Crime scene: the black troll

Episode of the series Tatort
Original title	The black troll
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Production company	Radio Bremen (RB)
length	88 minutes
classification	Episode 533 ( List )
First broadcast	May 25, 2003 on Das Erste
Rod
Director	Vanessa Jopp
script	Thea Dorn
production	Radio Bremen film production
music	Loy Wesselburg
camera	Judith Kaufmann
cut	Elke Schloo
occupation
Sabine Postel : KHK'in Inga Lürsen Oliver Mommsen : KHK Nils Stedefreund Judith Engel : Laura Kern Marek Harloff : David Gussmann, Laura's friend Rolf Hoppe : Dr. Paul Knödgen, Laura's general practitioner Camilla Renschke : Helen Reinders Josefin Gröne : Anne Kern, Laura's daughter Mathias Herrmann : Herbert Kern, Laura's husband Daniel Hajdu : Professor Feldhausen Ernst Stötzner : Professor Winter Patricia Hirschbichler : Erika, kitchen assistant at Kern Alexandra Henkel : Emergency doctor Elena Meißner : Pharmacy assistant Müller Matthias Brandt : Undertaker Tielitz Winfried Hammelmann : Detective Assistant Karlsen Klaus Schumacher: Official from the identification service

The Black Troll is a television film from the crime series Tatort of ARD and ORF . The film was produced by Radio Bremen and first broadcast on May 25, 2003. It is the 533rd crime scene episode. For Chief Detective Inga Lürsen ( Sabine Postel ) it is the ninth case, and for Detective Stedefreund ( Oliver Mommsen ) the fourth in which they are investigating.

action

Laura Kern takes care of her two children with devotion while she tries to live up to the demands of her husband, who runs a restaurant. After the bedtime story about a troll , she hears noise from the restaurant. Her husband Herbert lies bloodied on the floor in the middle of broken glass. She tells the inspectors Lürsen and Stedefreund that two masked men attacked her husband shortly after midnight and that when she got there they injured her shoulder with a broken bottle. But when the daughter Anne suddenly comes up and asks: "Is Herbert dead now ?" Stedefreund doubts the burglar version. In addition, for him, some of the evidence does not match a robbery. He arranges for an investigation into Laura's injuries and this confirms Stedefreund's suspicion that she inflicted the injury on herself.

The next day, Chief Inspector Lürsen asked kitchen help about what was going on and found out about the difficult family circumstances of the Kerns. Anne would not be Herbert Kern's daughter and their first son Henrik had died as an infant due to breathing pauses because the mother did not make it to the hospital in time. That would have put a strain on the marriage and kept giving cause for argument. So the inspectors cannot hide the fact that Laura Kern has a lover in the pharmacist David Gussmann. Since he is just as sensitive as Laura Kern, he cannot live with his guilt. He turns himself in to the police because he killed Herbert Kern in an argument.

Despite the surprising confession, the case is not yet closed for Lürsen and Stedefreund, because Laura Kern obviously wanted to cover up her boyfriend's act by harming herself. But that's not all, when she notices how the police are getting closer to the truth, she tries to cover up further traces and does not shy away from murder by secretly administering a drug to her family doctor, as a result of which he dies of sudden heart failure. However, Lürsen had already learned from him that he had prescribed a remedy for heart rhythm disorders to Herbert Kern. Kern had exchanged this, however, from which it clearly emerges that Laure Kern himself intended to kill her husband, whereby Gussmann's act of affect only preceded her.

There are further suspicions against Laura Kern: Her first husband, Anne's father, had already died of heart failure, and another daughter with this man also died early. It is becoming increasingly clear that Laura Kern has a psychological problem. Presumably she has the Munchausen Deputy Syndrome , because her children are noticeably often sick, which pharmacist Gussmann can confirm. Your young son is being treated again in the hospital.

Lürsen finds the deadly heart medicine in the Kerns' medicine cabinet and when Laura realizes that the police are on her heels, she prepares to escape. But suddenly David Gussmann suddenly appears in the stairwell. But when she realizes that David is wired to the police, she forces him at gunpoint to eat a soup that Anne also has to eat. The police storm the house in time and are able to save Gussmann and Anne. They also prevent Laura Kern from giving the toddler the soup. The mother admits to having added rinse aid to the soup and judges herself before taking it away.

background

The shooting took place from October 23 to November 26, 2002 in Bremen and the surrounding area. It is a co-production by Radio Bremen (RB) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) for Das Erste .

criticism

“A murder case that looks like robbery and then evolves towards jealousy - but in the end something completely different is involved. 'The Black Troll' is a 'crime scene' told like a fairy tale: the story is bloody, the motifs are gruesome, but in the midst of a human drama, longing for a better life becomes clear again and again. The writer Thea Dorn has written a very dense script that Vanessa Jopp staged as a cool, clever chamber play with a top cast. "

- Rainer Tittelbach : tittelbach.tv

Web links

• Crime scene: The black troll the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The black troll in the online film database
• Summary of the plot of The Black Troll on the ARD website
• The black troll at the crime scene fund
• The black troll at Tatort-Fans.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ tittelbach.tv: "Tatort - The Black Troll" series , accessed on January 3, 2016.

previous episode May 11, 2003: Out of Control

Crime scene follow

next episode June 1, 2003: Tough Dogs