''Lindenstraße'' (literally "Linden Street") was a long-running German television
drama series
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular su ...
, broadcast by
Das Erste
Das Erste (; "The First") is the flagship national television channel of the ARD (broadcaster), ARD association of public broadcasting corporations in Germany. ''Das Erste'' is jointly operated by the ARD (broadcaster)#Institutions and member org ...
. The first episode aired on 8 December 1985 and since then new episodes were broadcast weekly until 2020. Its last timeslot on Das Erste was Sundays at 18:50. The events of the Sunday episode usually take place on the Thursday before the show. This is a result of the original plan having been to show each episode on a Thursday night. Before the start of the series the programme's timeslot was switched to Sunday evening, but Thursday remained the day on which the events are normally shown as taking place, because the original concept of dramatizing the events of daily life as experienced by a group of characters on an ordinary weekday has continued unchanged. Exceptions are the so-called holiday episodes where the events take place on such special occasions as
Christmas
Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a Religion, religious and Culture, cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by coun ...
and
Easter
Easter, also called Pascha ( Aramaic: פַּסְחָא , ''paskha''; Greek: πάσχα, ''páskha'') or Resurrection Sunday, is a Christian festival and cultural holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in t ...
; also on important election days (especially general elections to the
German Bundestag
The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the lower house of the German federal parliament. It is the only constitutional body of the federation directly elected by the German people. The Bundestag was established by Title III of the Basic Law for ...
).
Setting the pace for other soap operas in Germany, the first episodes were mostly met with poor reviews. However, ''Lindenstraße'' soon became one of the most successful shows on German television.
[''Coronation Strasse''](_blank)
BBC Radio 4. 20 April 2013.
On 16 November 2018 it was announced that the ARD television programme conference had decided – on cost grounds, despite the programme's continuing to attract between two and three million viewers weekly – not to extend its contract with the show's producers, ''Geißendörfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion'', and that the series would therefore come to an end, after nearly 35 years, in March 2020.
Development
The creator of ''Lindenstraße'' is
Hans W. Geißendörfer, whose company ''Geißendörfer Film- und Fernsehproduktion GmbH'' (GFF - "Geißendörfer film and TV productions") produced the series until its end.
In the beginning, Geißendörfer also directed the series. It is set in
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
, but filmed at the
WDR studios in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...
-Bocklemünd, where an entire outdoor street mock-up of the eponymous Lindenstraße was built. An actual street named 'Lindenstraße' exists in Munich's Harlaching district, but it has nothing to do with the series' fictional street.
The show is based on the long-running British soap ''
Coronation Street
''Coronation Street'' (colloquially referred to as ''Corrie'') is a British television soap opera created by ITV Granada, Granada Television and shown on ITV (TV network), ITV since 9 December 1960. The programme centres on a cobbled, terraced ...
'', from which it borrows its main premise (the everyday life of a number of neighbours).
It tackles topics such as racism, cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's disease, disabilities (both physical and mental), and homosexuality. In 1987, it gained attention for showing the first gay kiss on German television. The show is also known for its prompt incorporation of real-life events and current topics.
United States television actor
Larry Hagman
Larry Martin Hagman (September 21, 1931 – November 23, 2012) was an American actor, best known for playing ruthless oil baron J. R. Ewing in the 1978–1991 primetime television soap opera ''Dallas'', and the handsome astronaut Major Anthon ...
made a cameo appearance on ''Lindenstraße'' on 19 February 2006.
Geißendörfer wrote and directed the first 31 episodes himself. After that, the series was directed by a rotating group of directors that took turns in about 10-episode blocks. Among them were Herwig Fischer, Kerstin Krause, Dominikus Probst and Iain Dilthey.
There have been many different writers of the show throughout the years. Among them were Michael Meisheit, who has been writing for Lindenstraße from 1997 to 2018, and Irene Fischer, who has been writing for Lindenstraße from 1999 to 2016.
She has also been playing a main character in the series since 1987. In 2013, Geißendörfer's daughter Hana Geißendörfer joined the team and the first episodes written by her aired in late April.
Setting
The series is set in the Lindenstraße, a fictional street in
Munich
Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...
. The resident families Beimer-Schiller, Beimer-Ziegler and Zenker, as well as couples without children and communes are very prominent characters in the show. There is also a doctor's office, currently run by Dr. Iris Brooks. In the past, it has been run by Dr. Ernesto Stadler, Dr. Carsten Flöter and his stepfather Dr. Ludwig Dressler. There is also a Greek restaurant "Akropolis" and a supermarket.
There are also a few shops in the ''Kastanienstraße'' (literally "Chestnut Street"), which is at one end of the Lindenstraße. There is an organic food shop called "1 A Bio" (It used to be the chocolate store "Kakao" and the gourmet food shop called "Alimentari". There is also a café called "Café Bayer" and a travel agency called "Träwel und Iwends" (a pun on the German pronunciation of Travel and Events) as well as the car shop "Die Werkstatt". There are also several minor characters who live on this street.
On the other end of the Lindenstraße, one can find the ''Ulrike-Böss-Straße''. In it is a movie theater ("Astor"), the "Café George" and a hair salon.
Cast
Due to the frequency of social problem topics treated in the series, a high proportion of the characters come from minority groups of diverse kind or live in patchwork relationships. From the Greek Restaurant with its family and a Vietnamese which were there from the beginning, characters and whole families with
migration background
In the Germanosphere, ''migration background'' () is a term used to describe people on the basis of Identity politics, identity and ancestry. Migration background is a variably defined Social structure, socio-demographic characteristic that desc ...
have come and gone from Italy, Turkey, Eastern Europe etc. The current cast counts three male homosexuals, two of them living in marriage with an adopted son, and one female homosexual with a test-tube baby. There's a homeless man, a man in a wheelchair, a child with
Down syndrome and so on.
Fans of the series have proclaimed in mild jest that a "normal" family wouldn't survive the Lindenstraße. As if to prove this, the model bavarian family Stadler which moved to the street in September 2008 has only one member, the contrarian Grandfather, remaining in the street as of early 2013. He "occupies" a room in a commune otherwise populated by twens. His son, the family father, fled the street after the family mother had a love-affair with his brother. The mother then broke up with the brother and started a new affair with a young immigrant from the Balkans who hid his visa-less family in an apartment in the same house. The younger family daughter, who became a teenage mother after a Lindenstraße resident of her age purposely broke a condom, fell in love with the same immigrant and left the street in shock after finding out that he preferred her mother over herself. The mother and the immigrant then left the street together. The older teenage daughter had more luck and married a widely liked Lindenstraße resident in Las Vegas with whom she started a successful business in the street, only to suddenly die from a food poisoning originating in the Greek restaurant in February 2013.
Final regular cast members
See also
*
List of soap operas
The following is a list of soap operas that have been broadcast in various countries, including previous and current soap operas. Soap operas that are currently being broadcast are listed in bold if they are not in a table.
Albania
Argentina
...
*
Entführung aus der Lindenstraße, a 1995 TV Special featuring many Lindenstraße cast members.
References
External links
Official website of the show*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindenstrasse
1985 German television series debuts
German television soap operas
Das Erste original programming
Fictional streets and roads
Television shows set in Munich
1990s German television series
2000s German television series
2010s German television series
German-language television shows
Television shows adapted into comics
2020 German television series endings