ZDF

We are being monitored, spied on and bugged. Almost every day there are reports that our data is not safe. Are we too careless or victims of a grand scheme? Is a secret conspiracy of intelligence agencies, military leaders, business leaders and politicians targeting all cell phone and Internet communications of the world's population? Is a tightly woven web of surveillance covering the entire planet outside of law and order? What was a bleak vision of the future in George Orwell's day seems to have been caught up with reality today.

Teeming with marine wildlife, our oceans are full of fascinating stories, like these, about orcas, sea lions and the giant Mola.

Castles were bastions of power. Yet, what was life like behind their walls? Part 1 of our documentary follows their development from simple wooden fortifications to the most elaborate strongholds and residences. Part 2 examines their military function from the 11th to the 16th century. When the enemy was at their gates, they had to withstand battering rams, catapults and sapping which called for ever new solutions by their defenders until, finally, large-calibre cannons spelt their end.

On 1 September 1939, Hitler started the most fatal war in world history – a war waged to plunder, dispossess, enslave and eliminate entire ethnic groups. This German-Polish series reconstructs how Hitler triggered a chain of events that sparked a global conflagration and the intense suffering of the Polish people, the first victims of the war.

Internet, apps, smartphones and the digital world have long been part of everyday life. For many people, the new possibilities trigger fears about the future that are well known from dystopian films: powerful tech companies, world domination by intelligent machines, the end of self-thinking humanity. The documentary series shows what happens when we surf, click, swipe, order and follows the digital economy behind the scenes. Who are the winners and losers of digitization and who makes the decisions about our future?