Police call 110: The exchange

Episode of the series Polizeiruf 110
Original title	The exchange
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Production company	ndF on behalf of the MDR
length	90 minutes
classification	Episode 186 ( List )
First broadcast	March 9, 1997 on Das Erste
Rod
Director	Andreas Dresen
script	Hans Ullrich Krause
production	Matthias Esche Wolfgang Voigt
music	Rainer Rohloff
camera	Andreas Höfer
cut	Monika Schindler
occupation
Günter Naumann : Chief Inspector Beck Ulrike Krumbiegel : Katja Kraatz Sophie Rois : Evelin Friedau Manfred Möck : Commissioner Lindemann Peter Wilczynski : Ralf Dassendorf Gundula Köster : Tina Rechenbach Ernst-Georg Schwill : Commissioner Gutschmidt Horst Rehberg : Manfred Dassendorf Wolfgang Hosfeld : Man from opposite Axel Werner : Hagen Zimmler Petra Kelling : Ms. Schiebig Katrin Martin : Saleswoman Marco Bahr : Chief Police Officer Ortwin Player : Supermarket Detective Roman Silberstein : coroner Steffen Münster : Criminalist Wolfgang Wimmer : TV reporter Michael Klobe : Street cleaner Frank-Burkhard Habel : Forensic Technician Brigitte Renner : old woman

Der Tausch is a German crime film by Andreas Dresen from 1997. The television film was released as the 186th episode of the Polizeiruf 110 film series .

action

The young Katja Kraatz appears at the police station with a toddler in her arms. She is in shock, hands the child over and says she wants her own back. It turns out that Katja was shopping. Meanwhile, her son Marius was exchanged for another child from her stroller in front of the supermarket. Chief Inspector Beck begins the questioning, but witnesses can only remember a white van that was standing near the pram. The surveillance tapes in the supermarket also give no evidence of the crime. Beck investigates with the detective inspectors Lindemann and Gutschmidt. You do not rule out that the child was kidnapped, is Katja's friend and father of the child, Ralf Dassendorf, but co-owner of the thriving advertising company Megalux. In fact, a short time later the couple received a ransom note demanding 200,000 marks for Marius' return. The unstable Katja turns to the kidnappers on television and asks for the return of her child.

The young Evelin Friedau appears at Beck, introducing herself as the mother of the child found in Katja's car. She claims that she only discovered in the morning that her child was missing. She was previously drunk and assumed that her son Ben was sleeping. When he was not in the car, she believed that the youth welfare office had picked him up, as it had already done with her two other children. She only recognized Ben on press photos. Beck has doubts about Evelin's statement, but lets her go anyway, but shadowing her. The young woman is completely unknown to Ralf and Katja. A short time later, the investigators discover Evelin on the surveillance camera images of the supermarket. So she went shopping at the same time as Katja.

A first handover of money to the blackmailers, who named Ralf as the money messenger, fails because, according to Ralf's statement, the blackmailers became aware of the police. Evelin is more and more in the sights of the investigators because she has debts of 20,000 marks and is also known to the blackmailer and petty crook Hagen Zimmler. Beck arranges a house search and in fact traces of Marius are found in Evelin's stroller. Evelin collapses and admits that the morning after sleeping off her intoxication, the boy was dead in the stroller. She leads the investigators to the cemetery where she buried the body. A little later, Evelin confesses during interrogation that he hit Marius at night because of his persistent screaming until he was quiet, and that Zimmler did not stop blackmailing until the boy died, but Beck has doubts about the exhausted woman's testimony. He finds out that Evelin used to work at Megalux but was fired because of her alcohol addiction. She had reapplied to Megalux the day Marius went missing. A man who lives across from Katja's and Ralf's apartment and who seems to have a constant view of the apartment tells Beck that the couple do not live as harmoniously as they say to the investigators. Ralf was never at home and Katja was often listless and apathetic. For a while, a white sheet hung in front of the otherwise open window.

Beck visits the Megalux company and finds a rarely used transport vehicle that fits the description of the witnesses. There are traces of Marius in the car. The coroner, in turn, sets the time of death at around 100 hours before the body is found. The child was suffering from angina and had a high fever at the time of death; it was smothered with a pillow. When identifying the corpse, Beck confronts the parents with his suspicions: Katja murdered Marius and Ralf disposed of the corpse, choosing the alcoholic Evelin as the victim, who had applied to the company that day. Katja confesses that the sick Marius screamed until she couldn't take it any longer; As always, Ralf was not at home to support them. He exchanged the children. Katja should raise Ben like her own child, because he is better off with her than with Evelin. After a short time Katja could no longer handle the situation and took the child to the police. In order to put the wrong lead, Ralf invented kidnapping with a ransom demand. Katja is arrested and Ralf also faces charges for Ben's kidnapping. Evelin remains, whose son Ben has since been handed over to the youth welfare office.

production

The exchange is based on the 1995 crime novel Der Tausch by Hans Ullrich Krause , who also wrote the screenplay. The psychologist found inspiration in "current cases and his work as the head of a Berlin children's home". The film was shot in the late summer of 1996 in Erfurt and the surrounding area. The costumes for the film were created by Sabine Greuning , the film structures were created by Claudia Jaffke . The film had its television premiere on March 9, 1997 on the first . The audience participation was 18.7 percent.

Günter Naumann last investigated Beck in 1995 ( Brother Lustig ) as Chief Detective Inspector and then had to pause because of a serious illness. Here he investigated as Beck in his 11th and last case. The swap was not conceived as Beck's farewell episode, as it was not until the end of 1996 that the MDR decided not to produce any further episodes with Beck as an investigator, but rather the series exclusively with the duo Jaecki Schwarz and Wolfgang Winkler (" Schmücke und Schneider ") continue as the only MDR investigator. Günter Naumann learned of this decision from the press. At the time, Naumanns Beck was the last commissioner who had already investigated in GDR police calls.

criticism

"Good ensemble with a shaky story," said the TV Spielfilm briefly, while the Süddeutsche Zeitung criticized the "motifs of this crime thriller, which are barely comprehensible", but praised the performance of the leading actresses Rois and Krumbiegel, who will be remembered for a long time. “The characters are exciting and clear, but the crime thriller isn't,” summarized the newspaper. Also Rainer Tittelbach wrote in the Saxon newspaper that director Dresen in filling the leading ladies "a lucky hand had [...]: Ulrike Krumbiegel as image become despair and Sophie Rois as asocial, erratic, gruffly."

The Tagesspiegel described the police call as a "sensitively told case on the subject of infanticide". Beck investigates "carefully and quietly [...] until the entire tragic dimension of the case can be recognized." The Leipziger Volkszeitung also praised the police call, which "impressively [shows] how the floundering 'police call' series have a future could develop into a real alternative to the mostly ridiculous robber pistols with Stasi ropes or the Russian mafia. "Dresen roll" Feelings not long and broad, does not let mother's tears flow continuously, but achieves an emotional power with a brief, sometimes sparse narrative, the almost hits you in the core. "

literature

• Peter Hoff: Police call 110. Films, facts, cases . Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-360-00958-4 , pp. 204-205.

Web links

• Polizeiruf 110: The exchange in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Police call 110: The exchange at filmportal.de
• Police call 110: The exchange on Das Erste.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} "Beck can go". Günter Naumann reacts to the "Police call 110" for the last time today . In: Der Tagesspiegel , No. 15917, March 9, 1997.
2. ^ Peter Hoff: Police call 110. Films, facts, cases . Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2001, p. 195.
3. ↑ MDR shooting: Chief Inspector Beck solves criminal cases again . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung , August 13, 1996.
4. ↑ Farewell to “Police Call 110” after ten years: Günter Naumann solves his last case . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , March 8, 1997, p. 14.
5. ^ Police call 110: The exchange on tvspielfilm.de
6. ↑ Wilfried Geldner: The characters were good . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 11, 1997, p. 17.
7. ^ Rainer Tittelbach: The policeman and the baby . In: Sächsische Zeitung , March 8, 1997, p. 21.
8. ↑ Klaus Katzenmeyer: Flashback: Sensible . In: Leipziger Volkszeitung , March 10, 1997, p. 12.

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next episode March 16, 1997: Daisies