Steel mesh

Television series
Original title	Steel mesh
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Year (s)	1958-1968, 1999-2003
Production ; company	Northern German Radio
Episodes	28 in 2 seasons ( list )
genre	Detective film
music	Walter Schumann , ; Miklós Rózsa u. a.
First broadcast	March 14, 1958 on German television
occupation
	The actors changed from episode to episode. A detailed list can be found on the page listed under web links .

Stahlnetz was a series of German crime film productions broadcast by NDR between 1958 and 1968 , the 22 episodes of which were partly based on real events. The series was directed by Jürgen Roland based on scripts by Wolfgang Menge and is occasionally regarded as the predecessor of the ARD crime film series Tatort . The series was very popular with television audiences; most of the episodes became real street sweepers .

Six other episodes produced between 1999 and 2003 were less successful. In the episode “PSI”, the actor Axel Milberg played the role of headstrong chief inspector Klaus Borowski , who solves an almost unbelievable kidnapping case. Chief Inspector Borowski was later transferred from Hanover to Kiel - as a crime scene inspector.

General

In 1957 the NDR started the radio play series The Hunt for the Perpetrator with authentic criminal cases. It proved to be successful, so it was decided to produce a similar series for the TV program. The concept and the theme music were borrowed from the US television series Dragnet (literally ' trawl '; English title: Police report ). The title melody was composed by Walter Schumann . The well-known "Taa-Ta-Tamm-Tamm" at the beginning comes from the pen of the Hollywood composer Miklós Rózsa ( Ben Hur , El Cid and many others) and was originally composed for the film Avengers of the Underworld ( The Killers , 1946). The accompanying film music was u. a. composed by Erwin Halletz and once also by Martin Böttcher (for the two-parter Spur 211 ).

While the 22 original episodes were written by Wolfgang Quantity and staged by Jürgen Roland, the six new episodes come from different authors: Friedrich Ani (2), Orkun Ertener (2), Thomas Keck , Kerstin Oesterlein (2), Jessica Schellack , Markus Stromiedel and Karl Heinz Zeitler . The directors also changed in the new episodes: Thomas Bohn (2), René Heisig (1), Markus Imboden (1), Ernst Josef Lauscher (1) and Manfred Stelzer (1).

Leading German television actors were seen as perpetrators and investigators in the series episodes; The investigators included Heinz Engelmann , Wolfgang Völz , Hellmut Lange , Rudolf Platte , Karl Georg Saebisch , Eddi Arent and Paul Edwin Roth . As a perpetrator you could u. a. Experience Sigurd Fitzek as child murderer Willy Funke in Rehe as well as Grit Boettcher , Mady Rahl , Dirk Dautzenberg , Jan Hendriks and Henning Schlüter .

consequences

Each episode begins with a crime being re-enacted. Then the following texts can be heard:

" Title of the episode - This case is true! It was recorded according to the records of the criminal police (with / without city name). Only names of people, places and dates have been changed to protect innocents and witnesses. "

So far this is even the literal translation from the police report , cf. also the Dragnet '88 version of The Art of Noise .

"If names are identical with living or dead people, it is purely coincidental."

media

Books

In 1960 Wolfgang Quantity published four volumes based on episodes of the series:

Volume 1: The Cast Iron Alibi
Volume 2: The dead in the harbor basin
Volume 3: Witness in the green skirt
Volume 4: Burned Traces

DVD video

Collection box: 22 episodes and six new episodes as bonus films on eight DVDs, published by ARD-Video with a documentation about Jürgen Roland as a bonus DVD.

Radio plays

Between 2005 and 2008, Audio Verlag produced radio plays in a series of Stahlnetz and initially published them as CDs and later also as download media. They are adaptations of the soundtracks of the respective television films. The series was numbered from 1 to 5.

Stahlnetz - The 12th Knife (2005)
Stahlnetz - Das Haus an der Stör (2005)
Steel Mesh - Burned Traces (2006)
Steel Net Season (2007)
Steel Network - The Alibi (2008)

Katrin Machulik from “Der Audio Verlag” explained about these productions that not every film is suitable for an audio version. Wolfgang Quantity played an active part in these audio versions.

Others

Jürgen Roland engaged a number of well-known folk actors for the series , most of whom appeared in smaller roles. These included, for example, Ernst Hilbich or the stars of the Ohnsorg Theater Otto Lüthje , Henry Vahl , Helga Feddersen , Ernst Grabbe , Karl-Heinz Kreienbaum , Günter Lüdke and from the St. Pauli Theater Christa Siems .

Web links

References and comments

↑ NDR publishes Stahlnetz crime thrillers as audio films. In: Welt Online . January 3, 2008, accessed December 16, 2018 . In the title of the article, the NDR is incorrectly named as the publisher, in fact “Der Audio Verlag” was the publisher.

[1] NDR publishes Stahlnetz crime thrillers as audio films. In: Welt Online . January 3, 2008, accessed December 16, 2018 . In the title of the article, the NDR is incorrectly named as the publisher, in fact “Der Audio Verlag” was the publisher.