Season 1 • Episode 4
LatestThe living conditions during the period of inflation in the early 1920s are depicted in a fascinating way. Behind a shiny façade, ordinary people struggle for bare survival. Opposite them stand landowners and former military personnel with their complacency, ignorance, and emptiness! The title character, Wolfgang Pagel—a cadet officer, unemployed and a gambler out of desperation—loses everything on the night before his wedding and sets out in search of money in the inflation-ridden Berlin of the 1920s.
Acting
Armin Mueller-Stahl's desperate charisma carries every scene.
Production
Incredible Weimar-era Berlin detail on GDR budget.
Armin Mueller-Stahl
Wolfgang Pagel
Wolfgang Langhoff
Rittmeister von Prackwitz
Herbert Köfer
Gutsverwalter von Studmann
Friedel Nowack
Minna
Annekathrin Bürger
Petra Ledig
Agnes Kraus
Frau Thumann
Marga Legal
Frau Pagel
Ingeborg Naß
Valuten-Vamp
Erik S. Klein
von Zecke
Helga Labudda
Violet von Prackwitz
Jürgen Frohriep
Leutnant Fritz
Edwin Marian
Inspektor Meier
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This GDR production adapts Hans Fallada's novel with surprising frankness about economic desperation, given East German censorship.
Armin Mueller-Stahl became one of few East German actors to successfully transition to Hollywood—this series helped establish his brooding intensity.
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