Peter Hellmich

The film talks about the rise and fall of the two most influential protagonists in GDR-politics. In succession, over long stretches even together, Ulbricht and Honecker determined the course of the GDR, of course without ever getting out of being a satellite state to the big brother in Moscow. The film looks for the caesura and crucial points in the power game between Ulbricht and Honecker.

SS officer Walter Krüger talks about his career. Now he is Secretary of the „Kameradschaftsverband I. Panzerkorps der ehemaligen Waffen-SS e.V.” (Fellowship of Former Soldiers of Waffen SS 1st Tank Corps). During the interview it shows that Krüger still considers himself and his like-minded fellows to be the elite of the nation.

The Khmer word “angkar” signifies “organization”. The angkar of the Pol-Pot regime acted upon their own, unwritten laws. Records were discovered in the central interrogation and extermination camp “S21”, the former high school Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh that document the death of 20.000 people.

The Pol Pot regime wanted to erase the 2000 year-old culture of Cambodia. Schools were destroyed, teachers and pupils kidnapped, tortured and killed. In September 1980, the School of Fine Arts reopens in Phnom Penh, in March 1981, there are 110 pupils, among them many orphans.

The scenes filmed during spring 1979 in Kampuchea/Cambodia are part of history: a metropolis left to rampant nature, skull heaps, destroyed faces and cultural landscapes. The reports of the survivors – farmers, states men, teachers and former soldiers - are moving and harrowing.

Reconstruction of the last hours in the presidential palace La Moneda during the coup d’état in Santiago de Chile in 1973. Salvador Allende enters his office on September 11th at 7.30 in the morning. In the early afternoon he leaves it – wrapped in a blanket, dead.

My Lai ten years after the massacre. Reconstruction of the crime at the place where it was committed; tracing the trail of squad leader Calley in the USA; description of what happened by people who were believed to be dead.

Rustic weapons, centuries old traps; wreckage of U.S. bombers, a perforated “bulletproof” vest are exposed in the museums of Hanoi. “The neglected free visit to the Hanoi museums cost the American people 56,369 killed people and 146 billion dollars.”

Rustic weapons, centuries old traps; wreckage of U.S. bombers, a perforated “bulletproof” vest are exposed in the museums of Hanoi. “The neglected free visit to the Hanoi museums cost the American people 56,369 killed people and 146 billion dollars.”

Rustic weapons, centuries old traps; wreckage of U.S. bombers, a perforated “bulletproof” vest are exposed in the museums of Hanoi. “The neglected free visit to the Hanoi museums cost the American people 56,369 killed people and 146 billion dollars.”

Le Quang Vinh, a revolutionary student leader, was arrested in Saigon in August 1961. A show trial and death sentence followed. World-wide protests altered it to “life imprisonment” on Con Son, the Devil’s Island. The humiliating “Tiger-Cages” and the methods of torture are shown.

Short film about General Eduardo Cano, who after the military coup became director of the Chilean central bank in the Pinochet dictatorship. Cano withdraws money from the circulation, which were described by opposition parties with resistance piles. From the Chile cycle by Walter Heynowski and Gerhard Scheumann.

An auction in Munich, 1974, old man with crockery and knick-knacks labelled "Former property of Hermann Göring": relics of Nazism sold to the benefit of the post-war state: the west criticised by the east.

At the parliamentary elections that the Unidad Popular won, there were activities to overthrow Salvador Allende. By a white, supposedly clean coup, the rightwing powers of Chile tried unsuccessfully to gain a two thirds majority in the national congress. Months later, the armed, violent coup took place.

In the spring of 1974, a camera team from Studio H&S succeeded against the explicit orders of the Junta’s Chancellery, entered into two large concentration camps in the north of the country - Chacabuco and Pisagua - leaving with filmed sequences and sound recordings.

In the spring of 1974, a camera team from Studio H&S succeeded against the explicit orders of the Junta’s Chancellery, entered into two large concentration camps in the north of the country - Chacabuco and Pisagua - leaving with filmed sequences and sound recordings.

A service is ordered by the Junta in praise of the Junta. The Cardinal, forced to utter Benedictions, resorts to words for all those who suffer and pray, that they may be freed and consoled. The profaners have to content themselves with psalm 18: “They cried unto the Lord, but he answered them not.”

The country is portrayed before and after the storm of the military to the government palace “La Moneda” when Salvador Allende is killed and the directors discover the implications of American companies that were involved in the political developments.

Salvador Allende’s last radio speech is given in full; nothing is interposed. The translation of the speech appears in subtitles, individual passages are placed into the center of the picture. Film scenes and photos underline Allende’s call to his citizens. The film ends with a slow close-up to the face of the President.

This bullet is stamped with the inscription 'Remington Peters 12' and yet is not mentioned in Remington's catalogue. It consists of 20 small steel arrows.

This bullet is stamped with the inscription 'Remington Peters 12' and yet is not mentioned in Remington's catalogue. It consists of 20 small steel arrows.

Documentary film.

The epilogue to the film "The Laughing Man" (1966), which alternates between objectivity and anger, exposes the involvement of the West German mercenary Siegfried Müller in the war against the Congolese government Lumumba. In the sequel, new witnesses against Major Müller have their say, including a former school friend and a French paratrooper colonel. GDR lawyer Kaul reports on the status of the criminal proceedings against Müller, while the final images show the war criminal feeding the ducks in South Africa.

A polemical report. "Way to the neighbors" is the motto of the Oberhausen Short Film Festival. In their "Remarks on the Oberhausen 66 Film Festival," the GDR documentarians Gerhard Scheumann and Walter Heynowski take the competition selection to task: They see formal experiments as "excesses on the big screen" and instead of political themes, they discover a "surge of perversity." After her own film "Kommando 52" was rejected by the festival, a criminal complaint by the GDR lawyer Friedrich-Karl Kaul against the mercenary and commander "Kongo-Müller" is the focus of a press conference. The refusal of a cinema owner to show the film was a "hint from the neighbors", the neighboring public order office, and therefore state censorship in the Federal Republic of Germany.

An interview with former Nazi and mercenary Siegfried Müller about his life and war campaigns in Africa.

The film deals with the infamous "Kommando 52", which was active in the 1960s civil war in the Congo and was recruited mainly from West German men. Among them is the former Wehrmacht officer Siegfried Müller. Based on personal accounts and original material - backed by tape recordings of interviewed mercenaries and photos of murdered Africans - it creates a hard hitting historical document.

Documentary film about the Spanish Civil War.

Palermo, pearl of the Mediterranean, is one of the most popular holiday resorts for European and American tourists. What they do not see, however, are the narrow lanes in the city centre, where thousands upon thousands crowd together in damp and dark holes. The fate of the children is especially moving. Only half of the children in Palermo go to school. Their life is nothing but work and misery. But when they grow up, unemployment awaits them.