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For the first time ever, a German-language show is invading American prime time. Smart spy thriller Deutschland 83 will premiere on Sundance TV tonight, and the network is hoping it will be the latest foreign import to set stateside audiences ablaze.
So why would Sundance TV give this specific German show a chance? Well, maybe it’s because it picks up where this last season of The Americans left off. Maybe it’s because Deutschland 83 recently won the honor of “Best World Drama” at Paris’ annual Séries Mania festival. Or perhaps it’s because it’s a gorgeous, engrossing series that will open a whole new perspective on 20th century history to American audiences.
Deutschland 83 is an eight-part thriller set in Cold War-divided Germany. Jonas Nay plays Martin Rauch, a bright, young East German officer who loves his mom, his pretty girlfriend, and the Communist cause. When his spymaster aunt realizes that the Americans are coming to West Germany with plans to nuke Mother Russia, she blackmails him into crossing the border and posing as West German aide Moritz Stamm. Soon, Martin finds himself surprised by the reality of life in West Germany and seduced by the dark fun of being a spy.
When we spoke with the show’s creators, married couple Joerg Winger and Anna Winger, they admitted that the show’s scope and exquisite cinematography was heavily influenced by the classic ’70s spy thriller, Three Days of the Condor. Joerg even mused that they were coming “full circle.” He said, “It’s Robert Redford and he started Sundance. So now we’re on Sundance TV. And I remember the first meetings about the look of the show… We were talking to Edward Berger, our director, and we were always saying, ‘We want this to look like Three Days of the Condor.”

The Wingers didn’t just look to American cinema for inspiration, though. Anna cited recent Danish hits like The Killing and Borgen as shows that spurred them to push further with what German television could do. “Up until then, it was like, ‘Okay, in America, they can make this kind of drama because it’s America. They have a lot more money,” Anna explained. “You know, Denmark is right next to Germany and has four million people and a much smaller industry than Germany has. For me, that was a moment where I thought, ‘Well, if they can make this kind of show in Denmark, then we can make it in Germany, too.'”
Of course, the actual idea for the story of Deutschland 83 came from a real life experience that Joerg had as a young West German officer. “We knew that there had to be a mole on the base and we didn’t know who it was.”

While both Joerg and Anna Winger grew up in a time when Germany was divided down the middle, Deutschland 83′s leading man, Jonas Nay, was born in 1990 — after the Berlin Wall had already fallen. “It’s totally insane for me to imagine, I have to admit,” he told us. He added that he was “scared” to find out through research how close Germany came to being blown off the face of the Earth in a potential nuclear World War III.
And that’s the heightened world of Deutschland 83. It’s thrilling, dramatic, scary, and sexy. Oh, and it’s got a pumping ’80s beat.
If you want to check out the show, you can see it on Sundance TV. That network is available to stream in Sling TV‘s Hollywood Extra bundle.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ok68OYIzCs]

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[Photos: Sundance TV]