Der Mustergatte

Captain Ebbs is an older, experienced seaman who has, however, only sailed on freighters. While his current old barge, the Martin Luther, has to go into the shipyard for an overhaul, the shipping company gives him command of the elegant cruise ship Julia to temporarily replace a colleague who has fallen ill. The rough Ebbs finds his way into his new job only with difficulty and initially puts his foot in his social mouth.

The love between a noble student and the daughter of a coffee house owner, set against clichéd images of Munich at the turn of the century.

Postman Titus Müller returns from his daily rounds with a letter that will change the course of his modest provincial existence.

A classical art junk dealer and an almost bankrupt hairdresser who unexpectedly makes an inheritance go hunting behind thirteen chairs from which of a 100,000 DM contains which the rich aunt has hidden there.

A famous poet who hasn't written a word in two years unconsciously plagiarizes the work of Stefan George, while dealing with several mistresses, his dimwitted brother, and a murder investigation.

In the midst of World War II, postman Ludwig Fuchs writes a letter to his former school friend Field Marshal Hermann Göring, urging him to work for peace. He is declared mentally incompetent. After the war, he struggles to shake off the stigma of alleged mental illness. Göring is executed. Fuchs forces the court to examine him: he vandalizes the lobby of Post Office 122 in Munich and is rehabilitated (with full salary compensation for lost years).

After a burn-out Karl spends time in his home region, the Black Forest. His car gets lost and is picked up by penniless magician Amadori who enjoys posing as wealthy entrepreneur Karl while Karl reunites with the love of his youth, Liesl.

Celia Lövengaart was formerly involved with the theatre and was able to live a carefree life. But now she's in financial difficulties. The court appointed trustee grants her enough money for a trip to Tirol, where she's going to visit her daughter Susanne, who was raised by her grandparents. Susanne is supposed to marry Richard, whom she can't stand and her mother tolerates him even less. Celia wants to help her daughter, but that's easier said than done: Richard knows about her lively past and is blackmailing her to keep her nose out of his affairs. If she doesn't agree to this wedding, he'll tell everything the consul Hoyermann, Susanme's guardian, and there will be a big stink.

A young woman working as a secretary for a Berlin car business tries to impress a rich Australian visitor by pretending she is a foreign countess.

Nora and Peter constantly fight and wish to divorce. Nora's uncle Eberhard, however, believes the two belong together and comes up with a plan to bring the two back together again: as a lawyer, who is processing the divorce, he explains to them that the paperwork for the divorce is completed, but will only go into effect once they undertake a reconciliation attempt. For the first reconciliation meeting, Eberhard enlists the help of his friend Christa and together, they turn Nora into such a hot tamale, that Peter burns with jealousy that any other man might look at her. At the second meeting of the two, which takes place a year later (how long do divorces in Nazi Germany take?!?!), Nora plays the girl abandoned by everyone. In the interim, she's given birth to Peter's son -- which apparently does not count as a reconciliation -- and Peter has become a successful composer. When Nora again disappears after this meeting, Peter does all he can to win her back.

The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"

10-year-old Rosmarin von Stetten lives with his widowed father Robert in the big city. During the holidays one day in the morning Rosmarin goes to the lake near the castle and meets Thymian, the poorest boy of the village, whose mother did not come back from the war and who has to do several jobs in the village for his living. The boys enter a boat, but both fall into the lake. Thymian crawls out of the water first and is found by a servant from the castle, who thinks he is Rosmarin and bring him to the castle and to bed. The boy doesn't know what happens and thinks he's spellbound...

The stories' setup: a bunch of passive weaklings being dominated by two strong and ambitious women who fight for the same man.

Sylva Varescu is an operetta singer performing Kálmán's Die Czardasfürstin through Europe with great success. Before going to Vienna she meets handsome Prinz Weylerstein and they fall in love. Offered a contract for America, she doubts until she finds out that he is already engaged to a countess.

On November 11, 1918, the last day of the First World War , Lieutenant Colonel Klaus Olden desperately tried to hold a lost post with his unit. The rescue appears in the form of pilot Jochen Wendler, who shows up with his plane and drops ammunition. When Jochen's machine is shot down immediately, Klaus manages to pull him out of the wreck at the last second. Both are injured and taken to the hospital , where they are cared for by the attractive nurse Barbara, a childhood friend of Jochen. The two men form a blood brotherhood and drive together with Barbara to East Prussia , where they want to visit relatives of Jochen on their estate . But the relatives' yard was destroyed in the war. The post-war period turns out to be an economic disaster.

Four girls seeks happiness on the dance floor among the handsome and rich gentlemen.

A varied group of passengers boarding a ship bound for pre-WWII Germany represents a microcosm of early-1930s society.

God and Satan wager on the soul of a learned and prayerful alchemist as part of their eternal war over Earth.

After some initial difficulties, the daughter of a circus director who died in an accident follows in her father’s footsteps and takes over the business.

Successful playwright goes undercover to get new material and finds romance.

A group of angels look longingly upon the life of humans. Berlin now is a very different place: unified in name but overrun with crime, corruption, and—in what turns out to be a key theme here—Americans.

WWII is entering its last phase: Germany is in ruins, but does not yield. The US army lacks crucial knowledge about the German units operating on the opposite side of the Rhine, and decides to send two German prisoners to gather information. The scheme is risky: the Gestapo retains a terribly efficient network to identify and capture spies and deserters. Moreover, it is not clear that "Tiger", who does not mind any dirty work as long as the price is right, and war-weary "Happy", who might be easily betrayed by his feelings, are dependable agents. After Tiger and another American agent are successfully infiltrated, Happy is parachuted in Bavaria. His duty: find out the whereabouts of a powerful German armored unit moving towards the western front.

Czechoslovakian opera star Jarmila Novotná plays the title role in the Austrian tunefest "Frasquita". Based on a Franz Lehár operetta, the story is the usual frothy nonsense. Dolly (Charlott Daudert) is engaged to marry Harald (Hans Heinz-Bollmann), but she's really in love with Hippolit (Heinz Rühmann). Harald is likewise enamored of another, namely Frasquita (Jarmila Novotná).

On his travels, Paul, a journeyman from northern Germany, runs into a childhood friend, Lisei, a puppeteer's daughter. They fall in love and get married. Together with Lisei's father, the young couple moves to Paul's hometown. Although Paul himself is accepted - even respected - by the stuck-up and snooty citizens, the young woman is rejected by the town dwellers, who are imbued with class arrogance. Paul stands up for his wife but the scorn and abuse heaped on her weigh heavily upon him.

Dark love story.

Ursula Gothe is the mother of a son, husband Richard is to be promoted soon. Her orderly life in the pretty villa gets out of joint when Ursula discovers a girl's newspaper ad. Is "Suchkind 312" her illegitimate daughter Martina, whom she had lost while fleeing from the East?

The engineer Wolff Benningsen (Volker von Collande), a self-assured and über-obnoxious jingo jerk meets the young art student Vika von Demnitz (Leny Marenbach) while climbing in the Alps. One get's the idea that he would like to knock her over the head with a club and drag her to his cave but since this is out of fashion he decides to stalk her and annoy her heavy-handedly into a full submission. Understandingly, she instantly dislikes the lad and tries to shake him off. She succeeds a few times but then starts to suffer from some kind of Stockholm syndrome and falls for him. But that's not enough for him, being an infantile egoist he wants to tame the "wild bird" fully and break every last bit of her own will. It's all hard to believe if you haven't seen it yourself.

In the Werra valley near the border is one of the five soda factories of the GDR that once belonged to the powerful Solvay group. After the war, they moved the headquarters from Berneburg to Frankfurt, but some people loyal to the groups bosses remained to sabotage the production in the now nationally owned factory.

Set against the backdrop of the 1900 Boxer Rebellion...