Crime scene: Strindberg's fruits

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Episode of the series Tatort
Original title Strindberg's fruits
Country of production Austria
original language German
Production
company		 ORF
length 61 minutes
classification Episode 176a ( List )
First broadcast January 12, 1986 on ORF
Rod
Director Ernst J. Lauscher
script Alfred Paul Schmidt
production Sigi Borutta
camera Michael Epp ,
Michael Riebl
cut Juno Sylva Englander ,
Ema Baldova
occupation

Strindbergs Frucht is an Austrian television thriller by Alfred Paul Schmidt from 1986. It was written as 176a. Follow the crime series Tatort . It is one of the 13 episodes that were produced by ORF outside of the official Tatort series without ARD and only broadcast in Austria for the first time.

action

One morning a young cyclist discovers a car on a street in a quiet residential area with a hose leading the exhaust gases into the interior of the car. He breaks the window of the car to save the woman inside, but it's too late. Almost at the same time, the body of a man was found in the immediate vicinity. The dead woman is the housewife Ulrike Watz. Her family runs a delicatessen shop downtown. Her death and that of the man occurred around the same time the previous evening, the identity of the man initially remains unclear because he had no papers with him. It looks like Ulrike Watz hit the man and then killed herself in a panic. Hirth and Hollocher visit the Watz family, in which there is tension between father and son, and bring the son the bad news. He doesn't seem very surprised, because of the tensions within the family, which are like in a Strindberg drama, he had premonitions that something bad was going to happen. At the time of his mother's death, he was with his friend Florian Knauer. Hirth then goes to Mr. Watz in his shop and brings the news to him too, he reacts affected.

Meanwhile, Hollocher and Schulz check the son's alibi and question Knauer, the funky and unconventional young man confirms the alibi. Mr. Watz told Hirth that suicide with car exhaust would not suit his wife. However, she was an alcoholic, but wanted to go to rehab. They would have argued lately and also on the day of their death. Afterwards he wanted to visit a friend, when he did not meet him, he spent the evening in a restaurant and then went home. Ulrike Watz was poisoned with carbon monoxide, but was also drunk. She could still have been drivable and put the hose inside the car herself. Mr Watz, on the other hand, told a friend that his wife had no technical understanding and that he therefore did not believe in suicide. Meanwhile, Hirth seeks out Mrs. Hufinger, the widow of the man who has now been identified. Her husband had been to his club the night before, and his wife had been worried for a long time when her husband rides his bike in the dark. However, the location of the body and the alleged accident site is not on the route on his way home, and his bicycle has not been found either.

Hirth visits Watz again, as strangulation marks were found on the neck of the dead person, he denies having strangled his wife or anything else to do with the death of his wife. However, she often accused him of not being able to endure life with him any longer, and she was also jealous. He yelled at her and was therefore blaming himself. The next morning, the dead man's bicycle is found in the forest next to the site. The dead man's blood was found in the trunk of the dead man's car. Hollocher believes that someone killed Mrs. Watz and then transported her in the trunk. Then he could also have killed Hufinger in an accident and then also put it in the trunk and then faked the traces in such a way that it looks like an accident and subsequent suicide. However, Mr. Watz's alibi is worthless, there was a lot going on in the restaurant that evening, so nobody can remember him. However, Hirth also questions the alibi of the son of the dead. On the way home from his friend Knauer, the young Watz should have passed the location of the two bodies.

Hirth therefore visits the young Watz again, who notices again that his parents' house is like a Strindberg novel. He indicates that he hates his father, and that his parents hated each other too. His mother has always drunk, but it has gotten worse since his sister took her own life six months ago. His sister was disappointed in a man and couldn't get over it. His mother hated this man and blamed him for her daughter's suicide. His mother terrorized this man with letters and phone calls. The man's name was Hermann Geiser. His father also constantly cheated on his mother. Hirth goes to Geiser, who says that he last met her two days ago in order to reconcile and to end the telephone war they had waged in the previous months. He had been waiting for her in a café, but she did not come. At half past nine he drove home. Hollocher examined the financial situation of the Watz family, Mrs. Watz owned two apartments in a prime location, one now inherited by her husband and one by her son. Mr Watz was in debt because of the renovation of his business, but not to a worrying extent.

Hirth visits Mr. Watz again and confronts him with the fact that he has cheated on a woman, which he also admits that his wife has consistently refused to him. The officers summoned Geiser again, who stated that the Watz family's garage door was open on the evening of the crime and that an old car was parked there, but it did not belong to either Ms. Watz or Mr. Watz. It was obviously young Watz's car. Knauer, however, affirmed that the young Watz was with him on the evening of the crime. After Hirth Knauer threatened imprisonment, he corrected his statement and revoked his alibi. He had given his friend an alibi out of pity, but Hirth asked. Knauer takes drugs now and then, which Watz Junior knows about. Hirth promises to turn a blind eye. Then Hirth visits Ms. Hufinger again, who tells Hirth that Hufinger was often bitten by his dog. This gives Hirth an idea. Schulz, on the other hand, suspects Watz Junior and looks for the solution in Strindberg novels, while Hollocher suspects his father. Hirth looks for Watz Junior and confronts him with his broken alibi. He says on the head that when he got home he overheard one of his parents' many arguments and that his father was leaving the house. He had already had a body in the car because he accidentally killed Hufinger and loaded him into his trunk. He then killed his mother and blamed her for the accident. Watz Junior replies that he watched his father strangle his mother, saying that his father was the killer. Hirth informs the two suspects that Hufinger had rabies because he was bitten by his dog. The perpetrator will certainly have been infected with the corpse. The son then attacks his father and shouts that he hates his parents. He gives himself away and is arrested. Hirth then reveals to Hollocher that the rabies story was just a bluff.

production

Strindberg's Fruits was the fifth Tatort case involving Chief Inspector Hirth, but until then only two and only three of the nine episodes were official Tatort episodes of the ARD series. The rest, as well as this production, were the only ones of ORF. These own ORF productions were only shown in Austria. The episode Strindberg's Fruits was broadcast for the first time and only once by Bavarian Broadcasting in Germany almost six months after it was first broadcast on June 27, 1986. Another repetition took place on November 1, 2015 at ORF as part of an anniversary night for the station's existence.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 13 special ORF crime scenes at tatort-fundus.de, accessed on September 9, 2014.
  2. ↑ Strindberg's fruits on tatort-fundus.de
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