The culture of East Germany varied throughout the years due to the political and historical events that took place in the 20th century, especially as a result of Nazism and Communism. A reflection on the history of arts and culture in East Germany reveals complex relationships between artists and the state, between oppositional and conformist art. In four decades, East Germany developed a distinct culture and produced works of literature, film, visual arts, music, and theatre of international acclaim. Popular culture specialities included among others a high popularity of nudism in Eastern Germany.
Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk is the public broadcaster for the federal states of Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. Established in January 1991, its headquarters are in Leipzig, with regional studios in Dresden, Erfurt and Magdeburg. MDR is a member of the ARD consortium of public broadcasters in Germany.
Tatort is a German language police procedural television series that has been running continuously since 1970 with some 30 feature-length episodes per year, which makes it the longest-running German TV drama. Developed by the German public-service broadcasting organisation ARD for their channel Das Erste, it is unique in its approach, in that it is jointly produced by all of the organisation's regional members as well as its partnering Austrian and Swiss national public-service broadcasters, whereby every regional station contributes a number of episodes to a common pool.
Angelica Domröse is a German actress, who became famous in the role of Paula in Heiner Carow's film The Legend of Paul and Paula. Her Mediterranean appearance is the result of her biological father being a prisoner of war from France.
Heinz Schubert was a German actor, drama teacher and photographer, best known for playing the role of Alfred Tetzlaff in the German television sitcom Ein Herz und eine Seele.
Diether Krebs was a German actor, cabaret artist and comedian.
Matthias Freihof is a German television actor and director. He has performed in many TV films and series including police drama Siska for 5 years. but also works on live stage performing as an actor and a singer. He is most known former the GDR-film 'Coming Out' in 1989. He and the film won prizes in several festivals as best actor and best film as well as 'The Silver Bear' in the Berlin Film Festival 1990.
Polizeiruf 110 is a long-running German-language detective television series likened to Poirot. The name links to the emergency telephone number of the Volkspolizei. The first episode was broadcast 27 June 1971 in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), and after the dissolution of Deutscher Fernsehfunk 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.
Her Third is a 1972 East German film directed by Egon Günther and starring Jutta Hoffmann, Barbara Dittus, Rolf Ludwig and Armin Mueller-Stahl. The film is based on the short story Unter den Bäumen regnet es zweimal by Eberhard Panitz and tells the story of the single mother Margit looking for a new partner. The film was produced in 1971 by the DEFA film studio and premiered on 16 March, 1972 in East Berlin.
Jörg Schüttauf is a German actor. He studied at the Theaterhochschule Leipzig. Since 2002 he has starred in the Hessischer Rundfunk version of the popular television crime series Tatort.
Siegfried Weiss was an East German actor.
Eva-Maria Hagen was a German actress and singer. She was known as the "Brigitte Bardot of the GDR" but was banned from performance for political reasons.
Ein starkes Team is a German crime television series developed by the German television channel ZDF since March 1994. Up to four new 90-minute episodes are broadcast annually, resulting in a current total of 89 episodes. Each episode usually revolves around an intricate murder case, regularly coinciding with events in the private lives of the main characters.
Hands Up or I'll Shoot is an East German crime comedy film directed by Hans-Joachim Kasprzik, who wrote the script along with Rudi Strahl. Rolf Herricht starred as officer Holms.
Dominik Graf is a German film director. He studied film direction at University of Television and Film Munich, from where he graduated in 1975. While he has directed several theatrically released feature films since the 1980s, he more often finds work in television, focussing primarily on the genres police drama, thriller and crime mystery, although he has also made comedies, melodramas, documentaries and essay films. He is an active participant in public discourse about the values of genre film in Germany, through numerous articles, and interviews, some of which have been collected into a book.
Herbert Köfer was a German actor, voice artist, and television presenter. He was the first German TV news presenter for the East German Deutscher Fernsehfunk, and also presented the station's last news before the reunification of Germany. His first theatre engagement was in 1940, and he kept acting until the age of 100. Köfer played an SS-Hauptsturmführer in the 1963 film Nackt unter Wölfen. He was known for detective series such as Polizeiruf 110 and for comic roles. He founded his own troupe, Köfers Komödiantenbühne, in 2003, and published memoirs.
Carmen-Maja Antoni is a German actress.
Jürgen Frohriep was a German actor. After 1972 he became widely known for his role as Oberleutnant Jürgen Hübner in Polizeiruf 110, a long running television series that originated in the German Democratic Republic, but which continues to win large television audiences across Germany, following reunification.
Carsten Johannes Marcus Hübner is a German actor. He appeared in more than eighty films since 2003, including Magical Mystery or: The Return of Karl Schmidt and The Good Neighbour. Also known on TV for Transporter, Polizeiruf 110, crime series Post Mortem in 2007/2008.
Jenny Gröllmann was a German actress, best known for her work on films I Was Nineteen (1968), Peas at 5:30 (2004) and her recurring role on the show Polizeiruf 110. She won an Ernst Zinna Prize of the city of Berlin in 1974.
