Karl Schönböck

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.

This little-known German film retells the true story of the British ocean liner that met a tragic fate. Ernst Fritz Fürbringer plays the president of the White Star Line, who unwisely pressed the Titanic's captain (Otto Wernicke) to make the swiftest possible crossing to New York. Interestingly, director Herbert Selpin was arrested by the Gestapo during this film's production, and German censors banned the film for its scenes of panic and terror.

East Friesian Otto moves to the big city Hamburg. There he gets into trouble with a loan shark and needs to find a way to impress his love interest Silvia.