The Best TV Shows on DFF 1

The series begins with a story from 1717: At the court of Augustus the Strong in Dresden, the French organ virtuoso Louis Marchand was said to have passed away. Convinced of his “unique” abilities, he announced a music competition. Bach was the only competitor to enter.

Archiv des Todes is a 1980 13-part television series German war television film series set during World War II.

Two-part miniseries about Einstein's escape from Germany in 1932 and his influence in the invention of the nuclear bomb in 1939.

200 years ago, innkeepers Jette and August Deibelschmidt led a rapacious life. Out of greed, they repeatedly got their guests drunk in order to steal from them. When police commissioner Friedrich Wilhelm Licht tried to put them out of action, the house caught fire and all three died. In his last words, he curses the pair of thieves, saying that they will not find peace until they have done seven good deeds after 200 years.

Polizeiruf 110 is a long-running German language detective television series. The first episode was broadcast 27 June 1971 in the German Democratic Republic, and after the dissolution of Fernsehen der DDR the series was picked up by ARD. It was originally created as a counterpart to the West German series Tatort, and quickly became a public favorite.

Gerhard von Scharnhorst, who came from a family of small farmers in Lower Saxony, embarked on a military career and became an important Prussian general. Together with Baron vom Stein, he reformed the Prussian army. After initial resistance, this also met with the approval of King Frederick William III. The story focuses on the last and most important phase of Scharnhorst's life: 1806 to 1813, with all the ups and downs that this great German experienced. For the first time, the life of the Prussian reformer is traced, the period up to the popular uprising of 1813 and the Russian-German allyship in arms against Napoleon's occupying army are brought to mind.

Love, intrigue, favouritism and corruption at the Dresdner Hof.

Treffpunkt Flughafen is an East-German television series produced by the DEFA-Studio für Spielfilme on behalf of Fernsehen der DDR in 1985/86. The show follows the life and adventures of the crew of a IL-62 operated by the East-German airline Interflug. Filming locations were East Germany, Vietnam, Angola and Cuba among others.

The show was meant to compete with those on West German television. To this end it was fairly successful even attracting a following in parts of West Germany which could receive Eastern TV. Its production values were high. Apart from song and dance numbers and appearances from East German celebrities, almost every broadcast featured well-known stars from the west, often after their popularity had peaked in their home countries.

Der Staatsanwalt hat das Wort was an East German television series.

Blaulicht is a German crime television drama series, whose 29 episodes were based on crime case files.

Der schwarze Kanal was a series of political propaganda programmes broadcast weekly between 1960 and 1989 by East German television. Each edition was made up of recorded extracts from recent West German television programmes re-edited to include a Communist commentary.

The film is set in the 1930s in Germany. Maria Rheine and Mark Löwenthal, two young actors working in a small theater, are in love with each other. Their love affair is interrupted by Nazi racial policies; Mark is no longer allowed to perform in German theaters because he is a Jew. In order to continue acting, he joins the newly formed Jewish Theater in Berlin. Maria, who is not Jewish, faces no restrictions on her career, and she becomes a successful actress at a big theater in Munich. But her love for Mark eventually leads her to decide to sacrifice both career and security to remain close to him. She fakes a suicide, assumes a Jewish identity and, as Manja Löwenthal, joins the Jewish Theater.

Vera is Secretary at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. During a business trip to the USA, she learns that US nuclear missiles are to be stationed in Western Europe.