February: Metropolis (2001)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as "Radio Play of the Month" in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
While the workers in the lightless lower city live like slaves, society in the upper city lives in a world of luxury. The master of people and machines is Fredersen, the "brain of Metropolis". His opponent is Maria, "the saint of the oppressed". Freder, the blond son of the ruler, falls in love with her and follows her into the catacombs. His father asks the magician Rotwang to create a "false Maria", an artificial person who looks exactly like Maria. The doppelganger stirs up the masses. The destruction of the machines threatens doom. Thea von Harbou's novel "Metropolis", published in 1925, is an early science fiction classic. The radio adaptation is based on the novel and screenplay for the legendary film adaptation by Fritz Lang.| By Thea von Harbou/Fritz Lang | Director: Bernhard Jugel | BR 2001, 70 min.
March: The War of the Worlds ( 1938)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
One of the most spectacular events in radio history was triggered by director Orson Welles on the eve of Halloween 1938 with his live broadcast "The War of the Worlds": Numerous American listeners believed in an invasion by Martians from outer space. New version of the English-language radio play classic with German commentary. | By Orson Welles | New version: Jochen Rack | With Walter Kreye, Ursula Illert | Directed by Orson Welles | CBS Radio 1938/RB 1998. In English and German. 76 min.
April: Adolf Eichmann on Trial (2021)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
This picture went around the world: Adolf Eichmann, the main organizer of the murder of European Jews during the Nazi era, sits as a defendant at the Jerusalem District Court in 1961 in a glass cabin made of bulletproof glass. Witnesses from all European countries report on everyday persecution and extermination. For the first time in the reappraisal of Nazi crimes, the entire trial was broadcast live on the radio. A documentary radio play about a report that burned itself into the collective memory of Israelis. | By Noam Brusilovsky/Ofer Waldman | Director: Noam Brusilovsky | rbb/DLF 2021, 60 min.
May: Apparat Herz - Special program on passport issues (2001)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
After the GDR built the Wall in 1963, a permit scheme was negotiated over Christmas and New Year to allow West Berliners to visit their relatives in East Berlin. The radio station in the American sector, RIAS, sets up a telephone advice center. The original sound collage of the call-in broadcasts of the time conveys a precise picture of the historical situation. | By Helgard Haug, Daniel Wetzel | DLF 2001. 59 min.
June: Apollo Amerika (1969)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
During the first moon landing of Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin with Apollo 11, the radio play author Ferdinand Kriwet was in America with a tape recorder and documented the radio and television coverage as an audio collage. | By Ferdinand Kriwet | SWF/BR/WDR 1969. 30 min. In English.
July: Locomotion (1986)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Loudspeaker announcements, a whistle, the train starts moving again. Change of location, change of place. An acoustic journey through four countries, four languages. From Berlin via Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, Granada, Tangier, Casablanca to Marrakech. An acoustic film. | By Alfred Behrens/Norbert Jochum | hr/BR/SFB 1987. No language. 63 min.
August: Regina B. – A Day in her Life (1967)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Regina B. – A Day in her Life (1967) Regina Bayer, a worker and mother of two, is left by her boyfriend. She makes the tough decision to continue her education as an engineer by taking classes at night, offered by the company. She is bullied and rejected by her colleagues and superiors: How is that supposed to work, studying at night as a single mother? | By Sigfried Pfaff | Directed by Fritz-Ernst Fechner | GDR Radio 1967. 82 min.
September: Anne Frank – Traces of a Child (1958)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
"The Diary of Anne Frank", the true story of a Jewish girl who hid with her family from the Nazis in a Secret Annex in Amsterdam, is world-famous. It was published by her father Otto Frank, who was the only one of his family to survive the Nazi extermination camps. Anne Frank died at the age of 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp shortly before the end of the war. The publication of the diary in Germany was accompanied by doubts about its authenticity. The author and radio pioneer Ernst Schnabel followed the traces of Anne Frank. His research proves the authenticity of the text. He turned the conversations he had with 42 contemporary witnesses into a documentary radio play that was broadcast in many countries. His conclusion: "The public compassion for this child's diary was not only moving, but also frightening in a way. Until then, the fate of six million people had affected the German public much less clearly than the death of this one girl, and there were critical voices that said: it is much easier to suffer with a beautiful child than with an incalculable army of destitute people." | By Ernst Schnabel | Director: Fritz Schröder-Jahn | NWDR 1958. 92 min.
October: Rocky Dutschke ´´´68 (1997)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
A rebellion against the eternally righteous and politically correct of the '68 generation. In this radio play, Rudi Dutschke repeats the big trip to West Berlin, storms the department stores and gets caught up in the ideological snares of capitalism. Meanwhile, twelve editors have a good time in the studio, Wolf Biermann tap dances and Heiner Müller reveals details about gaining pleasure in an interview. In a furious collage, Christoph Schlingensief shatters images and formulas of an outdated era. Radio play based on the version for the Volksbühne Berlin. | By Christoph Schlingensief | Directed by Christoph Schlingensief | WDR 1997. 56 min.
November: The Trial of Lukullus (1949)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
The Roman general Lucullus, whose wars of conquest claimed countless lives, is tried at the court of the underworld after his death. He justifies his actions by claiming that he acted for the good of Rome and refers to his posthumous fame as a gourmet. Brecht wrote the radio play in exile in Sweden shortly after the start of the war in 1939 as a criticism of Hitler, and it was first broadcast in Switzerland a year later. Bayerischer Rundfunk was responsible for the first German broadcast after the war. Brecht reworked the play into an opera in 1951 in the GDR together with the composer Paul Dessau. | By Bertolt Brecht | Adapted and directed by Harald Braun | BR 1949. 56 min.
December: Three paper roses (1962)
In 2024, the radio play celebrates its 100th anniversary in Germany. Tracing its rich and varied history, we present an outstanding example of German radio history as “Radio Play of the Month” in German.
With friendly permission of the Bayerischer Rundfunk.
Janne is eighteen years old and a trainee at a large factory in the GDR. Arno, thirty-two, is an engineer and department head there. When he invites Janne to his house by the lake for the weekend, a banal flirtation soon turns into a conversation that goes much deeper: what is truth, what is the truth in love, does every year have a new truth, where does the lie begin? The shared thoughts lead to shared actions - the couple begins to play out a marriage. | By Manfred Bihler | Directed by Werner Grunow | Rundfunk der DDR 1962. 62 min.