Unseen, it already ranks as one of the most legally controversial television dramas made in Germany.

Next week, after more than a year in the courts, the state broadcasting network will show a powerful film depicting the devastating effects of the thalidomide drug on several thousand disabled children – and point a finger at the pharmaceutical industry.

“It’s a breakthrough for the freedom of expression in this country,” says Michael Souvignier, the producer of the film A Single Pill.

The original maker of the drug, known in Germany as Contergan, is the Aachen-based company Grünenthal, which has been fighting tooth and nail to prevent the film being aired. It claimed that the film falsely showed the company behaving immorally in trying to wriggle out of its responsibilities to inform the public and compensate the victims.

“The viewing public will be confused by invented and twisted facts in order to boost the ratings,” complained Sebastian Wirtz, the chief executive of Gruenenthal and grandson of the founder, in a court hearing.

Now some scenes that featured in the screenplay have been removed or shortened, and judges – the case went as far as the German Supreme Court – have given the go-ahead for a prime-time showing on two evenings next week. There will be a disclaimer insisting that the film is a work of art rather than a documentary account of the Contergan scandal.

A Single Pill mixes fiction with fact and tells the story of a lawyer whose child is born disabled after his wife takes one Contergan tablet during her pregnancy.

Contergan-thalidomide was a sleeping pill seemingly without side-effects that was also prescribed by doctors as an effective way of fighting morning sickness. Grünenthal marketed it as “harmless as a sugar cube”. In 1960 alone 20 million tablets were sold.

Between 1957 and 1961 – when the pills were withdrawn – about 12,000 disabled children were born world-wide as the result of pregnant mothers swallowing the medication. Many children were missing arms and legs, or had flipper-like limbs; some were deaf; most had spinal damage or kidney problems.

Now the surviving children of the thalidomide or Contergan generation have reached late middle age and are often suffering from new medical problems; the initial compensation payments wrung out of the manufacturers are no longer sufficient. That seems to explain the extraordinary tenacity with which Gruenenthal has been trying to block the film: it is likely to stir popular backing for a more generous handout.

Grünenthal, after hard negotiation, set aside 100 million marks (£34 million), which was topped up by the same amount from the Government. It was hailed as the biggest such payment in history.

In Britain, Distillers Co which distributed the drug was pressed to offer £20 million for the 456 afflicted children (thalidomiders). The Thalidomide Trust administers the fund, which provides up to £30,000 a year for the worst-hit thalidomiders.

In Germany the compensation – for about 2,800 victims – is more meagre, amounting to a maximum of €545 a month for those born without legs or arms. “We want a substantially better offer,” says Andreas Meyer, the chairman of the League of Contergan victims. The victims talk of a target of €5 billion – enough to see the victims through into old age. Few were expected to survive beyond the age of 20 when they were born.

There was little official support or sympathy for the families. One scene in the film shows a doctor telling the parents of the disabled child: “You can easily give away things like this to special homes.”

Accounts now emerging from those years paint an even more hostile picture: the newly born were placed on the floor of the delivery ward on the assumption that they would die.

“It’s something my family is very sorry about,” said Mr Wirtz in an interview this month to mark the 50th anniversary of the introduction of Contergan on the German market. “The things I reflect on are how, to whom, when, with what consequences and in what way to make an apology.”

His company no longer makes thalidomide but the drug is still in use in the fight against leprosy.

Drug victims

— Thalidomide went on sale as a treatment for morning sickness in 1958 in more than 40 countries

— In Britain the most commonly prescribed drug containing thalidomide was Distaval, manufactured by the Distillers Company, now owned by Diageo

— Foetuses are vulnerable to the drug’s effects between 27 and 40 days after conception

— The drug caused deformities in up to 12,000 infants. Of these, 5,000 survived beyond childhood

— The drug was taken off the market in Britain in December 1961, though a government warning was not issued until May 1962

— There are 456 thalidomide victims left in Britain

— The first private compensation settlements were made in 1968

— Five years later – after a campaign by David Mason, the father of a victim, and The Sunday Times – the Thalidomide Trust was set up, providing a fund of £20 million for victims

— The average annual compensation paid to a victim is £13,000

Sources: britannica.com; thalidomidesociety.co.uk; thalidomideuk.com; thalidomide.org.uk

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