Verbotene Liebe (,
lit. "Forbidden Love") is a German television
soap opera created by
Reg Watson for
Das Erste. The show is set primarily in the German city of
Düsseldorf although, at times, the city of
Cologne and the Spanish island of
Majorca have figured prominently in the show's story lines. First broadcast on 2 January 1995,
Verbotene Liebe was originally broadcast in 24-minute episodes, five times a week. It expanded to 45-minute episodes on 21 June 2011 and trimmed back to 40-minute episodes on 23 January 2012 to accommodate an adjusted time-slot. In 2006, Pay-TV network
Passion began broadcasting episodes of the show from the beginning.