Deutschland 83

Martin Rauch leaves his home in East Germany to spy for the HVA undercover in the West German army as Moritz Stamm.The East German HVA is concerned by Reagan's "Evil Empire" rhetoric and American military plans in West Germany. When an opportunity for one of their assets presents itself, high up in the Bundeswehr, they quickly need someone very young. So Lenora Rauch sends her nephew, Martin Rauch to West Germany against his will. In Bonn, en route, he receives intensive training from HVA field operative Tobias Tischbier, and arrives at the army base in the Eifel under a new identity: Officer Moritz Stamm. His job is to collect intelligence on NATO plans to station Pershing II nuclear missiles in West Germany, as aid to a General Edel. Also, in the process, to befriend Edel's rebellious children, the angry Alex and the beautiful Yvonne.

Moritz completes a far more dangerous mission and is beginning to enjoy his life in the West. While General Edel meets with NATO colleagues to discuss the Pershing II missiles deployment, Moritz is ordered by Tischbier to break into Hendrik Mayer's hotel room and steal a top secret security report. He refuses to do so until Tischbier promises to help his mother, Ingrid, who is suffering from diabetes back home in East Germany, where treatment is scarce. When Moritz finally steals the NATO report, his superiors at the HVA in East Berlin cannot read it because it's not saved on paper but on a floppy disk. This technological hiccup turns into a humiliating struggle to keep up in the dawning era of the computer, a key example of the diverging paths of Communism and Capitalism.

While at a NATO conference in Brussels, Moritz gets his first "Romeo" assignment: to seduce the head security analyst's secretary, Linda. General Edel and his new aid bond on a trip to Brussels to meet with the top brass. Lenora emerges to tell Moritz that his mother needs a kidney transplant. She takes his blood to see if he might be a match. Back in East Berlin, Annett moves in to take care of Ingrid, at Lenora's suggestion, and reveals that she is pregnant with Martin's baby. When Moritz reconnects with Linda, a secretary he met earlier in Bonn, he sleeps with her and successfully installs a microphone in her desk at NATO. Moritz manages to connect the HVA Headquarters with the office of the top military security analyst at NATO Headquarters. It is the first time he pulls off such a complex spy manoeuvre successfully. His star keeps rising.

When the bug is found in Linda's desk, all NATO is in high alert. Moritz must cover his tracks by any means necessary. The bug is discovered in Linda's desk in Brussels just as she arrives to visit Moritz in West Germany. Moritz scrambles to turn her loyalties while under interrogation by NATO brass about their relationship. Back in the Eifel, as Linda figures out Moritz's true identity, she runs. Moritz follows but the HVA is way ahead of him. Moritz is forced to recognize the dark reality of the organization he is working for and after a brief honeymoon with tradecraft, his job becomes a terrifying trap

Moritz is sent back to East Berlin, on the way, he must deliver a seemingly harmless package to a mysterious man in West Berlin. Tischbier shows up at the Bhagvani commune to retrieve Moritz, who is still reeling from Linda's death. They fight, but Tischbier holds the trump card: his mother will have her kidney transplant but Moritz is the donor. He must get to East Berlin by the afternoon. Moritz travels back over the border for the first time since the beginning, first to West Berlin, where he delivers a package to a mysterious man. When a bomb goes off at the Maison de France on Ku'damm minutes later, Moritz chases down the man who took the package and dismantles a second bomb, and in doing so, kills the man-his first murder.

When Moritz returns to his undercover life in West Germany he is drawn into Alex Edel's fatal plans. Recovering in a room at Charite, Moritz encounters Annett for the first time since he left. He wants to stay home now, she tells him to go West again. Much is left unsaid. She is now in with Schweppenstette, who visits him next and insists, in a tense, father-son coded argument, that Moritz return to his post. Meanwhile Alex Edel has taken General Jackson hostage and forced him, at gunpoint, to film a seething denouncement of US military plans in Western Europe. Lenora follows the whole thing over the wire from the StäV. But by the time Moritz and Kramer get there to break them out before the Police arrive, the damage is already done.

When Moritz learns that the HVA believes the NATO's nuclear war game, Able Archer, is a real attack, he must ask General Edel to pull back before it is too late.

Moritz returns to East Germany to stop his HVA superiors in their tracks. At HVA HQ, fear of a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the West has become a very real possibility, while in the West, the war game Able Archer reaches its peak. A fallen agent, Moritz is now persona non grata on both sides of the border. On his way back into the lion's den to confront the top brass at the HVA, he saves Yvonne from the clutches of Annett and the Stasi. Ingrid hunts down Schweppenstette to save Thomas from prison. And Alex confronts his own demons-about his sexuality, about AIDS, and about his father. Finally, Moritz has no choice to sacrifice himself to stop the HVA from setting off a catastrophe of epic proportions.

DEUTSCHLAND 83 is a gripping coming-of-age story set against the real culture wars and political events of Germany in the 1980s.

DEUTSCHLAND 83 creators Joerg and Anna Winger discuss the historical events that provide the backdrop for their spy adventure.