubert is a braggart and a true Don Juan. Thus, he tells young Ilse that he is in fact an "aircraft commander". This assertion brings about an embarrassing situation, for he suddenly meets her onboard his new work place, an IL-14 charter plane where Ilse acts as a stewardess. It gets worse, however: During a stop in Varna the police appear because Horst’s former lover Madelon has vanished. At home, meanwhile, his landlady has her hands full with her lodger’s current and former playmates. Ilse decides to put an end to this mixup and since the dull captain of the plane, Richard, makes no move to confront his co-pilot about his unstable private life, the smart stewardess appeals to the rest of the crew to help her teach Horst a few lessons in love.

Film by Johannes Arpe.

Kapitäne bleiben an Bord

A story about a group of children in German town of Bahrenburg who are trying to build themselves a swimming pool.

Schatten über den Inseln

Berlin, early 1930s. Lissy, a young woman raised in a socialist working-class family, marries a clerk who promises her a better life. During the depression, however, he gets fired and can’t find a new job. Desperate for companionship and money, he falls for Nazi propaganda and joins the Storm Troopers. Lissy's brother, who for a time sympathized with the communists, now also wears the SA uniform. When he is killed by the Nazis—because of hisoppositional ideas—Lissy starts questioning things and makes a difficult and potentially dangerous decision.

Two 17-year-olds, Werner Holt and Gilbert Wolzow, are pulled out of school and into Hitler's army. Gilbert becomes a fanatical soldier; but at the front, Werner begins to understand the senselessness of war.

„White mouse“ Fritz controls the traffic on Dresden’s Körner Square. Helene, who crosses the junction on her motor scooter every day, has taken a shine to Fritz a long while ago. Although Fritz yields right-of-way to her remarkably often, the two have not spoken to each other. In order to finally get to know him better, Helene deliberately performs a traffic violation. Her plan is working: She is ordered to take road safety education lessons from Fritz and they get closer. New problems arise in the shape of Mrs. Messmer who must pay a monetary fine. She feels discriminated against by Fritz and complains about him to his supervisor.

As American settlers encroach on the lands of the Lakota people, Tokei-ihto witnesses the murder of his father at the hands of Red Fox, who wanted information on where the tribe finds its gold. Two years later, at the height of the Great Sioux War, Tokei-ihto and Red Fox meet again.

Sein großer Sieg

A film about the historical uprising of the seamen in Kiel: During the Russian October Revolution of 1917, German and Russian soldiers start to solidarize with each other. By disarming the officers, machinist Henne Lonke and stoker Jens Kasten prevent the attack on a Russian freighter. When German admiralty gives out orders for operation "Nibelungen", which would lead the German fleet into a suicidal attack against England and quell the revolutionary spirit, seamen and soldiers from different political backgrounds unite in protest.

Die letzte Chance

A story about funny adventures young boy Mirco and a drillers blue helmet.

Re-enacted true story of successful assault by Nazis, posing as Poles, on a German border radio station so that Hitler could "justify" thereby his invasion of Poland.

Professor Hans Mamlock is the distinguished chief of surgery in a university hospital. The year is 1933, and although the Professor is Jewish, he remains unconcerned with politics and the growing Nazi threat. Mamlock identifies strongly as a German, and he believes his culture to be simply incapable of the common barbarism associated with the Nazi party. Accordingly, he shows little understanding for people with strong or unpopular political views, such as Walter, a patient, and Rolf, his own son. Indeed, when Rolf joins the communists in resisting the Nazis, Mamlock throws him out of his house. As the persecution of Jews intensifies during the 1930s, Mamlock's own daughter is targeted for anti-Semitic attacks at her school...

Nur eine Frau

The two-piece black and white movie "Brennende Ruhr" portrays the events during the Kapp-Putsch 1920 in a small german town in the Ruhr district. The main protagonist is Ernst Sukrow, a student who sympathises first with the bourgeois forces but finally decided to join the communists in their fight.

A Saturday evening dance in the village pub is interrupted when the barn of local farmer Paul Gäbler catches on fire. The farmer himself is soon found – hanged. Sawmill owner Züllich claims that Gäbler committed suicide because he was forced to join an agricultural production cooperative, but others are convinced Gäbler was murdered. Officers Schneider and Anders must navigate their way through a complex maze of personal and political motivations in order to reconstruct the crime.

It is the 65th birthday of Wilhelm Lehmann, foreman of a chemical company. All members of the large family are expected. Preparations are also being made in the company: Wilhelm is to be awarded the »Labor banner« and, as every year, the sons are responsible for the may bowl. But instead of family members, telegrams with rejections flutter into the house.

Ach, du fröhliche

Czech friends help refugees from Nazi Germany escape in 1939.

At the beginning of the 1960s, a German turns up on behalf of the NATO in the British village of Rocksmouth. NATO wants to establish a naval base in Rocksmouth, but first, the German envoy has to salvage an old ship wreck. In 1942, the "Princess of India" was supposed to bring children to safety in Canada but was sunk by a German submarine at departure. 58 people were killed, most of them children.

Drama about an impoverished family, a widowed mother and her two sons, trying to get by.

13-year old Thomas Berndorf, the son of the rich business man Alexander Berndorf, becomes friends with Hannes Wille, whose father works as foreman. They get to know each because Hannes sometimes is allowed to polish Berndorf′s Mercedes 300. They make a bet whose mother is the most beautiful. Hannes assumes that Mrs. Berndorf is only admired for her expensive jewellery. Thus, he suggests that Thomas should steal a collier from his mother. Out of solidarity, he also robs a golden brooch from his mother. At home at the Berndorfs, a severe crisis threatens Thomas′s parents′ "marriage of convenience", and financial hardships are following on the theft.

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