Commissioned to make a working-class family drama for public television, up-and-coming director Rainer Werner Fassbinder took the assignment and ran, dodging expectations by depicting social realities in West Germany from a critical—yet far from cynical—perspective. Over the course of five episodes, the sprawling story tracks the everyday triumphs and travails of the young toolmaker Jochen and many of the people populating his world, including the woman he loves, his eccentric family, and his fellow workers, with whom he bands together to improve conditions on the factory floor.

Das Kriminalmuseum was a German television series. It ran from 1963 to 1970 on ZDF and was one of its first programs. Each episode began with a tracking shot through an unspecified crime museum, stopping at one of the displays, whose story was then told. Each episode was between 60 and 75 minutes long and featured different actors as the criminal commissioner. The best known was Erik Ode, who in 1969 moved to Der Kommissar, appearing in 97 episodes. The theme music of the series was written by German composer Martin Böttcher, who also composed the complete scores for five episodes.