Spiegel TV

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.

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.

Leni Riefenstahl's flamboyant Nazi aesthetics shaped the public image of the 1936 Olympics. Never before had sports and politics been mixed. Through archive photos and reconstructions, we get a closer look into the historical propaganda show.

The Code of Criminal Procedure is actually intended to help judges get to the truth. To do this, they interview witnesses, listen to experts, and have evidence presented. But what if the evidence does not provide a clear picture when statement is against statement? The judge is free to assess the evidence. All that counts is the judicial conviction, which ideally also corresponds to the “objective truth”. But how often is this really the case? How easily do we believe our own prejudices when in doubt? How quickly can we be manipulated? And how do we know when someone is lying? Knowledge of these soft factors also makes it difficult for people at the head of a court to decide whether guilt or innocence. In the end, the judges also have to live with a verdict that has serious consequences for those involved. The accompanying documentary to the TV movie attempts to explore this dilemma with the help of various interview partners and cases.

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.

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.

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.

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 small Portuguese coastal town of Nazaré is unique in Europe. It became the Olympus of surfing in the 2010s. Monster waves roll ashore here between late autumn and spring. They are the largest in the world, so Nazaré is a hotspot for big wave surfers such as the German professional Sebastian Steudtner, the only German extreme athlete in this field who belongs to the world's elite. The giant waves are spectacular, but they are also extremely dangerous. They have given the former fishing port a new boom, because the activities of the surfers now attracts tourists in droves to the place even in winter. But accidents with serious injuries occur again and again. The documentary shows how the coastal town is handling the new attraction and how Sebastian Steudtner is preparing for a new record ride on the biggest wave on earth.

How do you deal with right-wing extremists in the neighborhood? Exclude, tolerate or involve? Rural regions in particular are prone to infiltration by nationalist settlers. Right-wing extremists systematically penetrate village structures, pretending to be nice neighbors, committed citizens and problem solvers in a completely non-ideological way. Local volunteer fire brigades and football clubs are infiltrated by Nazis. Done among others in the village of Groß Krams in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where two right-wing extremists seem to be part of everyday village life. One of them works as a firefighter. In Appen, Schleswig-Holstein, the state chairman of the Hamburg NPD wanted to join the village's football club. But the club's management refused when they found out about the political background. The documentary by Hans Jakob Rausch illuminates the infiltration strategies of the extreme right and the difficult balance between tolerance and engagement against right-wing radicalism.

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

At the beginning of the year 2020, a relentless plague sweeps the planet and, as a consequence, a global lockdown is gradually decreed: how did people from very different latitudes, living necessarily very different situations, experience this shared solitude? How did people adapt to the restriction by decree of their personal freedoms and the transformation of many bustling metropolises into ghost cities?