Deutschland 83 is a cold war espionage series where the main character Martin Rauch is a 24 year old native of East Germany is sent to West Germany as an undercover spy for the HVA, the foreign intelligence agency for the Satsi in the year of 1983, where he enlists in their army to glean secrets concerning ATO military strategy. This series stars actors such as Jonas Nay playing Rauch, Maria Schrader as Lenora Rauch (Martin’s Machiavellian Aunt that suggested him to be sent off West Germany without his consent, as well as directing an award winning 2007 film Love Life), Sonja Gerhardt as Annett Schneider (Martin’s Girlfriend) as well as many other magnificent actors. Comparisons with Fox’s The Americans, in which two Russian agents go undercover in Raegan’s America, are inevitable but coincidental, says Anna: not only does Marin share the ethnicity and language of his hosts, but he’s also younger, less cynical sand more vulnerable to the allure of capitalism than Philip and Elizabeth in The Americans. Deutschland 83 gets a well deserved 4.5 out of 5 stars for it being an engrossing drama with a fun 1980s soundtrack and as it is an intense spy story that brings viewers uncomfortably close to their screens.
In East Germany we meet Martin, a wide-eyed but not-so-innocent young man who serves in the East German army on the border of the Berlin Wall. He’s got a sick mother, Ingrid, who raised him single-handedly, a lovely girlfriend named Annett and a nice line in terrorising innocent acting troupes in order to claim their copies of Shakespeare for his mum.
Unfortunately for Martin, he also has the schemer Aunty Lenora who works in Bonn for the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik). Lenora has big ideas regarding her young nephew and isn’t above using a bit of emotional, but literal, blackmail to get them. She is seen as objectifying him in the Rauch household. Luckily for her, Ingrid desperately needs a kidney transplant but can’t get on the waiting list. So, it is that young Martin finds himself rechristened Moritz and heading to Bonn to serve as aide-de-camp to General Edel, a senior West German army officer whose dealings are mainly with the Americans.
After he got kidnapped and was transported to West Germany, Martin Rauch (now Moritz Stamm) is introduced to Tobias Tischbier, a university lecturer and East German who has been deep undercover since 1961. Later down the line, Stamm befriends General Edel and his family, including his conflicted son Alex and his daughter Yvonne which is a singer that gets objectified by the fact that the camera pans around her when she is introduced and by her father to essentially “show off” to the guests at his party of the amazing daughter that he has.
The Edels has an aunty named Renate who likes to drink a bit and no one believes her in what she says. That, unfortunately, turns out to be the only bit of good luck that young Martin/Moritz gets this episode as after managing to secretly photograph General Jackson’s plans however he is far from done to return to East Germany.
The hit series is such a pain for the audience to watch; they have to sit through adverts that are upto 3 minutes every intermission. However, the fact that Deutschland 83 keeps everything historically accurate; from the setting and language to the content of what it has to provide such as the political, economic and cultural differences between both East and West German therefore, this really entices the audience to carry on watching the long drama series and that is a major plus for this successful drama, especially it being the first German television series to ever air in America.
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