The third season "Ku'damm" starts. You should know that about Caterina Schöllack and her three daughters Monika, Helga and Eva.
Social pressures and personal love dramas, marriages, affairs, homosexuality, power, powerlessness, fashion, design and lifestyle of the 1960s, rock 'n' roll and the Grand Prix d'Eurovision de la Chanson … In the continuation of the family history "Ku 'damm 63 "is everything and much more that made this series so successful in season one" Ku'damm 56 "(2016) and two" Ku'damm 59 "(2018). ZDF will show the three new episodes on Sunday (March 21st), Monday (March 22nd) and Wednesday (March 24th) from 8:15 pm.
After the first part, "Ku'damm 63 – The Documentation" will also be broadcast from 9:45 pm. Among other things, the actor Karl Dall (1941-2020), who died at the end of last year, has another say in it. The entire third season can be seen in the ZDFmediathek from Saturday (March 20th).
What should you know about the four main characters?
The single mother Caterina Schöllack (Claudia Michelsen, 52) takes over the management of the Galant dance school on Kurfürstendamm ("Ku'damm") in Berlin after the end of the Second World War. The father of their three daughters did not return to the family after the war, he is officially missing. Caterina Schöllack tries to get her daughters Monika (Sonja Gerhardt, 31), Helga (Maria Ehrich, 28) and Eva (Emilia Schüle, 28) under the hood and taken care of. She pursues this goal with a lot of pressure, discipline and exclusively from a strategic point of view. Her own admirer Fritz Assmann (Uwe Ochsenknecht, 65) is officially a friend of the family. But he is more …
Monika Schöllack falls in love with the musician, bon vivant and former concentration camp inmate Freddy Donath (Trystan Pütter, 40). The two provoke and inspire with the rock'n'roll music and dance style that was emerging at the time. But the factory owner's son Joachim Franck (Sabin Tambrea, 36) is also interested in Monika – with dire consequences: he rapes her. But at her mother's insistence, she has to meet with him again. Contrary to expectations, the two develop feelings for each other, but Monika is already pregnant from Freddy. She has the child, but as an unmarried artist, despite her growing success in show business, after a ruling by the Guardianship Court, she has to hand it over to her sister Helga. Monika and Joachim get together again and get married …
Unlike her free-spirited sister Monika, Helga would very much like to lead a good middle-class life and, above all, a married life. In this sense, she marries the aspiring public prosecutor Wolfgang von Boost (August Wittgenstein, 40), although she does not know one crucial detail. Wolfgang is gay, which was still a criminal offense back then. In order to have his homosexuality "cured" in the hospital, he has painful therapy with Prof. Dr. Jürgen Fassbender (Heino Ferch, 57) endured. While Helga continues to work hard to be the perfect housewife and mother for Dorli (Alma / Smilla Löhr), her sister's child, Wolfgang puts the marriage at risk with a dangerous affair …
Eva, the youngest of the three sisters, works as a nurse. When she and a patient's husband fall in love, the patient's wife takes her own life. In order to get rid of the feelings of guilt, Eva spontaneously marries her much older boss, Prof. Dr. Fassbender. But Eva increasingly suffers from her husband's patriarchal behavior and begins to rebel. In order to no longer be dependent on him, she moves into her own small apartment and earns her own money with prostitution. When her husband finally finds her, he beats her into a coma. But like everything that happens in the apartment, Eva recorded this scene on tape – her painful ticket to freedom …
That's what season three is about
Monika, Helga and Eva also vehemently defend themselves in the new season against the restrictions and constraints that society imposed on them in the early 1960s. Her mother Caterina continues to watch this with great discomfort. The marriages of the three young women are difficult – each in its own way: Monika and Joachim get into a deep crisis. When Monika has a miscarriage, Joachim looks for the guilt in himself. But Monika rushes to work together with Freddy to compose a song for singer Hannelore Lay (Helen Schneider, 68) for the Grand Prix d'Eurovision de la Chanson.
After Caterina Schöllack was incapacitated in a car accident, Helga took over the management of the dance school at short notice. She hires the Argentine dance teacher Amando Cortez (Giovanni Funiati, born 1991), and an ardent love breaks out between the two. But does Helga have the strength to loosen the civil fetters of her marriage to Wolfgang? Eva, on the other hand, blackmailed her husband and used his money to build a life as a gallery owner. But the professor begins to protest. An untenable situation for Caterina. She takes matters into her own hands – not knowing which downward spiral she is setting in motion.
By chance, Caterina meets Fritz Assmann again. She also wrestles with the question of whether she should pass the scepter on to the next generation in dance school. Actress Claudia Michelsen is even more specific in the spot-on-news interview: "This season, Caterina is much older, physical ailments from the accident are added. The girls are out of the house. Everything is changing, values are shifting . She begins to reflect on what is really important, "she explains about her role.
Can you just join season three?
So much for the plot of the third season. But does it make sense to get started here or should you know the first two seasons? "I personally think that you shouldn't start with season three," said Michelsen. And continues: "I would wish and be happy if the viewers watch seasons one and two before that."
The added value is simply greater when you have seen the first episodes. "You then know the characters better, understand where they come from and why they are the way they are. It's a family story where development is really essential," says the actress. If you want to listen to her advice, all six episodes of the first two seasons are available in the ZDFmediathek.
If you just can't get enough of the stories about the Schöllacks and the music, there will soon also be a musical for the series. "Ku'damm 56 – The Musical" is set to premiere at the end of the year at the Theater des Westens in Berlin. Ticket sales have already started.