Spiegel TV

A look at the parallel lives of Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler and how they crossed with the creation of the film “The Great Dictator,” released in 1940.

The spectacular moon landing in 1969 was also a success of more than 100 technicians and engineers from Germany, some of whom had already revolutionized weapons technology and built rockets in Hitler's service during World War II. The documentary analyzes the entanglements of German NASA employees with the Third Reich.

Young people are discovering pornography at an increasingly early age. How does this early exposure affect them? Filmed in Europe and the United States, this is a comprehensive and nuanced scientific overview of a massive phenomenon.

Adolf Hitler spent the last ten days of his life in a bunker underneath the Chancellery of the Reich. Unwilling to face the consequences of defeat, the dictator ended his own life on April 30, 1945 in this fortified underground complex. Featuring exclusive interviews with the last survivor’s of Hitler’s inner circle and extensive archival footage, Death in the Bunker is an illuminating look at the Führer’s final decisions in preparation for his suicide.

The war in the Ukraine has changed the way many European countries view Russian politics. Suddenly it became clear how dependent countries had become on Russian gas imports for decades and what Vladimir Putin was up to. However, no country needs more gas than Germany. It was only after Russia's invasion of the Ukraine that the German government realized that Russia had long used gas as a weapon to impose its will on states. The instrument created for this purpose is the natural gas production company GAZPROM. So how did Germany become so dependent on Russian gas? The documentary shows how, over several decades and several changes of government, a broad alliance of politicians and business representatives did everything possible to secure Germany's energy supply with cheap Russian gas, while the Kremlin's foreign policy became increasingly aggressive and the warnings of experts went unheeded.

Thoughts of a diversity of public and private citizens on the virtues of democracy, its faults, its decadence, its fall and the rise of populism.

This remarkable trove of color footage, assembled from far-flung private and state collections, presents Hitler's Europe as never seen before. Amateur film enthusiasts - soldiers, tourists, Hitler's own pilot, even Hitler's mistress, Eva Braun - began experimenting with color film in the late 1930s, their camera eye recording the Third Reich from every angle. Some of this film was only recently uncovered in former Soviet-bloc archives, hidden for almost 60 years; all of it, thanks to digital technology, has been newly transferred to video with surprising clarity. (This documentary was produced with two different narratives, both an English and German language version.)

With his blue eyes, blond hair and boyish laugh, he conquered German cinema audiences in the 1950s and 60s: Berlin-born Hardy Krüger made it all the way to Hollywood as an actor. But he was just as passionate a writer, pilot and globetrotter.

A history of Nazi television programming and technology, from 1935 to 1944.

Seven men stand on the summit of the Matterhorn, the last Alpine peak to be conquered. Their place in history is assured. Then disaster strikes. A rope snaps and four men fall to their death. But did the rope really just snap, or did one of the climbers cut it? This is a murder mystery at 14,000 feet, filled with gripping reenactments filmed at the original locations to retell the tragic events.

Cats are the most popular pet in Europe. Around 14 million house pets live in German households alone. But hardly anything is known about the nature of cats - their emotional life has been little studied by science. Until now! Scientists all over the world have begun to explore the secret nature of cats.

In Germany, left-wingers do not have to justify their views. They have established their opinions across the board, not among the people, but in the circles that set the tone, i.e. where they prefer to be at home. Those on the left have the wonderful feeling of always being right. In politics, the left has often been wrong, but somehow that doesn't matter, they are always credited with the best motives. Why is that? Jan Fleischhauer has spent a large part of his life among left-wingers - from his parents' home to school and university to the journalists' milieu in which he has worked for two decades. Now he takes a close look at them, with the detachment of someone who at some point discovered that he no longer belonged. The book is an analysis, polemic and personal experience report. A foray through the empire of the left.

The Stammheim trial against the leadership of the first generation of the RAF was one of the most elaborate in the Federal Republic of Germany. Through this trial, Stammheim also became a place of identity for the RAF. The docudrama uses the perspective of Horst Bubeck, who as a prison officer in the cell wing had the most intensive contact with the prisoners, to shed new light on the history.

Filmed just over a century after the first tank battle in 1918, this documentary series explores how the vehicles forever changed warfare.

Crises, the struggle for raw materials, climate change and digitalisation – the world is changing rapidly, and with it the globalised economy. Who wins, who loses? What is in store for us? A search for clues in seven regions of the world.

D-Day marks the starting point for the liberation of Western Europe from the grip of the Nazi yoke. On June 6th, 1944, Allied soldiers attack German positions at no less than five sectors of the beach in Normandy. The assault takes place from the sea and is considered the largest amphibious landing operation in history. This event now sees its 80th anniversary. But so close, so authentic, this battle has never been shown before. American and British cameramen are at the scene in landing boats, under fire at the beaches, and during the rescue of wounded soldiers. Their original footage, shoot in black-and-white, was extensively restored and colourized for this documentary. The historically unique footage appear in motion picture quality. The war gets colour. And thereby a different impact. We look directly in the faces of those, Americans, Canadians, Britons, and Germans, who are often not older than 20. In “24h D-Day”, they tell about their D-Day, the day they never can forget.

Film about the gender binary. What is it, how does it manifest itself in our minds and our lives - and how can we go beyond? Just how different are “men” and “women?” Are they even two distinct groups? This film follows individuals and communities, experts and artists around the globe who right now are radically and joyfully redefining gender as we know it.