Deutschland 83

Deutschland 83
Deutschland 83 intertitle - English-subtitled version
Genre	Cold War espionage
Created by	Anna Winger Joerg Winger
Written by	Anna Winger
Directed by	Edward Berger Samira Radsi
Starring	Jonas Nay Maria Schrader Ulrich Noethen Sylvester Groth Sonja Gerhardt Ludwig Trepte Alexander Beyer Lisa Tomaschewsky
Opening theme	"Major Tom (Coming Home)" by Peter Schilling
Composer(s)	Reinhold Heil
Country of origin	Germany
Original language(s)	German
No. of episodes	8 (list of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)	Joerg Winger Nico Hoffman Henriette Lippold
Cinematography	Philipp Haberlandt Frank Küpper
Production company(s)	UFA Fiction
Distributor	FremantleMedia International Kino Lorber
Release
Original network	RTL (Germany) SundanceTV (US)
First shown in	United States
Original release	17 June (2015-06-17) – 5 August 2015 (2015-08-05)
External links
Website
Production website

Deutschland 83 is an eight-episode German television series starring Jonas Nay as a 24-year-old native of East Germany who in 1983 is sent to the West as an undercover spy for the HVA, the foreign intelligence agency of the Stasi. It is a co-production of AMC Networks' SundanceTV and RTL Television by the production company, UFA Fiction, with international distribution by RTL Group's FremantleMedia International and North American distribution by Kino Lorber. The series premiered on 17 June 2015 on the SundanceTV channel in the United States, becoming the first German-language series to air on a US network. The broadcast was in the original German, with English subtitles. It subsequently aired in Germany beginning in November 2015, and in the UK on Channel 4 beginning in January 2016.

A second season, which would be titled Deutschland 86, is a possibility, according to the producers. Wolf Bauer, head of producer UFA Fiction, said a second series of the show could be greenlit, even if the series does not achieve huge viewings in Germany. Deutschland 86 would be set in 1986, three years after the original series. If a second season were produced, a third season, Deutschland 89, would very likely follow. It would be set in the pivotal year of 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell.

Cast

• Jonas Nay as Martin Rauch / Moritz Stamm, code name Kolibri (Hummingbird), a border patrol guard from East Germany, who goes undercover in West Germany as a oberleutnant and aide-de-camp to Major General Edel, impersonating the murdered soldier Moritz Stamm.
• Maria Schrader as Lenora Rauch, Martin's aunt and one of his handlers for the Stasi. She is a cultural attaché of the East German Permanent Mission (StäV) in Bonn.
• Ulrich Noethen as Generalmajor Wolfgang Edel, Martin's boss in the Bundeswehr. General Edel works with the Americans at NATO on the deployment of Pershing II Weapon System missiles.
• Sylvester Groth as Walter Schweppenstette, Lenora's boss at the East German Mission.
• Sonja Gerhardt as Annett Schneider, Martin's fiancée who lives in Kleinmachnow, East Germany.
• Ludwig Trepte as Oberleutnant Alex Edel, General Edel's son who serves in the military with Martin.
• Alexander Beyer as Tobias Tischbier, a professor at the University of Bonn and Martin's handler who works in the Stasi's foreign arm, the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance (HVA).
• Lisa Tomaschewsky as Yvonne Edel, General Edel's daughter who is a member of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh cult.
• Carina Wiese as Ingrid Rauch, Martin's mother who lives in Kleinmachnow, East Germany.
• Godehard Giese as Lieutenant Colonel Karl Kramer, a fellow spy who helps Martin.
• Errol Trotman Harewood as Major General Arnold Jackson, the American general who works with General Edel on the deployment of the Pershing II Weapon System missiles.
• Michaela Caspar as General Edel's secretary Mrs. Netz
• Vladimir Burlakov as Thomas Posimski, a colleague of Annett's
• Jens Albinus as Henrik Mayer, NATO head analyst.
• Nikola Kastner as Linda Seiler, Mayer's secretary.

Episodes

Creator Anna Winger said that all of the episode names originate from NATO military exercises from 1983.

No.	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original air date	Viewers (millions)
1	"Quantum Jump"	Edward Berger	Anna Winger	U.S.: 17 June 2015 UK: 3 January 2016 Germany: 26 November 2015	U.S.: 0.066 UK: 2.13 German: 3.19
East Germany's Secret Service is concerned by American military plans in West Germany. East German Secret Service employee Lenora Rauch sends her nephew to West Germany to act as a spy.
2	"Brave Guy"	Edward Berger	Steve Bailie and Anna Winger	24 June 2015 UK: 10 January 2016 Germany: 26 November 2015	U.S.: 0.074 UK: 1.54 German: 2.86
Tischbier orders Martin to break into NATO head analyst Henrik Mayer (Jens Albinus)'s hotel room to steal a secret report. He refuses until Tischbier promises to help his mother who is suffering from kidney disease in East Germany.
3	"Atlantic Lion"	Edward Berger	Anna Winger	1 July 2015 UK: 17 January 2016 Germany: 3 December 2015	U.S.: 0.077 UK: 1.35 German: 2.05
While at a NATO conference in Brussels, Moritz gets an assignment to seduce and bug the head security analyst's secretary, Linda Seiler (Nikola Kastner).
4	"Northern Wedding"	Edward Berger	Andrea Willson and Anna Winger	8 July 2015 UK: 24 January 2016 Germany: 3 December 2015	U.S.: 0.100 UK: 1.24 German: 1.96
NATO is placed on high alert when the bug is found in Linda's desk. Linda visits Martin in West Germany. Martin scrambles to turn her loyalties around while under interrogation by NATO security about their relationship.
5	"Cold Fire"	Edward Berger	Anna Winger	15 July 2015 UK: 31 January 2016 Germany: 10 December 2015	U.S.: 0.143 UK: 1.15 German: 1.69
Tischbier arrives at the commune to retrieve Martin and tell him that his mother will have her kidney transplant but Martin is the donor. He must get to East Berlin after delivering a package to a mysterious man.
6	"Brandy Station"	Samira Radsi	Ralph Martin and Anna Winger	22 July 2015 UK: 7 February 2016 Germany: 10 December 2015	U.S.: 0.082 UK: 1.29 German: 1.67
Martin wants to stay home now, but his fiancee Annett tells him to go West again. Alex takes General Jackson hostage and forces him to film a denunciation of US military plans in Western Europe.
7	"Bold Guard"	Samira Radsi	Georg Hartmann and Anna Winger	29 July 2015 UK: 14 February 2016 Germany: 17 December 2015	U.S.: 0.072 UK: 1.33 German: 1.72
As preparations for NATO's nuclear war game "Able Archer" intensify, Martin receives an order from East Germany that cements his fears about their paranoia. Martin blows his own cover in order to warn his superiors in the West that the East German HQ thinks that the exercise is a real act of war. Under arrest, he escapes from the base and smuggles himself back to East Germany.
8	"Able Archer"	Samira Radsi	Anna Winger	5 August 2015 UK: 14 February 2016 Germany: 17 December 2015	U.S.: 0.107 UK: 1.33 German: 1.63
The fear of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the West had become a possibility at the East German HQ, while in the West, war game Able Archer reaches its peak. Martin finally manages to talk to high ranked officers in the East, revealing the deliberate misinterpretation of the conclusions of NATO's report by high-ranking East German officials.

Production

The show was created by the husband and wife team of American novelist Anna Winger and German TV producer Joerg Winger. It is produced by Joerg Winger, Nico Hoffman, and Henriette Lippold. Anna Winger said that they did extensive research with experts who were from both sides of Germany. Historian Klaas Voss from the Hamburg Institute for Social Research was very important in providing historical information. Jonas Nay, who played Martin, said he received technical assistance from military adviser/NATO expert Steffen Meier.

The show was shot in and around locations in Berlin, Germany. A suburb in east Berlin was used to portray period East Germany. For some scenes the Stasi headquarters (in German, the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit) was used as a location and the production was able to film at the Stasi Museum, which is the actual site of the original headquarters. The actual headquarters for the HV A was however in Gosen about 28 km (17 miles) south east of the Berlin TV tower, less than 1 km (0.6 miles) SE of the Berlin city limits, and approximately 4.5 miles (7.5 kilometers) south of the city of Erkner. The backup bunker for the headquarters of the HVA was also located there.

Directors Edward Berger and Samira Radsi used the same crew—and often the same locations—to shoot their respective episodes. One director would prepare for shooting while the other was shooting. They worked in parallel like this throughout the filming of the show. Radsi said she knew producer Winger from working together on the popular German TV show, SOKO Leipzig.

SundanceTV created a digital marketing strategy that reflected the use of locations in Germany that were meant to recreate both East and West Germany in the early 1980s. Reflecting both the intertitle of the show, the marketing team created sliders that show locations as they were in contrast to the current day. The opening credits were created by Saskia Marka.

Music

The show is notable for its extensive use of 1980s popular music, including Nena's "99 Luftballons", David Bowie, New Order and the Eurythmics among others. Each week's episode has a playlist of music from and/or inspired by the episodes. The score was created by Reinhold Heil, who produced the song "99 Luftballons."

Heil, who often collaborates with Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run), said that he was on board the project when he saw the first scene of the show, where two teenagers are being interrogated by the border guards (one of whom was Martin, the main character) for attempting to smuggle two books by Shakespeare and Marx across the border. He said that it was very realistic, which comes from his similar experience when he was caught smuggling music (Stravinsky and Bach).

• Episode 1 – "Quantum Jump": DJ Geespin of Power 105.1
• Episode 2 – "Brave Guy": WFMU Station Manager Ken
• Episode 3 – "Atlantic Lion": DJ John Fell Ryan of the NYC band Excepter and the documentary Room 237
• Episode 4 – "Northern Wedding": DJ Jonathan Tooubin of New York Night Train
• Episode 5 – "Cold Fire": DJ Takefive of CÜR Music
• Episode 6 – "Brandy Station": Top 10 Songs of 1983 According to Billboard
• Episode 7 – "Bold Guard": DJ David John Bishop
• Episode 8 – "Able Archer": Composer Reinhold Heil
• Episode 8 – "Able Archer" (finale bonus): Creator Anna Winger

The theme for the respective English-subtitled North American and UK broadcasts of the series featured Peter Schilling's "Major Tom (Coming Home)" – the English-language version of Schilling's big 1983 European hit "Major Tom (völlig losgelöst)". However, the markedly different introductory sequence for the German broadcast of the series used New Order's 1983 hit "Blue Monday".

Critical response

Deutschland 83 was met with excellent reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the show a 100% score with an average rating of 8.2/10, sampled from 22 reviews. The consensus states: "An engrossing drama with a fun '80s soundtrack, Deutschland 83 chronicles an intense spy story that brings viewers uncomfortably close to the Iron Curtain." On Metacritic, it holds a score of 79 out of 100, based on reviews from 11 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

The first two episodes of Deutschland 83 premiered at the Berlinale 2015 to very positive reviews. In its US television premiere, it also received positive reviews, with mention of its humor and successful depiction of a Cold War thriller, with favorable comparisons to the US show, The Americans. Many critics called it the best show of the summer of 2015.

Writing in The New Yorker, Emily Nussbaum called the show a gorgeous, slinky thriller, praising its recreation of 1983 Germany as "nearly as aesthetically aspirational" as Mad Men". She questioned the plot line's credibility as Martin's character repeatedly landed, Zelig-like, "at the center of world-historical events", but didn't deem this to be a "deal-breaker". In a mixed review, The New York Times compared the show to a show broadcast on The CW.

Clemens Poellinger from the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet awarded the series a 5/6 rating. He praises the "excellence in time-faithful environment and details" but also points out the similarities with the series Weissensee.

Broadcast

The series premiered in the United States on 17 June 2015, on SundanceTV, making it the first German-language series to air on a US network. In Germany, it began to air after the U.S. run on RTL 26 November 2015.

It premiered in Ireland on 29 November 2015, on RTÉ2. All episodes were added to Australian streaming service Stan in December 2015. On 14 January 2016, the series was made available for streaming in The Netherlands via Videoland.

It premiered on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on 3 January 2016, with the final two episodes shown back-to-back on 14 February. It has since become the most popular foreign-language drama in the history of British television with an audience of 2.5 million viewers as of January 2016.

See also

• Able Archer 83
• Cold War (1979–85)
• Korean Air Lines Flight 007
• Maison de France 1983 Bombing
• Pershing II Weapon System
• NATO Double-Track Decision
• Strategic Defense Initiative
• Ronald Reagan
• Erich Honecker
• Main Directorate for Reconnaissance

External links

• Deutschland 83 at IMDb