Forever a murderer - The Ritter case
Forever a Murderer - Der Fall Ritter is a German TV film from 2014 by Johannes Grieser with Hinnerk Schönemann in the leading role. The detective film was first broadcast on arte on July 18, 2014 . The story is broadly based on a true story.
action
In October 1999 a colleague from Frankfurt am Main appeared in Eisenach at the office of Detective Inspector Frank Wolf . Yvonne Weber was sent to Eisenach to solve an unsolved murder from 1983. Since 1991 the German judiciary has been dealing with unresolved capital crimes in the new federal states . Before the statute of limitations for all East German crimes committed before 1990 expires, the case of Konrad Ritter should also be re-examined. Frank Wolf remembers the Doreen Wojcik case. In 1983 the daughter of a police officer was strangled. She was the friend of the musician and village Casanova Konrad Ritter, who at the time was arrested only two years later because his friends first incriminated him. According to the files, Ritter was then interrogated for over 300 hours and in the course of these interrogations he had confessed to the murder. In an appeal procedure, he then had to be released again on the basis of a testimony. Since Ritter moved away afterwards, no one took care of the matter. Yvonne Weber finds it negligent not to have looked further for the real culprit. Wolf doesn't see it that way, because the investigators still have no doubts about Ritter's guilt. For them, he has remained the killer, whether acquitted or not.
Yvonne Weber is now reopening the case from scratch and with Frank Wolf as a local investigator at her side, she can first be shown the crime and location of the corpse. Then she seeks out Konrad Ritter, who, still marked by the events of that time, does not want to talk to anyone about it. So Weber takes the files to study them further. It does not get very far with the analysis, however, because reports and studies referred to here are not included. So, together with Wolf, she goes to the Gotha public prosecutor's archives to get the missing documents. Here Wolf suddenly discovers an old stool in the corner that attracts his attention. Apparently no one had bothered to dispose of it - a stool with five rusty screws, the tips of which dig hour after hour into the flesh of an accused person during interrogation, just as Ritter had described. Even if Wolf had doubted the interrogation methods back then in the GDR, this stool spoke for itself. Weber registered the horrified look of their colleague and together they confronted the investigating officer Müller, who was still working at the police station in Eisenach. His superior Schulte tries to break off the discussion and get Wolf back on their side. Wolf, who at this moment again becomes unsure whether he should close the case to please his colleagues or at least investigate further, is encouraged in the latter when Weber finds a note in the files. After this had Ministry of State Security of the GDR over the case. This only happened in this form if a member of the police came into question as a witness or accused. That puzzles Wolf, and it becomes even more puzzling when suddenly the old files have disappeared from Weber's office. Allegedly, public prosecutor Kleinert requested these files back to Gotha because they were needed. That gives Wolf the final impetus to "pull together" with his colleague Weber. As a precaution, she had copied all the documents so that they can continue to investigate on this basis. First, they question the witness who last saw the victim at the time. She confirms her first statement again, which she then changed a little because of urging a police officer. She also knows that Doreen Wojcik was seen by another witness afterwards, but this was never recorded in the files. Wolf is now finding further contradictions in the documents and is absolutely certain that the evidence has been adjusted so that everything fits with Ritter as the perpetrator. Exonerating witness statements were omitted and others were manipulated in such a way that only Ritter was considered. The stasis interrogation methods made it no longer difficult to get the suspect to confess.
Unfortunately, Wolfgang Schulte, head of the commissariat, is not only Wolf's superior, but also his foster father privately. That brings Wolf into a serious conflict of conscience . Can he investigate his family? Especially since Schulte only has one year left until his retirement and the limitation period would apply until then? But since Wolf is so disappointed to have worked with such "monsters" from police colleagues, he doesn't want to spare them either. One of the last contemporary witnesses is Walter Voss, a former police officer who at that time had already followed a different lead than his colleagues. But since that led to the police colleague Anton Mesmer, the whole thing had been handed over to the Stasi and they had let this perpetrator under the table and preferred to go to the village Casanova. Voss is surprised that after so many years someone is still interested in the truth and reveals to the investigators that he had secured hair samples from the alleged perpetrator and clothing from the victim with possible traces of the perpetrator. These are located in the Gotha archives. Weber and Wolf initially fail to track them down, because Schulte precedes them and not only pulls them away from the case, but sends Weber to Gotha, where a post is to be filled and Wolf for six months on further training and then for a further six months on a course in criminal psychology. When she left, Weber swore that she couldn't be silenced with it.
After a few months, Weber “orders” Wolf to leave his training course in Gotha. She has also used her new job to secure the evidence mentioned by Voss. But in the meantime it is no longer possible to take a direct comparison sample because Anton Mesmer has been dead for fourteen days. Wolf's colleagues and the responsible Stasi employees , who were guilty in the Ritter case, can no longer be held responsible after the limitation period has expired. Wolf distances himself from his foster father and quits his job as a police officer. He remains satisfied that he has found the real murderer and rehabilitated Konrad Ritter.
"A lot of someone's lifetime was destroyed."
background
A murderer forever - The Ritter case was filmed from October 15 to November 15, 2013 in Erfurt , Eisenach , Gotha and Weimar .
Actor Luca Zamperoni initiated the film . He had read about the case in the newspaper, which moved him so much that he wrote a letter to the victim. After meeting the convicted man at the time, he was convinced that more people should learn about this story. This is how the idea for the film came about, for which Zamperoni had “fought” for twelve years. Another actor was originally planned for the role of Konrad Ritter. But after this had canceled, the appointment was made with Zamperoni.
reception
Audience rating
The first broadcast of Forever a Murderer - The Knight Case on July 18, 2014 on arte reached 5.59 million viewers and a market share of 18.0 percent.
Reviews
Rainer Tittelbach from Tittelbach.tv wrote appreciatively: “'Forever a murderer - The knight case' begins as such investigative stories usually begin. There are the old, grown ties, there are dependencies that make it difficult to determine impartially. There are a number of suspicious factors and the guys, the rough Stasi proletarians and the gentle sadists who seem to be involved in the case and which the hero is ready to 'nail on the wall' after the first setbacks are also early for the viewer ready. This ZDF / Ar-te co-production doesn't start out in a particularly exciting way either. ”“ But the more you immerse yourself with the investigator duo in the old case, which is conveyed to the viewer sometimes with short flashbacks, sometimes with verbal explanations, The more dynamism the film gains. ”In the end, the“ viewer is released from the exciting film with a 'good feeling' despite unanswered questions ”.
The critics of the television magazine TV Spielfilm gave this episode a "thumbs up". They judged: "Dealing with the past East - slightly confusing, but with an original initial idea (author: Holger Karsten Schmidt) and an unconventional ending, well filled and exciting." Conclusion: "Despite small clichés, criminally good!"
David Denk from the Süddeutsche Zeitung commented: “'The Ritter case' is unfortunately by no means just subtle: Apparently out of fear of overwhelming the viewer, the book of this very complex historical crime thriller is bursting with sentences that the editor seems to have insisted on. 'The murderer is dead and those who covered him are now covering each other,' is one of those. "
In the Tagesspiegel , Joachim Huber wrote: Forever a murderer - The Ritter case “What is buried is dug up, foundations are destroyed, layer by layer: Even without in-depth, symbolized psychoanalysis, guilt is brought to light. The film has long since detached itself from the templates of the discovery plot, the moral discourse is no longer as pressing, crime and contemporary drama come into balance - and the finale is floating. "
Tilmann P. Gangloff judged for Kino.de : "Johannes Grieser [...] has experienced the script, but implemented it rather inconspicuously." However, some actors have implemented some dialogue scenes "a bit awkward". Also, "some of the supporting actors are a little thick with facial expressions" and therefore "a former Stasi major embodied by Hilmar Eichhorn almost looks like a caricature." "The more beneficial is the economical, but incomparably more effective work of Hinnerk Schönemann and Karl Kranzkowski."
Web links
- Forever a murderer - The case of Knight in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Forever a murderer - the knight case at fernsehserien.de
- Forever a murderer - The Ritter case at crew united
Individual evidence
- ↑ Forever a murderer - The Ritter case at crew united . Retrieved January 15, 2020.
- ↑ Miriam Hollstein: When I saw the film, I cried at welt.de , accessed on January 15, 2020.
- ^ A b Rainer Tittelbach : Schönemann, Weißbach, Holger Karsten Schmidt. For the benefit of the audience , accessed on Tittelbach.tv on January 15, 2020.
- ↑ TV crime drama. Inspector Hinnerk Schönemann rolls up an old GDR murder case. Film review at tvspielfilm.de, accessed on January 15, 2020.
- ↑ David Denk: Sleeping Dogs Review of the film at sueddeutsche.de , accessed on January 15, 2020.
- ↑ Joachim Huber: Arte-Krimi copes with crime and the past at tagesspiegel.de , accessed on January 15, 2020.
- ↑ The Ritter case at Kino.de , accessed on January 15, 2020.