Crime scene: The missing weight

Episode of the series Tatort
Original title	The missing weight
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Production company	SR
length	77 minutes
classification	Episode 33 ( List )
First broadcast	September 30, 1973 on German television
Rod
Director	Rolf von Sydow
script	Bruno Hampel
production	Telefilm Saar GmbH
camera	Willi Raber
cut	Hildegard Schröder , Gisela Zick
occupation
Dieter Eppler : Chief Detective Peter Liersdahl Manfred Heidmann : Chief Detective Horst Schäfermann Rita Roswag : Miss Busch Wolfgang Huebsch : Werner Ridder Xenia Pörtner : Vera Ponsold Anita Lochner : Petra Schröter Manfred Reddemann : Reinhold Gasparde Walter Reichelt : Franz Rottweiler Ann Höling : Mrs. Rottweiler Herbert Steinmetz : Zollrat Block Martin Arnhold : Marcel Heinz Schacht : Spaldinger Hans-Georg Panczak : Wenzlaff Kurt Rackelmann : E. Bolander Heinz Menzel : Dr. Pikeperch

The missing weight is the 33rd television film in the crime series Tatort and the second Tatort produced by Saarland Radio . It was first broadcast on September 30, 1973. It is the last case with Commissioner Liersdahl as the main investigator, his colleague Schäfermann then investigates four other cases until 1984 as the sole main investigator. Liersdahl and Schäfermann are dealing with a drug ring and an informant in the ranks of customs, as well as a murder.

action

The inspectors Liersdahl and Schäfermann have been watching a remote inn for hours because it is supposed to be used as a transshipment point for drugs . The police can catch the men in the act, but the powder turns out to be sugar and flour, so the operation is a failure. Liersdahl suspects that there must be a leak at the police or at customs , which was also inaugurated. Since a customs officer recently stole heroin from the evidence room , Liersdahl and Schäfermann concentrate on customs. Meanwhile, the customs inspector Werner Ridder, who lives with his landlady Vera Ponsold, who is seven years older, comes home from the night shift. She confronts him with the charge of cheating on her with a young woman named Petra Schröter.

Petra Schröter is visited by an accomplice who belongs to the gang that brought the police to the raid . During the conversation it turns out that he put Petra Schröter on Wolfgang Ridder. He stole the heroin from the evidence room and also betrayed Petra Scholz about the raid. The accomplice asks for the exact location of the evidence room at customs and the key prints.

Liersdahl and Schäfermann visit a young addict named Wenzlaff in the rehab clinic, but he refuses to name his supplier. Liersdahl meets with an informant who gives him the tip that a coach from Marseille would arrive with drugs. The bus has an accident on the way, at the scene of the accident the two inspectors also meet the customs inspector Ridder. The officers found drug packages in the hood of the bus. A total of 50 kg of heroin and raw opium is seized . The bus drivers were able to flee.

Petra Schröter receives an ultimatum of three days from her accomplice to get the key imprint for the evidence chamber from Ridder. She tells Ridder that their lives will both be in danger if he doesn't. Meanwhile, Vera Ponsold meets with the private detective she has hired to shadow Ridder and from whom she has information about Ridder's relationship with Petra Schröter. The private detective tells her that Ridder is planning a change of location with Schröter and advises her to part with Ridder. She then reported that she had already tried to do so, but that Ridder threatened her. The detective advises her to go to the police.

Vera Ponsold then visits Liersdahl and reports that she is afraid of her subtenant , the customs inspector Ridder. She reports of his contacts with a drug ring and of threats against her. She also found a map of the area in the pocket of his uniform jacket. Ridder had caught her doing it and berated and threatened her. Liersdahl promises to deal with the matter confidentially and reassures her that she need not be afraid.

Ridder is heard by his superior, Zollrat Block und Liersdahl, who denies having passed on information about the operation to third parties. Block confronts Ridder with the fact that wax remains were found in the beard of the key of the evidence chamber, which proves that an impression was made to produce a duplicate key. Ridder will be suspended pending resolution of the matter. Ridder cannot hand over the service weapon because he has it at home.

Meanwhile, Petra Schröter's accomplice is back with her and demands further cooperation from Ridder. This should also provide duty rosters and strength of the guarding of the evidence chamber. Ridder visits Petra Schröter. While the accomplice hides in the closet, Ridder tells of his suspension and that the dealer gang has to call off the robbery in the evidence room, since suspicion has now fallen on him. He also expresses the suspicion that Vera Ponsold betrayed him. With the help of a cigarette butt, Ridder finds out that the accomplice is hiding in the closet and knocks it down. Ridder recognizes him as one of the suspects at the inn, Reinhold Gasparde. Gasparde threatens Ridder if Ridder betrays him.

Ridder wants to leave again at night, Vera Ponsold tries to stop him. Ridder allegedly wants to go to his sister in Karlsruhe, Vera Ponsold insists that at least go to Pirmasens, which Ridder does not want. The next morning a cyclist finds Vera Ponsold's body on a bridge. It is established that Ponsold had been shot and was dead less than a quarter of an hour at the time of discovery. The projectile has the same caliber as Ridders' service weapon.

Ridder is arrested at the Salzburg border crossing . Back in Saarbrücken, he denies the murder of Vera Ponsold, his service weapon is at home in his desk. He wanted to go to his sister, who was married to a lawyer, and get legal advice there about his suspension. Since they were on vacation in Salzburg, he followed them. The last time he saw Vera Ponsold was when he left the house, according to his statements about 50 minutes before her murder. Liersdahl confronts Ridder with a statement from a neighbor who saw Ridder drive away in his car with Ponsold. Ridder now admits that she wanted to go to Pirmasens. In the car they are said to have had an argument, whereupon Ponsold got out and he traveled on alone. Neither his alleged sister nor brother-in-law are registered in the hotel in Salzburg, so Ridder had lied in this regard as well.

Liersdahl confronts Ridder with Ponsold's statement the day before about Ridder's involvement with the drug gang and that she was afraid. Ridder now refuses to testify, but continues to assert his innocence in relation to the murder. Schäfermann looks around the crime scene while Liersdahl goes to the laboratory and has it confirmed that the bullet that killed Ponsold came from Ridder's gun. Meanwhile, Schäfermann finds out that the diary entries of the last six weeks, after which Ponsold was afraid of Ridder, were only written afterwards by her.

Shortly afterwards Spaldinger, the private detective who worked for Mrs. Ponsold, appears at Liersdahl und Schäfermann. Spaldinger tells about the job and that Ridder has a relationship with the young Petra Schröter. He continues to tell the commissioners about the fear of Ridder that Ponsold had expressed to him. Schäfermann, however, finds out that Ms. Ponsold had two suicide attempts behind her and considers this an important lead. Furthermore, Schäfermann can determine that Ridder's brother-in-law is actually a lawyer and wanted to go on vacation in Salzburg in the hotel that Ridder had stated, but has changed the booking at short notice. Ridder only knew about the original hotel. Schäfermann is now convinced of Ridder's innocence.

Schäfermann calls on police divers at the bridge where Ms. Ponsold was shot , they find the murder weapon in the water with a weight attached to it. Ms. Ponsold shot herself, as Schäfermann then demonstrated, so that after she let go of the gun after the shot, it fell over the bridge railing into the water. In Ms. Ponsold's attic, the officers find an old grandfather clock in which the weight is missing, this is the weight on the weapon. After the suspicion of murder against him has been invalidated, Liersdahl and Schäfermann try to get Ridder to reveal his liaison to the drug ring. He still refuses and wants to speak to his lawyer first. The commissioners keep an eye on him.

Ridder goes to his girlfriend Petra Schröter, but Gasparde lurks in the apartment, who knocks him down. When Ridder comes to, he has a gun in hand. Petra lies shot in the bathroom. When Ridder leaves the apartment and drives away in his car, Liersdahl follows him while Schäfermann goes up into the apartment. The door is open, but Ridder made the body disappear. Ridder drives to the inn where the raid was carried out at the beginning of the film. Ridder wants to see Gasparde, the other gang members pretend that he is not there. Ridder is knocked down, while Liersdahl pushes up to the inn and watches a box being loaded into a car. He can get to the box and discovers that it is filled with drugs. Liersdahl succeeds in notifying Schäfermann and calling in reinforcements. The drugs can be seized at the inn and the gang can be arrested. Petra Schröter is also there, she only pretended to be dead so that Ridder would disappear. She tells the naive customs inspector, to his surprise, that she only used him for the gang's purposes.

In the end, Liersdahl was resigned to Schäfermann and stated that the success of her investigation was just a drop in the ocean and that the big backers would continue.

reception

When it was first broadcast on September 30, 1973, an audience share of 68% was achieved. The title motif, the suicide implying murder on a former lover, comes from Arthur Conan Doyle from the story The Riddle of the Thor Bridge .

Web links

• The lack of weight in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The missing weight in the online film database
• Summary of the plot of The Missing Weight on the ARD website
• The missing weight in the crime scene fundus
• The missing weight at Tatort-Fans.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ tatort-fundus.de: audience share

previous episode August 19, 1973: expulsion for Trimmel

Crime scene follow

Next episode November 11, 1973: The dead don't need an apartment