Writing
Wolfgang Menge was a German writer, primarily a screenwriter, and journalist.
Documentary about the history of German television.
Schtonk! is a farce of the actual events of 1983, when Germany's Stern magazine published, with great fanfare, 60 volumes of the alleged diaries of Adolf Hitler – which two weeks later turned out to be entirely fake. Fritz Knobel (based on real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. When Knobel writes and sells a volume of Hitler's (nonexistent) diaries, he thinks it's just another job. When sleazy journalist Hermann Willié learns of the diaries, however, he quickly realizes their potential value... and Knobel is quickly in over his head. As the pressure builds and Knobel is forced to deliver more and more volumes of the fake diaries, he finds himself acting increasingly like the man whose life he is rewriting. The film is a romping and hilarious satire, poking fun not only at the events and characters involved in the hoax (who are only thinly disguised in the film), but at the discomfort Germany has with its difficult past.
A candidate in a game show is hunted by three men. He will get a Million DMark, if he survives for a week; the hunters will get the money, if they can kill the candidate. The audience of the show is watching the transmissions of twenty camera teams filming the hunt. The showmaster appeals to the TV-viewers to help either the candidate or the hunters, whomever they want.
The country estate of American emigre Abel Bellamy is haunted by the ghost of the Green Archer, a 14th century Robin Hood type figure who terrorised the former lords of the manor. Now, with the gangster coming home on vaguely defined business and his niece Valerie arriving with her adoptive father to take up residence in the adjacent mansion, much to Bellamy's annoyance, the archer has returned. Who is he and what does he want?
Every day they clean the dirty windows of their cars from the filthy film that has formed overnight. Measuring stations call a low smog warning. But one day a soccer player collapses on the pitch with breathlessness.
A drama that illustrates a few days at a busy Hamburg police station.
The film focuses on life in a World War II German penal battalion camp somewhere in Russia. The convicts include a heroic doctor unjustly convicted of avoiding military service, an officer who retreated against orders, and common criminals. It shows their life in the camp, clearing mines, living in trenches on the front line.
In exploring sex offenses, particularly against children, this film reveals the inner workings of the Zurich police and INTERPOL as they pursue persons accused of voyeurism, rape, fetishism, sadism, and masochism. After the criminals are arrested and given psychological tests, they may be sentenced to an institution or undergo brain surgery (with their consent) in order to be rehabilitated.
The pupil Rull rehearses the uprising at a grammar school in Bremen and tries to break through the authoritarian structures of his school. The result is a humorous protest movement that demands a democratic school form.
A fictionalized version of a military training fight.
A strange, red circle appears on the neck of a man saved from the guillotine. What is its mysterious meaning? Tragically, it turns out to be something of a family curse, as each generation thereafter bears the same sign, which in turn leads to blackmail and murder.
A television technician who is mistaken for a star photographer can hardly save himself from girls who are addicted to fame. A simple-minded story of mistaken identity as a hook for striptease acts and cheap jokes.