Twelve winters

Movie
Original title	Twelve winters
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Publishing year	2009
length	89 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Thomas Stiller
script	Thomas Stiller, ; Holger Karsten Schmidt
production	Bettina Brokemper , ; Martin Zimmermann
music	Peter Scherer
camera	Marc Liesendahl
cut	Ulrike Leipold
occupation
	Jürgen Vogel : Mike Roth; Axel Prahl : Klaus Starck; Wotan Wilke Möhring : Prothmann; Matthias Koeberlin : Geugis; Torsten Michaelis : Glowalla; Thomas Darchinger : Alex Greif; Katharina Palm : Michelle; Doreen Jacobi : Sabine; Yvonne Burbach : Reimertshofer; Hans-Martin Stier : Christoph Blühdorn; Elisabeth Baulitz : Katrin; Dirk S. Greis : Volker Zeller;

Twelve winters , also twelve winters , is a crime film by director Thomas Stiller based on the scripts by Holger Karsten Schmidt , which was first broadcast in May 2009 on the channels ARTE and Das Erste . The film, which is based on a true crime, deals with the series of robberies of two perpetrators called the Chancellor gang by the tabloid press , who attacked 36 provincial banks and savings banks across Germany between 1988 and 2001 and stole six million euros. Jürgen Vogel and Axel Prahl play the leading roles in the gangster duo . In 2010, Twelve Winter was nominated for the Adolf Grimme Prize and the German TV Crime Prize and was awarded the Jupiter .

action

After his release from the correctional facility, Mike Roth meets his former inmate friends Klaus Starck and Alex Greif, who have been robbing banks since 1988. Roth joins them, but Greif drops out a short time later as a result of leukemia . Initially with forged license plates and rubber masks, then with motorcycles and protective helmets, the perpetrators attacked an average of three small banks and savings banks in the whole of Germany during twelve winter periods. The raids are professionally prepared in spring and autumn and only committed during the dark season just before business hours. The principles of the duo include a fast pace, avoidance of unnecessary violence and avoidance of dead or injured. Your goal is the "perfect crime". While Starck continues to lead the life of an inconspicuous petty bourgeois, Roth prefers a dissolute life with parties, beautiful women and fast cars. His lavish style motivates him to always new robberies. By falsifying their real age with the help of physical training, the two perpetrators succeeded for years in deceiving the police and having them investigated in the wrong directions.

In 1999, the Bonn state police officers Gerd Prothmann and Reiner Geugis finally became aware of parallels from which they deduced serial offenders and formed the “Winter Investigation Commission”. The attempt to track down the perpetrators leads to a game of cat and mouse, during which the perpetrators succeed in repeatedly escaping the police. The officers received the decisive clue from the former inmate Glowalla, who tried to take revenge on Starck due to a past conflict. His betrayal leads to the arrest of the gangster duo.

background

production

Over a period of three years, Holger Karsten Schmidt developed the scripts for an initially planned two-part series. In order to increase the authenticity of the film and to prevent the perpetrators from being glorified, the project was created not only through the advisory participation of the real perpetrator Mike Rödesheim, but also through the cooperation with the investigators who were significantly involved in the investigation of the case at the time. The interviews were conducted by Holger Karsten Schmidt and producer Martin Zimmermann. After the WDR decided to cut the original three-hour two-parter in half to the classic feature length of 90 minutes, Schmidt was commissioned to shorten his scripts. Schmidt rejected this, however, on the background that the reduction had a particularly detrimental effect on the figure drawing and that it had been determined without consultation or justification. Director Thomas Stiller then cut the scenes.

The WDR co-production with ARTE and Degeto , funded by the Filmstiftung NRW , was shot in spring 2008 on 29 days in North Rhine-Westphalia, including in Cologne , Bonn , Oberhausen and the prison in Wuppertal-Vohwinkel . Bettina Brokemper and Martin Zimmermann from Cologne-based 20:15 Film- und Fernsehproduktions GmbH acted as producers. Stiller and Schmidt only met in person for the first time a year after the shooting was over.

Differences between reality and fiction

The opposite characterization of the two main series offenders was one of the fictional details; Mike Rödesheim and Klaus Wolf led a withdrawn, honest life beyond their attacks. While the identity of the perpetrators in the film was clarified through the betrayal of the fellow inmate, the real capture was achieved with the help of modern search and investigation methods such as DNA analysis . In addition, the arrest of the perpetrators was changed for tactical police reasons, according to an officer involved, it was in reality "more spectacular".

Outcome of the real case

The two 51 and 54 year old perpetrators Mike Rödesheim and Klaus Wolf were arrested in 2002 in Sankt Augustin by EK Winter of the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia , the third perpetrator had previously died of cancer. The police secured an extensive arsenal of weapons from the two men, but they had not used any firearms during their series of robberies. In 2004, the Bonn Regional Court sentenced them to 15 years' imprisonment each, which they serve in the high-security wards of the penal institutions in Bielefeld and Aachen. Several affected bank employees were unable to work as a result of the trauma.

The term Chancellor gang used by the tabloids can be traced back to a rubber mask which the perpetrators wore during one of their attacks and which represented the then Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder .

criticism

“To depict a period of almost twenty years in ninety minutes is no easy task for a filmmaker who feels compelled to reduce. A few scenes have to suffice to bring the characters closer to the viewer; In these moments, however, Stiller gives the actors a lot of space, allows them close-ups and saves them from having to clarify those questions that the film has to neglect in overloaded dialogues. Certainly not too many words are used in Stiller's film, which, with its soft fades and its calm, melancholy settings of country roads and idylls on the outskirts of the city, stands out from action-driven gangster films in which German cities Chicago have to act. "

- Jörg Thomann FAZ

“The result is a gangster ballad, one that doesn't thrive on nerve-racking tension, but on its almost documentary character. While she initially only observed the bank robbers and their plans, the investigators looking for them are increasingly given space. How they wear themselves out and argue, how they try and fail, and in the end they win. "

- Hayke Lanwert WAZ