"Crime Scene" check Does Switzerland have a problem with corruption?
Inspector Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel) has to delve deep into the past of her police family in "Tatort: Unter Feuer".
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Jens Riebold's (Andreas Lust) police unit is like a family. The two young officers Leila Demiray (Aybi Era, left) and Anna Stade (Paula Kroh) were present when fatal shots were suddenly fired at colleagues during a traffic stop.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Dresden detectives Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel, left) and Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) investigate police circles in "Tatort: Unter Feuer".
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach) and Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) storm a building with two police officers where a possible perpetrator could be hiding.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel) would like to find out more about the past from her father, Otto Winkler (Uwe Preuss).
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel, left), Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach) and Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) sort out what they know so far about their new case at the police station.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach) calls on his colleagues Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski, right) and Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel) to be level-headed.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Dresden investigators Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach), Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) and Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel, right) get caught up in a gunfight.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) and Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach) need bulletproof vests and handguns in this Dresden "Tatort" episode - because the air is filled with lead.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Inspector Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel) has to delve deep into the past of her police family in "Tatort: Unter Feuer".
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Jens Riebold's (Andreas Lust) police unit is like a family. The two young officers Leila Demiray (Aybi Era, left) and Anna Stade (Paula Kroh) were present when fatal shots were suddenly fired at colleagues during a traffic stop.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Dresden detectives Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel, left) and Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) investigate police circles in "Tatort: Unter Feuer".
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach) and Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) storm a building with two police officers where a possible perpetrator could be hiding.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel) would like to find out more about the past from her father, Otto Winkler (Uwe Preuss).
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel, left), Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach) and Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) sort out what they know so far about their new case at the police station.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach) calls on his colleagues Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski, right) and Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel) to be level-headed.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Dresden investigators Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach), Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) and Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel, right) get caught up in a gunfight.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
Karin Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) and Peter Schnabel (Martin Brambach) need bulletproof vests and handguns in this Dresden "Tatort" episode - because the air is filled with lead.
Image: MDR/MadeFor/Steffen Junghans
In Dresden's "Tatort: Unter Feuer", two police officers are shot at during a traffic stop. The two detectives are soon investigating among colleagues. Does corruption also exist in the Swiss police force?
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Because two traffic police officers have been shot dead, the two detectives Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel) and Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) investigate their own ranks in the Dresden "Tatort: Unter Feuer".
- For Gorniak, however, the case soon reveals unexpected connections to her private life.
- And by the way: next year is the end of "Tatort" for the Dresden investigator Gorniak. Actress Karin Hanczewski wants to turn her attention to new projects.
Leonie Winkler, played by Cornelia Gröschel, made her first appearance in "Tatort: Das Nest" in April 2019. Now the blonde investigator is back in the spotlight in "Tatort: Unter Feuer".
Her family story, which started five and a half years ago, is told again. It's about the death of Leonie's beloved policeman brother, who was killed on a mission. And about the dynamics of a "cop family", because the bulky father (Uwe Preuss) is also a retired officer.
Was the Saxon crime thriller, which began as atmospheric as it was gruesome with gunned-down policemen on a foggy country road, a good German cop thriller?
Who was the obscure precinct commander? And do we also have a problem with police corruption in Switzerland?
What was it all about?
A driver was stopped during a rural traffic stop - and fired. One officer was dead, the other seriously injured. Two young policewomen, Leila Demiray (Aybi Era) and Anna Stade (Paula Kroh), watched the scene from a parked police car. But instead of intervening, they fled the scene.
A case of panic on duty? Detectives Gorniak (Karin Hanczewski) and Winkler wanted to find out and catch the perpetrator, who fled on foot.
Station chief Jens Riebold (Andreas Lust) also arrived at the crime scene on Landstrasse. He is the boss of both victims and the policewomen with the questionable behavior.
Leonie knew Riebold through her father, the retired policeman Otto Winkler (Uwe Preuss). Riebold was also the head of the unit in which Leonie's brother Martin (in flashbacks: Markus Riepenhausen) died nine years ago during an operation. Coincidence - or more than that?
What was it really about?
"Under Fire" is a classic genre piece. A so-called cop thriller set among police officers.
It was the brainchild of Christoph Busche, who has already written two rather interesting episodes for the Dresden police station with the paramedic thriller "Tatort: Rettung so nah" (2021) and "Das kalte Haus" (2022) about a mysteriously disappeared woman and her seemingly cold-hearted husband.
In 2016, he proved that filmmaker Busche is good for convoluted stories that break with typical perpetrator-victim images and that he can conjure up a good deal of paranoia with his award-winning screenplay for the "NSU - Mitten in Deutschland" series, where he was responsible for the third film "Die Ermittler: Nur für den Dienstgebrauch".
When it comes to trusting the state and the apparatus, Bush's films can send shivers down the spine. And that's probably exactly what happens in his new "Tatort: Unter Feuer", which is perhaps a little too twisty at the end.
Does Switzerland have a police corruption problem?
Films and series about corrupt "cops" are almost a crime thriller sub-genre in their own right. Perhaps one of the best and most drastic films of its kind is "Cop Land" by James Mangold from 1997, in which stars such as Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel brilliantly play the keyboard of corruption and a police force that is more mafia-like than the mafia itself.
But could something like this - the Dresden "Tatort" plays with this idea - also exist in Switzerland? The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is a corruption index published by Transparency International. It looks at the public sector, including the police.
Switzerland is three places ahead of its neighbor Germany in ninth place in the corruption index. The country of the Swiss can be pleased with a strong sixth place. Overall, however, the index also reflects the poverty or wealth of a state that pays its civil servants poorly or - as in Switzerland and Germany - fairly.
Who was the (apparently) shady precinct manager?
Precinct manager Jens Riebold is played by Austrian Andreas Lust. Lust is one of the most distinguished character actors in the German language, especially when it comes to charismatic supporting roles. This was the ninth role in a "Tatort" for the Viennese actor, who was born in 1967. Lust's most impressive "Tatort" year to date was probably 2019.
Back then, he played the lead role in two episodes: in "Für immer und dich" (first broadcast: March 10, 2019) from the Black Forest, he played a middle-aged man who was on the run with an underage "girlfriend".
Just two and a half months later, in the Munich case "Die ewige Welle" (May 26, 2019), he was an ageing surfer who didn't want to grow up and came into conflict with the law. Probably two of the most colorful "Tatort" roles in the recent history of the format and two memorable performances by Andreas Lust.
When will Karin Gorniak end her role as detective?
Actress Karin Hanczewski announced some time ago that she wanted to quit her role as Inspector Gorniak in order to devote herself to other tasks.
Now her final farewell is actually due in the next movie. The Dresden "Tatort: Herz der Dunkelheit" is rumored to be broadcast at the beginning of 2025.
