Verbotene Liebe

Verbotene Liebe is a German soap opera about sex, money and power. 20 years around affairs, blackmails, murder, alcoholism, tragic deaths and forbidden loves.

It all begins with the tragic love story of Jan Brandner (first Andreas Brucker, later Hubertus Grimm)and Julia von Anstetten (first Valerie Niehaus, later Nina Bott), who turn out to be twins that were separated at birth by their mother Clarissa (Isa Jank). Jan grow up with his father Arno (Konrad Krauss), while Clarissa married the billionaire Christoph von Anstetten (Jürgen Zartmann), who adopted Julia.

The story between Jan and Julia went on for more than two years, before a pregnant Julia, married to Tim Sander (Roland Pfaus) disappeared and later wanted Jan to follow her. While he was happy that his beloved sister was alright, Jan knew that their love couldn't continue and tried to move on.
Jan later would become a priest, while Julia gives birth to her son Timo (Remo Schulze) and marries Doctor Ricardo Mendes (Daniel Sellier). It takes them fourteen years before the reunite on the Spanish island Mallorca.

In the meanwhile the focus shifted to the complex matriarch of the show, Clarissa. She developed a long time rivalry with the murderous Tanja von Anstetten (Miriam Lahnstein), who used to be married to Christoph's younger brother Ben (Andreas Jung). An enmity that would bring Clarissa behind bars, while everyone believes she died in a plane crash. It takes her ten years to walk free again and have the aspiration to start over, beginning by making up with her children Jan and Julia. Feeling guilty for their forbidden love for each other, Clarissa visits Julia on Mallorca and is confronted with her old love and father of her children, Arno.

The years that Clarissa spend behind bars, lead to Lahnstein family becoming the main focus of the show. Patriarch Johannes von Lahnstein (Thomas Gumpert) falls in love with the beautiful and young Cécile de Maron (Yvonne Burbach), who marries him, but eventually starts having feelings for her stepson Leonard (Lars Korten). Johannes later finds happiness with Elisabeth Ryan (Martina Servatius), but is always threaten by his power hungry son Ansgar (Wolfram Grandezka). A beast to love. He finds true love in Nathalie Käppler (Jenny Winkler), who later turns to alcohol because of his schemes and indignities. Ansgar is blackmailed into marrying Tanja, as Nathalie finds her love for him again. In the end, Nathalie gives up the fight over Ansgar and he starts an affair with Lydia Brandner (Theresa Underberg), the wife of his cousin Sebastian (first Joscha Kiefer, later Sebastian Schlemmer). She even becomes pregnant and the two plan to marry, after Ansgar divorced Tanja and Lydia Sebastian, but once again Ansgar's schemes are in the way. Lydia leaves him with their unborn son. As Kim Wolf (first Lisa Tomaschewsky, later Nicole Mieth) comes into Ansgar's life, he does not know that the two share a secret connection, only known by Kim's mother Viktoria (Patricia Schäfer).

The last years of the show revolved around the fight of the head of the Lahnstein family. Ansgar always tried to scheme himself to the head but had an opponent in his cousin Sebastian. Several love stories were also told but some lacked interest of the viewership.
In the summer of 2014 the show was officially canceled by the network. The last episode will air in the beginning of 2015 around Verbotene Liebe's 20th anniversary.

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