The Blind Spot (2013)

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Movie
Original title The blind spot
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 2013
length 99 minutes
Rod
Director Daniel Harrich
script Ulrich Chaussy , Daniel Harrich
production Danuta Harrich-Zandberg , executing
music Ian Honeyman
camera Tobias Corts
Walter Harrich
cut Georg Michael Fischer
occupation

The blind spot is a German feature film from 2013. Daniel Harrich directed and wrote the screenplay together with Ulrich Chaussy , the film is based on his book Oktoberfest - Das Assentat: How the repression of right-wing terror began . The themes of the film are the attack on Munich's Oktoberfest , the worst terrorist attack in German post-war history in 1980 and the search for the perpetrator and motive, with several original sequences from reporting from that time being recorded. The film premiered on July 6, 2013 at the Munich Film Festival . The television premiere took place on October 10, 2014 at Arte .

action

Ulrich Chaussy is a journalist and works for Bayerischer Rundfunk . He and his wife Lise live in a shared apartment in Munich that is searched one day by the police. Chaussy is interrogated by the police and questioned unsuccessfully about explosives hidden in the shared apartment . Soon after the search, the journalist and Lise move into their own apartment near Theresienwiese .

The head of the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans Langemann, gives a lecture at a police school on assassins and their backers. In his opinion, they lead the perpetrators like puppets and cut the threads immediately after the crime, so that the police investigators only have loose threads.

On September 26, 1980, nine days before the general election, an attack was carried out on the Munich Oktoberfest; there are 13 dead and more than 200 injured. The Bavarian Prime Minister, Franz Josef Strauss , instructs Langemann to influence the investigation in his own way: "Come up with something!"

When Gundolf Köhler , who was a member of the right-wing extremist military sports group Hoffmann , is presented as the sole perpetrator, Chaussy doubts this and his alleged motive. Together with the lawyer for some victims, Werner Dietrich, he begins to do his own research and broadcasts his results on Bayerischer Rundfunk.

During his research, he is largely supported by a man who only calls himself "Meier" and gives him a moving box full of files on the case. Chaussy can speak to witnesses who saw the alleged lone perpetrator Koehler together with other people shortly before the attack. This was not taken into account in the police investigation. He also suspects links between Langemann and the press, because the reporter Werner Winter from Illustrierte Quick was able to speak to relatives of the assassin in Donaueschingen before the police arrived. In addition, a human hand was found at the scene that could not be assigned to any of the victims.

In 1984, Dietrich applied for victims of the assassination to resume investigations into the assassination attempt. His application is rejected by the Federal Public Prosecutor Kurt Rebmann in Karlsruhe in a very short press conference with reference to Köhler's sole culprit.

When Chaussy is shadowed and his family receives threatening letters, he first ends the investigation at the urging of his pregnant wife. 20 years later, in 2006, she encouraged him to resume the research after she became aware of new results from DNA research. It turns out, however, that the evidence was destroyed in 1997, so that the question of complicity can no longer be clarified.

In the text panels at the end of the film one learns that Langemann has been sentenced to a penalty.

Effects

At the premiere of “The Blind Spot” on June 11, 2013 in the Bavarian State Parliament, Bavaria's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann assured the journalist Ulrich Chaussy that he would release the allegedly destroyed trace files of the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office. These were located in the evidence cellar of the LKA. In January 2014, victim lawyer Werner Dietrich first got access to the trace files in the LKA Bayern. On December 6, 2016, the Munich lawyer Werner Dietrich also applied for the release of the head of the Bavarian special commission for the Oktoberfest assassination attempt, which is being investigated due to an undercover agent in the rocker milieu. On December 26, 2016, the head of Soko was finally replaced.

After the film was released, numerous new witnesses and whistleblowers contacted Ulrich Chaussy and Werner Dietrich. The attorney filed a motion to reopen the investigation in September 2014 - for the fourth time. On December 11, 2014, Attorney General Harald Range announced the resumption of the investigation into the Oktoberfest attack on September 26, 1980. This is the first time in its history that the Federal Prosecutor's Office has resumed closed proceedings.

The developments triggered by The Blind Spot are the content of the documentation Assassin. Lone perpetrator? News from the Oktoberfest attack , which was shown on February 4, 2015 in the first part of a themed evening. The documentation also publishes a new lead for the first time: a nurse who stated that she had cared for a seriously injured young man in the Oststadtkrankenhaus Hannover in 1980. Possibly an accomplice.

The research by Ulrich Chaussy and Daniel Harrich continues among other things as interactive web documentation.

The shot from the Ferris wheel at the beginning of the film shows the three-way loop, which was first exhibited at the Munich Oktoberfest in 1984.

Awards

Reviews

“The direction and imagery of the film are good-natured and conventional, but luckily that doesn't hurt its cause. In any case, 'The Blind Spot' can do without artificial flavorings, because it emotionalises through its coolness; the facts themselves are polemical and leave the viewer helplessly indignant. One dangerous side effect, however, should not be kept secret: 'The blind spot' is in no way suitable for promoting trust in the rule of law and training citizens in popular education. "

- Thomas Assheuer : Die Zeit 05/2014

“ 'The blind spot' , which was already shown on Arte last October, is featured in the first program today: a modern, at times rather fast-paced political thriller with documentary aspirations that has to end as unsatisfactory as Werner's research Dietrich and Ulrich Chaussy, a radio reporter and author who has been researching since 1980, have so far had to remain without a satisfactory answer. And yet the film is one of the best there are of films about the key days of German history. You look at him and follow the traces that lead to the witnesses, to the right milieu and to the state security. In the end, one wonders - this is how director Daniel Harrich and Chaussy wrote the script - whether we are not dealing with structures of failure and ignoring that are very similar to those of the later crimes of the 'National Socialist Underground' , NSU. "

- Matthias Hannemann : Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of February 4, 2015

“Above all , 'The Blind Spot' is undecided as to what exactly its story is and how far it wants to move away from the dramaturgically unsatisfactory reality. Instead of tinkering with a cool thriller that doesn't even have to speculatively fill gaps in knowledge to be exciting, Harrich dutifully logs the collected material. At one point, Chaussy can be frightened by unknown persecutors, the short-term marriage crisis caused by work is ended at the same moment by the wife with a notice of pregnancy, and at the end, 'The Blind Spot' brings its story to the door with two updating inserts ... That Well worth a visit, you can't say. Even if the will to venture into this almost unknown chapter of German history is to be given high credit for the film. "

- Der Spiegel Online Kultur from January 23, 2014

The film received the rating of Particularly Valuable from the German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ oktoberfest-attentat.de
  2. ^ The blind spot in German film and media evaluation