"Planet Earth" "When we human beings turn on the lights at dusk, the brightness of our cities can be seen from out of the space." "Points of light streched like a necklet of pearls alonge the Nile river." "Cairo and Alexandria glow in the drakness." "Europe, a veritable sea of illumination." "And in the centre of Europe," "Germany" "The country only accounts for zero point zero seven percent of the earth surface." "but eighty million people call it home." "When Germans who have moved abroad to warmer shores are asked what they miss most about their homeland, almost all of them say, the seasons." "And four seasons can fly by before you know it." "JANUARY" "Winter has come to the alps at the southern most point of Germany, the Allgäu." "Conservationist Henning Werth watches over germany's largest colony of Alpine ibexs." "Mountain goats were nearly extinct in the Alps but they were reintroduced into the wild near the source of the Lech river." "Now they gradually making their way north in search of food and shelter against the cold." "Near the village of Oberstdorf some a hundred and fifty Alpine ibexs are defying frigid winter." "The adult animals attempt to lead their offspring to higher altitudes where the wind blowes away the snow to reveal the grass beneath." "But many of their routes are dead ends." "climbing in these conditions saps a lot of strength." "A mountain goat can't afford to take too many paths to nowhere." "But this time, the chosen route does bring the ibexs family to its destination." "The wind has blowen much of the snow from this exposed slope." "There is just enough dry grass here for the ibexs to survive on." "Life in winter at more than two thousand meters elevaation is always hard." "But this year sheet of ice and snow covers all of Germany from the alps in the south up to the north sea coast." "Life slows down." "January has the entire country in it's icy grip." "FEBRUARY" "The port of Hamburg in northern Germany more than ten thousand ships sail to and from here every year." "But today in February ship traffic is on the brink of coming to a complete hold." "Tugboats and ice breakers work round the clock to keep the major channels free of ice." "The temperature is minus 18 degrees Celsius." "If the Elbe river freezes over factories in Germany won't get needed supplies and the supermarket shelfs will empty out." "Huge containership are heavy enough to break through ice on their own." "But the ice floes might stack up on top of one another and form barricades not even icebreakers could get through them." "If the ice were not cleared" "The Elbe would freeze over in a matter of hours." "Nine million containers pass through Hamburg every year." "At the mouth of the Elbe river the CONGQING from South Korea is fighting its way toward Hamburg." "If the cargo carried by the CONGQING were transported by rail, the train would be fourty kilometers long." "This January the ice on lake Alster in Hamburg city center is twenty centimeters thick." "The authorities have deemed it thick enough to walk on." "Lake Constance back at the southern border of Germany is in hibernation." "The palm trees on the famous garden island of Mainau spend the winter in a greenhouse." "The medival town of Meersburg is dusted with a thin layer of powder." "In nearby Sipplingen archaeologists are diving in search of traces of still older human settlements." "This can only be done in the winter when the icy water is crystal clear." "Current gradually uncover sunken remnants from the Stone Age." "Researchers are trying to preserve six thousand year old artifacts from the first Lake Constances fishermen." "Before they rot in the water." "The sight of Lindau island gleamingin the evening sun makes it hard to imagine how Germany would look if human being had not shaped it." "If they had not built villages and cities and fairy tale castles." "Like Bavarian king Ludwigs Neuschwanstein." "Every evening three hundred thousand commuters drive home from the city of Frankfurt." "Not everyone who works in Germanys banking capital can afford the high rents here." "And more affluent people often prefer to live out in the countryside." "Berlin is famous for its nightlife." "Well the industrial Ruhr Valley is better known for night shifts." "Every since the steelworks and brewerys of Dortmund closed the Ruhr Valleys biggest city has found fresh energy in high-tech and its beloved soccer team Borussia." "Great rivals Bayern Munich are also dreaming of titles." "In Hamburg, the port is back in opperation round the clock." "Sailers hardly have time for a tour of the notorious nightlife at the Reeperbahn." "MARCH" "In March the sun finally shines stronger." "Above Hohenzollern Castle in southern Germany the sun hints at spring to come." "While to the north it throws its spotlight on the North Sea mudflats near the island of Juist." "It even lends a bit of magic to the smokestacks along the rivers Rhein and Ruhr." "Yet these wild geese are heading out towards Siberia." "On the first warm days of the year countless thousands of geese take to the air at the mouth of the Ems river." "Ahead of them is a journey with daily stages of up to fifteen hundred kilometers." "But no matter, geese enjoy flying." "The journey to their breeding grounds near the Arctic Circle follows an underline shadow." "The geese always arrive at locations exactly when grass begins to grow there." "Fresh grass contains maximum protein and is easy to digest." "That's why wild geese leave Germany when the weather gets warmer researches in East Frisia have counted up to a hundred and forty thousand airborne migrants in asingle day." "This animation shows the flight routes of thirty geese." "The data was gathered from GPS transmitters attached to the birds." "It shows how they followed the wave of spring towards the East." "All the way from Frisia in northwestern Germany to Siberian Tundra." "A dangerous trip not all of the geese will retain to the Ems river in fall." "High above the lake Möhne and the thousand hills of Sauerland in Western Germany" "a group of skydivers are eagerly awaiting a jump from four thousand meters." "Wing suits reduce the velocity of their fall." "For five minutes or more these people will be able to fly." "Somewhere down below the landing area in the rural town of Bad Sassendorf." "The clouds have suddenly come up." "So for the moment the skydivers can't see anything at all." "APRIL" "The city of Heidelberg is one of the sunniest places in Germany." "And the first warm days of the year are tempting people outside." "Springtime is here the winter is finally over it's time to get some fresh air." "Further south in Kappelrodeck the cherry trees are in bloom." "Spring lambs and other youngsters are playing in the fields." "And the storks have mad it back and they are looking for a home." "Stocks nests are true works of art consisting of up to three hundred kilograms of wood." "Storks tend to be monogamist but then again maybe they're more faithful to their nests than to their partners." "Meanwhile in the alps." "The snow is beginning to melt from the slope." "Female ibexs are now roaming around with their offspring" "while the males keep to themselfe at least until the next meeting season." "No, this is not the moon." "It's the Welzow coal mine in the Lausitz region in Eastern Germany" "Measurements are being taken from helicopter to determine the amount of lignite mined last year." "For every ton of brown gold as the coal is called here six times as much soil must be dug up." "There's not much need for miners anymore and giant excavator 17 meters high and more than a kilometer long does the work." "Fivty million tons of coal are mined in Welzow every year back in the days of Communist East Germany that figure was ten times as high." "17 villages were demolished to supply power station like Jänschwalde with the brown gold." "but they do insure a steady level of energies always available in Germany's power grid." "In the west it's the same story." "This plant is burning coal from open-pit mines near Cologne." "The nuclear power plant of Gundremmingen in Bavaria is set to be taken offline." "Germany has decided to stop using nuklear power but the steam from these cooling towers will continue for years to prevent a deadly meltdown." "These days energy corporations seek prosperity on the open water" "Alpha Ventus thirty miles off the North Sea island of Borkum is Germany's first deep sea windfarm." "These twelve wind turbines me look familiar but each one is tall as the Cologne Cathedral." "Fifty kilometers from the German mainland is the country's only deep sea island." "Heligoland" "Uncommon birds like the white feathered Northern Gannet are once again on the islands red sandstone cliffs to breed." "And the breeding seasons starts now shortly before Easter some five thousand couples are here." "Three hundred years ago a storm separated the main island and the tiny island simply called Dune." "These residents too only returned here around thirty years ago." "Not so long ago grey seals almost became extinct in the southern part of the North Sea." "But since fishing has largely been banned around Heligoland stocks of codfish and herring have recovered and that's what brought the seals back." "But you'd have to be a seal to go for a swim here." "The water temperature rarely gets above sixteen degree Celsius." "Scientists have attached GPS transmitters to eleven Heligoland seals." "These are their swimming habits." "They don't have to travel far from the island to fill their stomaches." "By contrast seals for other North Sea islands nearer to the mainland have to swim up to a hundred kilometers to get a decent meal." "MAY" "Meanwhile down in "Kirchheim unter Teck"" "in the southwest there is a thermal lift." "Warm air from below is rising up into the colder regions of the upper atmosphere." "It's a perfect day for gliding." "Non motorized flights is a german invention." "After World War One" "Victorious allies prohibited Germans from flying motorised planes." "Aviation pioneers then discovered that air flow is quicker across the upper surface of an aircraft's wings than the lower surface." "This principle allows people to fly without motors." "In Lüneburg in northern Germany" "Eckart Grote shows how human beings can defy gravity with the help of a thermal lift." "In May the first tourists stroll along the streets of Bamberg this medieval german city was hardly damaged at all during the Second World War." "Bamberg is world Cultural Heritage site and a reminder of how most german cities looked before the war." "Medieval towns were centers of personal liberty." "Local dukes had no say in in urban centers like this." "Residents were free." "But cities like Bamberg were also perilous places to live." "There were regular outbreaks of the plague and cholera." "There were no garbage removal or sewerage system." "But people's mines were all over Germany in medieval cities like Freudenberg in Western Germany." "Or Nördlingen in the southeast with it's perfectly preserved citywalls." "Or Bautzen near the Polish border" "Calw, the birth place of writer Herman Hesse." "Or the Hanseatic merchant city of Lüneburg" "Wismar on the Baltic Sea or Seehausen to the east." "Or World Heritage sites like Stralsund" "Lübeck in northern Germany or Regensburg in the south the northernmost italian city as what some people call it." "With the skyline dominated by its central cathedral." "Regensburg is like a toy city from the middle ages." "But satellite images reveal ua much older rectangular urban structure." "It corresponds exactly to the lines of the walls of the roman fort Castra Regina." "Almost two thousand years ago some six thousend Roman legionaries lived here." "The fall of the Roman Empire meant to the end of the Castra and the chessboard patterns of its streets." "Between abandoned buildings and rubble people beat new paths." "Over the centuries they evolved into alleys and streets." "Even today people still move about in Regensburg's old town on thouth hoary paths." "It's late May and spring has long arrived almost everywhere in Germany" "Only on top a few Alpine peaks near Berchtesgaden does winter manage to claim on." "Mounting lodges like the Watzmannhouse are still dusted with snow." "Two thousand meters further down Königssee lake is frigidly cold filled by water from melting ice." "Golden eagles circle constantly on the hunt" "Down below a privileged group of cattle is making the trip across the eight kilometers of lake Königssee." "By boat is the only way these cows can get to their summer residence, the Fischunkelalm on the shore of lake Obersee." "In the Berchtesgaden National Park." "Some of the lodges used by hikers in the park are so isolated that supplies has to be flown in." "One example is Kärlingerhaus in Germany's coldest spot lake Funtensee." "Everything from packs of beer to toilet paper has to be brought in by helicopter only hikers travelled by foot through this valley." "JUNE" "The Elbe river near Hitzacker" "Twenty years ago this area i was home to the only two remaining pairs of white-tailed eagles in the country." "Today more than two hundred pairs of the bird live here." "When fisherman Thies Köthke tosses unwanted fish back into the water an eagle is always waiting." "The darker their beaks and feathers the younger the birds are." "White-tailed eagles can life become twenty years of age if they uninhabited or left in peace." "White-tailed eagles have a wing span of up to two point four meters." "But the most powerful of Germany's predatory birds really hunts for live prey." "Usually the eagles are content to glide around looking for carrion." "The Elbe river used to be border between East and West Germany" "Thus for decades surrounding flatlands slumbered undisturbed." "Like a cold war sleeping beauty." "Approximately four thousand five hundred pairs of storks breed in Germany each year." "A good dozen of them in the village of Bergenhusen in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein." "These damply fields of full of food for baby storks who have a long journey to make at summers end." "It's the pentecost holidays and Germany's Autobahns are blocked from the air reporters informed drivers where traffic might continue flowing and which roadse will be in smell by traffic jams." "Too many Germany want to head south at the same time." "Germany is located at the heart of Europe anyone going east to west or north to south has to passed through the country." "Its a small miracle, that the world's most famous Autobahns are ever this emty." "There's another highway system in the air above." "Three million flights criss-cross Germany every year." "In Frankfurt home to Germany's largest airport as many as 90 airplanes take off and land every hour." "The GPS tracks of all flights over Frankfurt illustrates the complex ballet being performed other people's heads from morning to night." "The North Sea is strange body of water." "In a few hours these waters where shrimp boats are hauling nets and seagulls are fighting fot scraps will have disappeared." "The Wadden Sea as the coastal mudflats are known is subject to particularly strong tides." "Where shrimps swam not so long ago holiday makers are now hiking on the sea floor." "There's nothing like the small Halligen island anywhere else in the world." "And only here can you ride to an island on a horse drawn carriage." "On June days like this the North Sea looks like the South Sea and the village Wittdün like a Fata Morgana." "On island like Sylt and Föhr all you can see are dunes and the ocean and occasional millionaires home." "You wouldn't know to look at the wicker beach chairs of Pellworm or the sand yachts of Sankt Peter-Ording." "But the Wadden Sea contains a biological diversity second only to that of a tropical rainforest." "JULY" "Isar river in Munich summer is finally in full swing." "In the Hellabrunn zoo even these warm weather creatures are now right in their element." "Munich is the capital of summer in Germany whether for the outdoor pool, the Isar or its famous park the Englische Garten." "No other german city looks so well turned out in summer as the self-proclaimed village of a million people." "All the way to the north its a special day on the Elbe river whenever the Queen Mary docks in Hamburg a carnival atmosphere is guaranteed." "All them also on a lovely day in July people flocked to the Landungsbrücke" "Although it's been a long time since big boats stopped to these piers Hamburg beaming with pr" "As if the Queen Mary has brought back the days when huge ships dropped anker right in the middle of the city." "It's an atmosphere of wanderlust and longing for a past age when sailing the seas was an adventure." "On days like these you can forget that there are no old buildings in the area around St. Michael's Church" "this district was leveled by operations Gomorrah on July the twenty fourth 1943 one of the allies deadliest air raid on Nazi Germany" "The satellite animation shows what the bombardment must have looked like from the air." "The districts of Altona and Eimsbüttel." "Three days later another attack this time more than forty thousand people perish in the working class area in easter Hamburg." "more than in any other air raid on Germany." "A third nighttime bombardment destroys the neighborhoods of Uhlenhorst, Winterhude and north Barmbek." "Only Eppendorf would survive unscathed." "By the end 1943 this was all that was left of Germany's second largest city." "All of Germany's major cities would suffer similar fates." "Essen and Dortmund, Munich and Cologne" "Bremen and Hannover" "Frankfurt am Main was one of Germany's biggest and best preserved medieval cities until march twenty two 1944" "Magdeburg was demolished on January sixteenth 1945" "On March sixteen of that year destruction came to Würzburg and its baroque palace." "And a year earlier sixteen thousand bombs rain down upon Münster." "The bells of the city's cathedral melted in the heat." "Today Münster's historic center once again looks a bit like it did in 1648 when the peace of Peace of Westphalia was signed ending the Thirty Years' War." "After the massive destruction of World War Two." "The city fathers decided to rebuild the historic facades of most buildings." "Many of Germany's historic cities in fact only date back to the 1950th" "Nürnberg was another city that had to be almost completely rebuilt." "Because it was conceded the capital of the Nazi movement allied bombers almost leveled it to the ground." "Even small towns like Rothenburg ob der Tauber weren't spared" "Fourty percent of the history city center was destroyed and later rebuilt with money donated by Americans." "Post war Frankfurt only rebuilt the medieval Römer several churches and St. Paul's cathedral which was also Germany's first parliament." "Instead, the city fathers decided Frankfurt should get a modern skyline." "This is the only place in Germany where you can jump off a skyscraper and parachute to the ground if you dare to that is." "Jürgen Mühling and Hannes Kraft have made their way up the two hundred meter tall Main Tower." "They repeatedly checking the air currents." "Skyscrapers can produce treacherous thermal lifts." "A jump from this height is a nervy affair even for experienced base jumper." "Back to the Berchtesgaden National Park" "In Germany's only Alpine biosphere reservoir residents are a bit worried about their trees." "A helicopter is sweeping away spruce trees that are becoming infested with bark beetles." "Normandy biologists at the park want to prevent human beings from interfering with the course of nature even when parasites are threatened to destroy the forest." "However owners of neighboring forests naturelovers and everyone who makes a living from tourism here have insited, that exception be made" "The infested trees on periphery of the park are being removed to avoid the danger of contamination." "The beetles in Berchtesgaden open up the question to what extent can we leave nature alone and still enjoying it." "AUGUST" "When field turn gold and yellow near the Kieler Förde the busiest time of a farmer's year has begun." "The threshers and traktors working these fields are beeing guided from space via satellite the built in GSP system knows exactly where the cut has to be deeper and that's allows the farmer to moe uncannily specific rows in his fields." "Everywhere from north to south" "Germany's fields are buzz of activity" "More than half of the country is farmland." "And on lake Constance alone there are sixteen hundred fruit farmers." "The storks are getting ready to head south for the winter." "For them freshly moen meadows and plowed fields are like a fully set banquet table." "Back to the Wadden Sea." "Five times a year biologists fly over the sandbanks between the mouth of the Elbe river and the island of Sylt to conduct a seals census." "The seals are photographed at low tide." "When they out on the sandbanks and later couted by computerr." "Nowhere in the world biologists monitor seals more clothly than in the North Sea mud flats." "Over eight tousends of them were counted in this census." "Once almost gone, the seals have reoccupied the sandbank and the tidal creeks." "While summer slowly falls down on the North Sea." "Hiking season is starting in the mountains." "In the alpine foothills the Ostersee lakes slumber securely in a nature reservoir temperatures are still high in late August but there is something refreshing about the mounting air." "SEPTEMBER" "Wild horses in Germany live in Dülmen in the west of the country." "In 1845 the duke of Croy granted 20 horses a rapidly expanding farmland in this part of Westphalia since then the horses have been left to enjoy an area twice the size of Manaco." "Although once a year all the one year stallions are rounded up and sold." "Around 400 wild horses live in this century located only about 30 kilometers north of the industrial towns of the Ruhr Valley." "Molten slag from the forges almost two thousand degrees hot this waste product of steel production is a kind of artificial labor that used to light up a nightskys all over the Ruhr Valley." "The slag being poured off is still one of the greatest spectacles to be seen in Germany." "Duisburg located directly on the Rhein river is home to Germany's last remaining operational smelting plants." "Here you can really feel the power of heavy industry that made Germany such a wealthy country." "With its 5 million inhabitants the Ruhr Valley is in a fact of sense" "Germany's largest city." "From the gleaming office buildings in Dortmund to the steelworks of Bochum to Oberhausen" "to the business headquarters in Essen to Mühlheim and on to the mouth of the Ruhr river in Duisburg its a green park landscape broken up by industry." "And there are even more monuments to german industry's past." "Like this gasholder in Oberhausen" "Only in Duisburg can you see grasig pastures side by side with blast furnaces" "In the Elbe Valley flood plains its the final evening these young storks will spend in their childhood nests." "This group of youngsters are about to head south." "Two weeks earlier than their parents." "The route they need is programmed into their heads inherited from birth like an navigation system." "Scientists have been using GPS transmitters to track storks for year." "Here you can see the exact routes taken by hundreds of real life storks." "The cleverly fly over the narrow passages of Gibraltar and the Bosporus to avoid having to cross long stretches of water." "Some storks migrate ten thousand kilometers all the way to South Africa where summer is about to arrive." "It's a dangerous trip but the storks that survive it will return to Germany next spring." "Its the highlights of the bavarian almanac the Oktoberfest" "The opening saturday is still an intimate event just for the locals." "Well almost intimate." "It's record-breaking time in these beer tents half a million servings of chicken" "6 million liters of beer and not to forget" "18 hundred toiletts." "But seen from above the Oktoberfest is like theater come to life." "OCTOBER" "Above Linum north of Berlin air traffic is heavy today the October skys are full of migrating cranes." "Tens of thousands of the birds stop here for a few weeks before continuing on thei journey from the Siberia tundra to the south." "Other cranes carry on further west to the forests of Sauerland." "Their routs take the birds over seemingly endless stretches of autumn forest including the beech trees in Hainich National Park" "Germany's largest deciduous forest is located in central eastern Germany near Wartburg castle where Martin Luther translated the bible into German five hundred years ago." "Germany used to be only entirely covered in woodlands." "Now National Parks are needed to preserve the forests that are left." "A bit forther west near Waldeck castle the primeval beech forests continue." "The Kellerwald-Edersee National Park is alive with the colours of full." "Further south at Binger Loch the leaves begin to turn a bit later the castles docking the right of a very definition of romanticism." "But the castles were actually built because they allowed local lords who were chronically short of money to demand tariffs and duties from ships sailing up and down the Rhine." "According to one legend two brothers owning neighboring castles fall out over the love of a beautiful female cousin the story ended tragically." "But perhaps so often was the case with medieval lords their quarrel was just about money." "On the tourist slopes of the Kaiserstuhl hills near Freiburg in southwestern Germany the grapes are being harvested." "This is an extinct volcano and that makes soil unusually rich the climate is warm as well." "People say in Germany you can't get any closer to the mediterranean than here." "In the beginning Berlin was the seat of the Prussian royal family then came the industrial revolution than the Iron Curtain than German reunification and the German capital." "No city in Germany has a high population density than Berlin nowhere are the courtyards more narrow or the architectural monuments more grandiose." "Every epoch has left behind its symbols of power and status here." "The Alexanderplatz TV tower was built in East Berlin in the 1960s as a 368 meter tall hymn to socialism." "soft spoken modesty has never set a tone in this city." "The world's tallest building used to be located on the Rhine river the Cologne Cathedral" "It's patina is obvious but there is no way to resist the lure of it's clean architectural line." "In contrast Dresden's Frauenkirche the Church of Our Lady looks absolutely spick and span." "That's because it was only rebuilt in 2005 so of course this lady looks a bit tidier." "Starts in the seventeenth century the baroque of splendor Dresden was set in sand." "Well the sandstone typical of the area around the Elbe river." "A bit upstream from Dresden there are more than one thousand freestanding sandstone pillars usually with a tourist or two on top." "The tourists are roughly one hundred million years to late or a holiday by the sea." "NOVEMBER" "The Elbe sandstone mountains were originally formed at the bottom of a primeval ocean." "shifts in the earth's crust and erosion from water and wind created these uncanny pillars." "November begins with fog the entire Alpine foothills disappear in a swaying mists." "Whooper swans dont mind the sort of weather at all." "As many as 20 thousand of them migrate to Germany every year to spend the winter." "They come from Iceland and Scandinavia the Taiga and the Tundra." "This group of swans has almost reached the first place they stop this winter the wetlands of Linum in eastern Germany" "There are always some daring aerial maneuvers in the main flight path of this migration bird paradise." "Arriving whooper swans overtake departing cranes as well as wild white geese that are also coming back to Germany." "Five kilometers from the North Sea coast in Wittmund fighter squadron 71 Red Baron trains everyday to deal with the worst case scenario defending Germany's aerospace against invaders." "Down below the first cold snap has left snow that now highlights the pattens of the fields but during military maneuvers there is no time to enjoy the view." "Phantom F4 fighter Jets fly at twice the speed of sound." "But the twelve ton planes are vintage models and will soon be decommissioned these are their farewell flight along the German coast line." "DECEMBER" "On the North Sea" "December is kicking up a fuss a force ten wind whips the clouds driving them along." "waves swell to six and eight meters in the height." "Its storm season in the German Bight" "The rescue cruiser Hermann Helms is battling its way to the high seas." "It takes seventeen hundred liters of fuel to power a boat for one hour in weather like this." "Off the coast of Heligoland the sailors on board the Hermann Marwede have secured a christmas tree to the deck but there can be no decorations or candles." "In this sort of weather." "In force 10 winds tug boats have to stay in harbour." "So ships are guided into port with helicopters" "Container ships dock and set sail in just about any weather." "And their captains need pilots to navigate the local waters." "Guiding big boats like this into German ports isn't faint-hearted." "With the storm raging the seals of Heligoland seek shelter in the dunes" "December is when seals start to bear their young" "The first new born pups in their oversized fur coats are already crawling across the cold sand." "More than one hundred baby seals are born every year on Heligoland." "Most survive seal milk is so nutritious that it can fatten up a baby seal to more than 50 kilos in only three weeks." "Layers of snow have fallen in the mountains." "Everything is once again still and slow." "Red-tailed deer seek shelter from the wind and the freezing temperatures in the woods" "Snow laden pines look almoust as so they are posing for a christmas photo" "Another year is coming to an end as is our flight over Germany." "Its time to turn up the heat eat a few christmas cookies and think up some new year's resolutions" "from above we may be tiny but everyone of us is here present one of many"