Flemming, Koch and Ballauf

Bernd Flemming
Channel	WDR
active	1992-1997
place	Dusseldorf
Assistants	Miriam Koch
cases	15th
predecessor	Schimanski
successor	Ballauf and Schenk
team
Max Ballauf Inspector Tejung		(1992-1994) (1992-1997)
Investigation location Düsseldorf ( NRW )

The commissioners Flemming, Koch and Ballauf were a team of investigators based in Düsseldorf in the television series Tatort . The cases were produced by Westdeutscher Rundfunk as a successor to the cases of Duisburg Commissioner Horst Schimanski . Between 1992 and 1997 a total of 15 cases were sent, eight of them with Klaus J. Behrendt in the role of Max Ballauf , who left the team in 1994. In addition to Behrendt, Martin Lüttge played the role of chief detective Bernd Flemming and Roswitha Schreiner as detective Miriam Koch .

characters

Chief Detective Bernd Flemming

Bernd Flemming (played by Martin Lüttge ) is more of a calmer type, who solves his cases more through thinking and combining than through physical effort. He has a lot of experience, but is rather aloof and unapproachable from a human perspective. Flemming lives on a farm near Düsseldorf, which he sees as the opposite of his stressful job and where he can relax well. In the sauna there, he “often gets the best ideas”.

Flemming is divorced and lives with his partner Sonja (Marlen Breitinger), but still has occasional contact with his ex-wife Hilde (Kerstin de Ahna), mostly when it comes to raising their almost adult son Ingo (Thomas Flach) . Flemming has a brother named Karl (also played by Martin Lüttge) who works as a lawyer and is running as a top candidate for the citizens' party . Flemming doesn’t have a good relationship with his brother, as he sees his behavior, which is mainly aimed at public impact, as dishonest and artificial.

Flemming keeps an eye on the human aspect in his investigations, but is always correct - with a few exceptions: In “The Black Pictures” he begins a relationship with one of the main suspects. When it turns out that their children have committed a murder, he puts his assistant Koch under massive pressure to let them escape. However, she steadfastly resists this pressure.

In his last case, Brothers , Flemming is taking early retirement. Actor Martin Lüttge, who played Commissioner Flemming, was 53 years old at the time. In his last appearance, at the end of the film, he is sitting with his son in his car and smoking a joint.

Detective Inspector Miriam Koch

Miriam Koch (played by Roswitha Schreiner ) is the young - in the first case 28-year-old - assistant to Flemming. She joins the team after Flemming asked his superior for a "third man" for a long time. She studied sociology, but did not get a degree there (“otherwise I wouldn't have to apply for the A13 position with others”).

Koch is the daughter of a State Secretary in the Düsseldorf Ministry of the Interior (according to Ballauf, “very old Düsseldorf dynasty”), but keeps this fact to himself as much as possible. Until she was transferred to the homicide squad, she headed a fan support project.

With her youthful appearance and her open, friendly manner, Koch often comes into contact with people who would otherwise not speak to the police. She is intelligent, assertive (especially seen in "Death of a Security Guard") and often contributes significantly to solving a case with unconventional ideas. In addition, she has the advantage that she is often underestimated by criminals - also because of her small body size.

Miriam Koch appears as an extremely attractive investigator, who consciously sets herself apart from the brittle charm of the women who had been active in the crime scene up until then (e.g. inspectors Buchmüller, Wiegand and Odenthal). For example, you can practically always see her in a miniskirt, which is also related to the police dress code.

There is never a relationship between the three characters, although Flemming and Ballauf Koch's appearance doesn’t miss either (Flemming in a personal description in “The Child with the Doll” about Koch: “Very young, very pretty”.) Miriam Koch is with him Public prosecutor Heinz (i) Dombrowski ( Oliver Lentz ) is in a relationship, who also marries her in the last episode when she is pregnant by him.

Chief Detective Max Ballauf

Klaus Behrendt plays Max Ballauf

Max Ballauf (played by Klaus J. Behrendt ) is the team's third investigator. He's been around for a long time, but as a detective chief, he is the lowest-ranking of the three characters. In contrast to Miriam Koch, who comes from a wealthy family, he grew up in a simple family and, according to his colleagues, shines with “proletarian charm”. Ballauf is married and has (at least) two children, who are often mentioned at the beginning (in his later investigations as head of the Cologne homicide squad, however, it is often suggested that he was always single).

As a detective, Ballauf is overzealous and his urge to investigate can hardly be stopped. However, he often crosses the boundaries of legal action and is caught a few times. For example, he uses the company car for private long-distance trips, violently breaks into a loan brokerage or, despite an express prohibition, puts a tracking device on his pocket when handing over money. It is only thanks to the entry of his boss that Ballauf repeatedly missed a disciplinary measure by a hair's breadth.

In addition to his work for the homicide squad, Ballauf also has numerous part-time jobs - which change during the series. He is therefore always in a hurry, often wants to leave before work, is stressed about appointments and can sometimes only devote himself to the investigation to a very limited extent.

In “The Murderer and the Prince”, for example, Max runs an Italian restaurant (or at least holds a managerial position there); Another time he organizes a window cleaning company, has to work there himself due to a lack of staff and is caught doing it by his boss and cook. In “The Woman on the Street” Ballauf quits the police, but still participates in the investigation privately by taking a job as a nurse in a suspicious clinic .

Ballauf then emigrates with his family to Canada and wants to start a new life there in a hunting and fishing resort. However, this fails and after separating from his wife, he retires to police work and he works for a US special unit, the Drug Investigation Agency. There he begins a relationship with a colored colleague named Eileen , who dies during a police operation. Ballauf takes this to heart and is arrested after a drunk drive and a misunderstanding with a patrol officer.

His boss ensures that he can leave the country and offers him a job as head of the Cologne homicide squad. There he forms the independent Tatort team Ballauf and Schenk together with Chief Inspector Freddy Schenk ( Dietmar Bär ) .

Minor characters

• Hilde Flemming ( Kerstin de Ahna ) - Flemming's ex-wife
• Ingo Flemming ( Thomas Flach ) - son of Flemming
• Sonja ( Marlen Breitinger ) - Flemming's partner
• Heinz (i) Dombrowski ( Oliver Lentz ) - public prosecutor; Koch's friend, later husband
• Detective Tejung ( Dirk Galuba ), superior

cases

case	title	First broadcast	episode	Director	Guest actor	particularities
1	The murderer and the prince	17th May 1992	258	Kaspar Heidelbach	Jürgen Schmidt , Uwe Ochsenknecht , Nicole Heesters , Brigitte Janner
2	Unforgiving	0Oct. 4, 1992	263	Ilse Hofmann	Heinz Baumann , Hannelore Hoger , Andrea Sawatzki , Christoph M. Ohrt
3	Death of a security guard	Oct 25, 1992	265	Ilse Hofmann	Ulrich Pleitgen , Ralph Herforth , Ralph Schicha
4th	Escape to Miami	Apr 18, 1993	274	Ulrich Stark	Heiner Lauterbach , Ulrich Gebauer , Ulrike Mai
5	Dangerous friendship	July 11, 1993	277	Ulrich Stark	Ivan Desny
6th	Deserters	Dec. 19, 1993	285	Ilse Hofmann	Heinz Schubert , Stefan Reck , Jürgen Tonkel
7th	Murder in the academy	Apr 24, 1994	290	Ulrich Stark	Joachim Kemmer , Anne Kasprzik , Rufus Beck , Markus Knüfken
8th	The woman on the street	Aug 14, 1994	295	Ilse Hofmann	Andrea Sawatzki , Rüdiger Joswig , Armin Rohde	last case with KHM Ballauf
9	The black pictures	Apr 17, 1995	308	Erwin Keusch	Katja Flint , Lara Joy Körner
10	Death of an auctioneer	June 25, 1995	313	Erwin Keusch	Saskia Vester
11	Heart ace	July 30, 1995	316	Ulrich Stark	Arthur Brauss , Jasmin Tabatabai , Max Herbrechter
12	The specialist	0Jan. 1, 1996	323	Markus Fischer	Rolf Hoppe , Claudine Wilde , Christian Tasche
13	Holy blood	Jan. 14, 1996	324	Hartmut Griesmayr	Maria Schell , Ina Weisse
14th	The girl with the doll	0Apr 8, 1996	330	Markus Fischer	Udo Kier , Julia Palmer-Stoll
15th	brothers	23 Mar 1997	354	Hartmut Griesmayr	Ulrich Gebauer , Rita Lengyel

Guest appearance

• Straight to the heart

  Tatort episode 449, EA August 6, 2000, directed by Wolfgang Panzer

Ballauf asks his former boss to tell him about a robbery in Düsseldorf that Flemming had worked on at the time. Flemming comes to the presidium in Cologne and they talk about the "old days".

particularities

The investigation location Düsseldorf

The cases were filmed in Bavaria Film in Munich, most of the exterior shots also come from the Bavarian capital. A recording of a car ride over this bridge was only inserted from a Rhine bridge as a distinctive feature of Düsseldorf in almost every Flemming crime scene. This fact was never officially admitted by the WDR, only years after the broadcast did Lüttge and Schreiner admit this in the program A red carpet for the WDR crime scene .

Company car

While in the first case the team still has to fall back on a single Opel Vectra A as a company car, from the second case ("We probably have a patron in the Ministry of the Interior" - an allusion to Koch's father) there is another car - an Opel Omega A - to disposal. This type of car is also used throughout the row. The color changes occasionally, later an Opel Omega B is also used, but the license plate number always remains the same.

Koch drives a black Nissan 100 NX sports coupé privately - as well as partly on business .

Max Ballauf can only be seen once in his private car when - completely overtired from his part-time job - he causes a rear-end collision. He is there in an Opel Kadett C to see.

Reason for the end of the team

In an interview in February 2006 with the magazine “Linse”, Roswitha Schreiner explains how the team ended relatively early. As early as 1993, WDR asked the actors Lüttge and Schreiner whether they wanted to extend the Tatort contract beyond 1996 and into 2000. Since the time span seemed too unmanageable for both of them and they first wanted to try out how playing in a two-person constellation would develop (Behrendt's exit was already certain at the time), both asked for a certain period of time to think about it in order to be able to make this decision. The WDR did not want to admit this and made the contract with Behrendt and Bär perfect for the successor to the Flemming team.

Others

In contrast to today's Tatort teams, Flemming and Koch consistently see each other: he calls her by her first name, while she leaves it with the title "Chef". Ballauf and Flemming also see each other, at least mostly. Strangely enough, however, this was not handled very consistently, and in more private scenes it is often used. Koch and Ballauf (almost) from the beginning.

Web links

• Flemming in the crime scene fund