Whether Pierre Brice in Sauerland, Otto Rehhagel at BVB or Annegret Richter at the Olympics. 1976 offered not only the hottest summer but also plenty of heroic stories.
So Jochen Bludau slips into the role of Old Shatterhand once again: in 1976 he brought the original Winnetou Pierre Brice to the Karl May Festival in Elspe. For 10 years Bludau and the Sauerlanders played alongside the world star Brice.
Filmmaker Lukas Hoffmann has also tracked down other contemporaries who describe the moment when their lives changed completely - for example Harro Remmert, who as a successful Cologne jockey had a momentous accident in 1976 that left him in a wheelchair forever. He fought his way back and in his second life as a trainer achieved a remarkable series of successes.
But 1976 is not only the year of heroes. In Aachen, the first casino in North Rhine-Westphalia was reopened after a 100-year ban on gambling. In Düsseldorf, the relocation of the Oberkassel Bridge became a mass spectacle. And in Duisburg, Commissioner Bernd Jägers solved his most spectacular case - that of the murderer of the century, Joachim Kroll.
The film is narrated by presenter Sabine Heinrich, who was born in Unna in 1976.
First broadcast: Friday, 22 September 2017 at 8:15 pm on WDR
