Crime scene: Headless

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Episode of the series Tatort
Original title Headless
Country of production Germany
original language German
Production
company		 MR
length 83 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
classification Episode 215 ( List )
First broadcast January 22, 1989 on Das Erste
Rod
Director Sylvia Hoffman
script Hans Kelch
music Ralf Zang
camera Jürgen Herrmann
cut Brigitte Rhotert-Lässig
occupation

Kopflos is a television film from the crime series Tatort which was produced by Hessischer Rundfunk (HR) under the direction of Sylvia Hoffman and broadcast for the first time on January 22, 1989 in the program Das Erste . It is the 215th crime scene episode and the fifth case of the Frankfurt chief detective Edgar Brinkmann .

This time Brinkmann has to let go of a convicted murderer because "higher-ranking security interests of the country" require it.

action

Christa Rako meets with her ex-husband Dr. Fred Bergner. She informs him that their son, for whom they both had too little time when he really needed her, is involved in a drug offense and has disappeared from boarding school. Bergner promises to get in touch with a lawyer. First he has to go back to the company. He heads the research department at the Tronc works in Frankfurt. A delegation from an American company is interested in a newly developed laser process for hardening metal surfaces.

Ines Bergner, who wants to pick up her husband from the company that evening, finds him sitting lifeless at his desk. She rushes to get help. However, when the police arrive, Fred Bergner has disappeared. Commissioner Brinkmann takes over the case and questions Bergner's colleague Dr. Warnke. From him, the investigator learns that there are rumors that Bergner intended to leave the company. While Ines Bergner is convinced that her husband was shot because she claims to have seen a small blood stain, there are indications that her husband has turned up in his office again to look for something. But since Ines Bergner sees someone sneaking out of her house one day later, she too thinks it is possible that her husband might be alive. She calls the police and confesses to Brinkmann that she has been hiring a private detective for some time to shadow her husband because she feared he had been unfaithful to her. When Brinkmann and his assistant Wegner want to visit the detective, they find him dead in his office. He was shot and his desk ransacked. Fortunately, Ines Bergner had the last photos of the observation given in advance. A photo shows that someone who could be Bergner left the factory with his car and a passenger on the evening of his disappearance. However, both are not clearly recognizable.

In the meantime, Bergner's body has been found on Christa Rako's residential property. Since her son Bertie was hiding from his pursuers there, he comes under suspicion. Christa Rako thinks this is very unlikely because, in her opinion, Bertie had admired his father. The forensic investigation confirms the time of death of Ines Bergner's first report. He was also shot with the same gun as the detective.

Brinkmann then has the alibis of his immediate colleagues checked. Unexpectedly, he is then visited by representatives of the BND . At the same time, copies of the files were sent to them for review and they were puzzled by the photo of Bergner's driver, Werner Uschkureit. They are looking for this man, of whom they previously only had a photo and no name, in an espionage matter and now want to observe him. Uschkureit notices this and sits down. Brinkmann finds out that Bergner's secretary Gerda Buthe wanted to copy documents for Uschkureit, where she was caught by her boss. Buthe states that an American company offered Uschkureit five hundred thousand dollars for the research results of the new laser process. He wanted to go to America with her and when Bergner found out, Uschkureit would have shot him. Together they would have brought the body to the car. She doesn't want to believe that he would go away without her now.

The BND continues to monitor Uschkureit in order to get to his client. Thus there are higher-ranking security interests of the country and Brinkmann has to stand by and watch as a two-time murderer gets on a train and leaves Frankfurt.

reception

Audience ratings

The first broadcast of Kopflos on January 22, 1989, Das Erste had a market share of 64.60 percent and was seen by 17.91 million viewers in Germany.

Reviews

The TV feature film television newspaper has this to say about this crime scene from Frankfurt: "A little sedate, but played convincingly."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Audience ratings at tatort-fundus.de, accessed on December 4, 2015.
  2. ↑ Strange case for "Fliege" (Karl-Heinz von Hassel): The corpse is gone! short review at TV-Spielfilm, accessed on December 4, 2015.
previous episode
December 28, 1988: Moltke 		Crime scene follow next episode
February 19, 1989: dirty work