Deutschland von Oben

German waters have always been more than just water the tree-castles Rhine, the Port of Hamburg and the Elbe, the ebb and flow of the Wadden Sea, the echo of the Königssee and the endless mirrors Gray of Lake Constance - there are rivers, seas and lakes, Connect with which many German something like home. From the air, they suddenly reveal a completely different face, if the meter seal and Karl-Heinz abbot Kai Hildebrandt from the windows of her small aviator look, you'd think they crossed over the South Pacific. But on the glistening turquoise blue of sandbars in the Wadden Sea, they are not looking for pirate treasure or coral, but for seals. Meanwhile, the stocks have recovered - just because it has been years in the National Park Wadden be protected and counted sea: from the air. The oil production in Germany's only offshore Mittelplate subject to strict conditions. That the seal-life, but even in this unique, now a UNESCO World Heritage landscape prone to failure is showing an animation of the satellite perspective: "Terra X" has the GPS data from five harbor seals and the radio signals of all ships in the North Sea animated tick. At a glance is clear: despite all the protection zones intersect the routes of the seals Frachtpötte huge, because in order to find food, a seal makes daily back up to 50 kilometers. The container port of Hamburg is now completely automated. Computer-controlled loading cranes 52, 84 transport vehicles and 12 tractors but thousands of containers. Nine large container ships up to 10,000 containers on board, set in Hamburg each week, plus numerous smaller ships. In an endless ballet of unparalleled efficiency, the goods from every country on trains and trucks distributed and managed in the supermarkets and factories. Day and night are continuously optimized inventory levels. But only from the air, the stunning beauty of the endless activities envelope is visible. The third and final episode of "Germany from above" deals with the subject of river and sea in the very real, but also in the figurative sense: with the archaeologists dive on Lake Constance to the Stone Age lake dwellings, with the water police, the vessel traffic on the same is monitored by helicopter, with the departure of the legendary "Queen Mary", which attracts tens of thousands of onlookers every time in Hamburg and in the monitoring of gas pipelines Ruhr.

It's amazing what effect a change in perspective: "Germany from above" the country is presenting exclusively from the air. During an entire year flew "Terra X" by helicopter, microlight or powered aircraft on German landscapes and cities. The Alps and the highlands, the moors and the Wadden Sea, the large urban centers and the rural idyll - hardly a region in Germany like the other. Together they form the most diverse picture of Germany, which was shown on TV ever. Because the turbulent history of the country is still written in the earth. One only has to rise high enough to see them: the prehistoric crater meteorite, the remains of Bronze Age lake dwellings in Lake Constance, the traces of the Roman Limes and the green belt of the former Berlin Wall. A truly uplifting history lesson. But modernity opens up in the air, their complex networks. The transportation hubs, the gas and power lines or train tracks connecting the people of Germany. As diverse as these roads are repaired and the interesting experiences of those who build, maintain and, we learn only from the air. The first episode of the series looks at the cities. From the air, they reveal the secrets of their plans, their internal logic and hidden some of their lifelines. "Germany from the top" shows the roofs and towers of large and small towns, the railroad tracks and streets, where every morning about 40 million people, almost all at the same time, strive to work or to school. From the air you can see the Brandenburg Gate in a different light, and one wonders how the trees were able to get into the streets of the residential quadrants of Friedrichshain ever get enough sun to grow. From above you can see the luxury suburbs of Hamburg Alster in the lush green and the size of the plots. And you can see how the historic warehouse district meets with its modern, new building adjacent to the Port City. As the seemingly haphazard jumble of medieval streets in the old towns of Rothenburg, Regensburg and Lübeck come about? What secret plan behind it? And how can that work in Munich Oktoberfest, the largest festival in the world, even if most of want to go up to 500 000 visitors in the evening almost all at the same time and if possible take a taxi home? As experts identified by aerial photographs of England still 65 years after the end of the Second World War on aerial photographs from the dangerous unexploded bomb the dark times of war? Nothing has changed, the German cities more sustainable than the destruction of World War II. From a bird's eye view you can see it more clearly than ever before. "If I run an ant in a carpet, I can not see the pattern of the carpet," says Klaus Leidorf aerial archeology. "I can only distance - ie from the very top."

Ever since the fall of the Iron Curtain in our country is the number one European transit country. With no other country is rolling as much through traffic as on the motorway network in Germany. Jam flyer capture the chaos programmed during holiday periods or accidents, which bring the seemingly endless flow of traffic channels to a standstill. But no matter how much the country may be cut by highway routes in the sky there's a lot more transit routes. Millions of migratory birds, from sparrows to the tube to the wild geese, storks from the cranes to move in the spring and autumn over the country. Some, to spend the summer in Germany, and young hatch, some in transit from Central Africa to Scandinavia, or vice versa. "Germany from above," a stage fly with the cranes on their way to the south, the storks in the northern German Bergenhusen looks from above the nest and accompanied them on their summer-thermal excursions in the Elbe Valley. Elaborate animations, based on GPS data from stations equipped with laboratory animals suggest the ways in satellite images that take migratory birds. The perspective from above but also use other: Farmer Clemens Sjöberg from Schleswig-Holstein can be controlled by its tractors and combines satellite signal, because its machines to order centimeter and reap the field. With modern laser technology and the Elbe Sandstone Mountains is measured from the plane, then to animate 3D models from the data is perhaps the most bizarre scene in Europe. And archaeological surveying specialist Martin Schaich was the limit, the longest base-site in Germany, measured from the nearest centimeter using a laser micro-light aircraft from. With all the roads in Germany and across Germany we can all see from above, but also a special surprise: the landscapes that defy almost deserted the access. In the Berchtesgaden Alps to remote mountain huts are supplied only with the help of a helicopter. From the beer can to the new gutters, everything must be flown. In remote areas, in mountainous areas, in the Elbe Valley, near the Alps looks "Germany from the top" at times, such as Canada, New Zealand or the tundra. The Golden Eagles have found their refuge. "Sky" is one of them. The camera is flown with him and see him on a country that looks like from up there sometimes very mysterious and strange.