UNDERWORLDS
GERMANY FROM BELOW


(1) TUNNELS, CAVES AND MARMOTS

In the imagination of the antique, Hades, the river on the boarder to the realm of the deaths lies in the mysterious depths underneath the earth. Under the earth we place our deaths, our ancestors took shelter in caves, like animals are still doing today. From the mines under the earth we have been winning salt, ore, diamonds and coal. Our popular legends deal with dwarfs mining treasures underground out of our sight.

„Germany From Below“ uncovers hidden underworlds: the tunnels under the Elbe river in Hamburg, the complex parallel Potsdamer Platz in Berlin that lives under ground, from the bunkers of the 2WW and the cold war, to the creepy ossuaries and wonderful underwater caves, to the endless pit system of the gigantic Prosper Haniel coal mine and the deepest German cave, the „Riesending“.

After having revealed with „Germany From Above“ a totally unknown Germany, „Germany From Below“ carries off to the unknown and fascinating underworlds under our feet, a parallel world made of mysteries and fears, treasures and resources, protection and dangers.

„Underworlds – Germany From Below“ takes the audience to mysterious parallel world under the earth: a look into an underworld that is inaccessible to most of us.

We dip in the sleeping room of marmots, and the animals´sophisticated survival strategy in the winter time, we follow a group of speleologists in the Riesending Cave. A labyrinth inside the mystical mountain Untersberg stretches 20 kilometers into the mountain – and the end of the cave is still to be discovered. We enter gigantic, glittering underground salt mines in Bernburg, a true subterranean city beneath the town. With sophisticated animations we plunge into the deepest flows of groundwater and tangling underworld maze of mushrooms and we go underwater, from the pipelines under the the oil platform in the North Sea, to the flooded tunnels of legendary cave Blauhöhle.

Under the earth dead people are preserved: in the creepy, biggest German ossuary in Oppenheim, or in the mass grave of the cruel 30 Years War in Lützen, where scientists are studying the remains of the soldiers in order to determine their origin and the living conditions of the time.

„Germany From Below“ uncovers hidden underworlds: the tunnels under the Elbe river in Hamburg, the complex parallel Potsdamer Platz in Berlin that lives under ground, from the bunkers of the 2WW and the cold war, to the creepy ossuaries and wonderful underwater caves, to the endless pit system of the gigantic Prosper Haniel coal mine and the deepest German cave, the „Riesending“.

After having revealed with „Germany From Above“ a totally unknown Germany, „Germany From Below“ carries off to the unknown and fascinating underworlds under our feet, a parallel world made of mysteries and fears, treasures and resources, protection and dangers.

„Underworlds – Germany From Below“ takes the audience to mysterious parallel world under the earth: a look into an underworld that is inaccessible to most of us.

We dip in the sleeping room of marmots, and the animals´sophisticated survival strategy in the winter time, we follow a group of speleologists in the Riesending Cave. A labyrinth inside the mystical mountain Untersberg stretches 20 kilometers into the mountain – and the end of the cave is still to be discovered. We enter gigantic, glittering underground salt mines in Bernburg, a true subterranean city beneath the town. With sophisticated animations we plunge into the deepest flows of groundwater and tangling underworld maze of mushrooms and we go underwater, from the pipelines under the the oil platform in the North Sea, to the flooded tunnels of legendary cave Blauhöhle.

Under the earth dead people are preserved: in the creepy, biggest German ossuary in Oppenheim, or in the mass grave of the cruel 30 Years War in Lützen, where scientists are studying the remains of the soldiers in order to determine their origin and the living conditions of the time.

Facts

Nominated for the Adolf-Grimme Prize
Nominated for the German Camera Prize

1. Episode: First aired on 18th May 2014 , 19:30 p.m., ZDF
2. Episode: First aired on 25th May 2014 , 19:30 p.m., ZDF

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Credits

Written, directed and produced by: Petra Höfer and Freddie Röckenhaus

Aerial Photography: Peter Thompson, Irmin Kerck, Stefan Urmann

Director of Photography: Tobias Kaufmann u.a.

Video Editor: Johannes Fritsche

Producer: Francesca D`Amicis, Susanne Rostosky, Kay Schlasse

Line Producer: Svenja Mandel

Narration: Leon Boden

Commissioning Editors: Friederike Haedecke , Katharina Kohl (ZDF)

A colourFIELD production commissioned by ZDF

Full credits

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