Who drove the gray Ford?

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Movie
Original title Who drove the gray Ford?
Who drove the gray Ford Logo 001.svg
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1950
length 94 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Max Diekhout
Otto Wernicke
script Otto Wernicke
Kurt Joachim Fischer
production Paul Pfeiffer for Pfeiffer Filmproduktion
music Emil Ferstl
camera Paul Pfeiffer
cut Walter Boos
occupation

Who drove the gray Ford? is a 1950 film adaptation of an actual mail robbery. The production was Otto Wernicke's only directorial work .

action

Southwest Germany shortly after the Second World War , in the period shortly before the founding of the Federal Republic: Penny, Heiner and the "Boss", three young men who were friends from their days in the Wehrmacht , run a shipping company . However, this only serves to camouflage their criminal acts. Wholesalers' trucks are regularly robbed by “truck jumping” (shown at the beginning of the film) on the still empty motorways and the stolen goods are sold.
When Penny falls in love with the bookseller Renate Münster, he decides to get out of the gang. Although the "boss" has a certain understanding for Penny, he only wants to let him go if he participates in one of the last spectacular robberies. The robbery of postal money carried by a truck is perfectly planned and carried out with the help of a stolen gray Ford. The booty was the then huge sum of 240,000 marks . With his share, Penny wants to start a new life with Renate, who has no idea of ​​his double life. Inspector Thieme, police advisor Proske and detective assistant Sattler grope in the dark while searching for the robbers. There are hardly any usable traces to be found. But then Peter makes a mistake. Plagued by his conscience, he anonymously sends his share to the police. This mail and a fuel receipt found on the getaway car in the forest later provide Commissioner Thieme with enough clues and clues to track down the quartet.

background

The film is based on a mail robbery that actually took place in Mannheim in 1949 . This attack was committed by Günther Hörner, one of the greatest crooks of the early post-war period, and his comrades-in-arms, the Stuck brothers, Peter Breuning and Robert Panko alias "Knabenschuh". In this mail robbery, which was portrayed almost completely according to the facts in the film, “only” 160,000 marks were actually looted, which was still a gigantic sum under the circumstances at the time and thus caused a sensation in all of West Germany . Since the mail robbery was so successfully committed and methods were used by gangster gangs otherwise active in the USA, the US major in charge of the Criminal Investigation Division of the occupation troops in occupied Germany suspected that the perpetrators could actually only come from the gangster famous for his gangsters Chicago and thus come from the occupation army. In addition, the perpetrators had previously stolen a US lieutenant's red Chevrolet as an escape vehicle in Zwingenberg (Bergstrasse) . But because this car broke down, they stole the same lieutenant a few days later his gray Ford Model 48 with US-C license plates from the occupation forces. In this Ford the perpetrators, who were informed by an informant about the schedule of the money transport and the amount of money transported, waited in front of the post office at Mannheim main station. When the money truck turned the corner of Schlossstrasse, the mail robbers cut off his path with the gray Ford, forcing him to stop. They threatened the officers with their American pistols and snatched the money bags from them. An immediate pursuit was initially ineffective, the getaway car was later found empty and supposedly without a trace, not far from the place where the red Chevrolet had previously been parked. In 1950, shortly after his 22nd birthday, Panko was sentenced to five years and three months in prison.

Production notes

The film was shot on a few original locations in Mannheim and the surrounding area. It was Otto Wernicke's only directorial work and one of the first films in which Wolfgang Neuss starred. The world premiere took place on October 12, 1950 in Mannheim.

The original recordings at the beginning and end of the film on the Reichsautobahn , which were made shortly after the war, are rare .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ remove. Robbery: Made of time . In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 1950, p. 6 ( online ).
  2. ↑ remove. Hehler: Maybe it's hard sausage . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1950, pp. 7 ( online ).
  3. ↑ remove. Hehler: Maybe it's hard sausage . In: Der Spiegel . No. 41 , 1950, pp. 10 ( online ).