German public TV....ARD...ran it's Sunday night cop show on schedule last night. The best description for the weekly series of 'Tatort' is a 90-minute fictional murder script, which is rotated around with a dozen different cities of Germany, and a dozen cop-teams. It's been on the air since 1970, with roughly thirty to thirty-five episodes produced per year.
For the first twenty years, if you went back and watched the episodes today....it was fairly marginal scripts, three-star acting, and geared mostly to the over-forty crowd. In the past ten years, they've gone into some hefty script writing, four-star acting, and occasionally pulled out some pretty dramatic stories. I should note....there's always a murder, and there is always a conclusion with the murder suspect figured out.
Last night....they went to a different formula. They had the Stuttgart team, a murder, and then injected a whole historical landscape into the situation from the 1970s Baader-Meinhof gang (the Red Army Faction). If you watched the entire piece....there's approximately 12 minutes of video from the 1970s which is injected into the storyline.
So, you come to the script. While a vast amount of historical data was used....then the writers turned to suggest some pieces of the story told by the German government in 1970s.....might not have occurred like the German government claims.
We turn to October 1977 moment. Four key members of the Baader Meinhof gang are captured and sit in a German prison with charges looming. A Lufthansa aircraft is taken and hostages are being held to swap for the gang members. The German government ends up rescuing and halting the terror act. As new sweeps back to Germany....the four in the prison all commit suicide.
It is one of those odd scenes. Baader will be found dead in the prison cell with a gunshot wound in the back of his head. How he got the weapon into the prison? Never fully explained. Ensslin? She was found just down the hallway in this same area of the prison.....hanged, dead. Raspe? He will be found with a serious gunshot wound in his cell, and will be dead by the next day. The gun in his cell? Never explained. Irmgard Möller? She has serious stab wounds in her side, but oddly enough survives. No one can explain where the knife came from. She'll spend the next seventeen years in prison and then be released.
A lot of the Tatort murder episode circled around the existence of these four and their demise. So near the end of the story, they put this alternate piece of history.....suggesting that the German authorities themselves caused the three deaths and the serious wound to Moller. Moller has suggested through the years that no suicide pact existed between the four, and this was all conspired by the German government....an authorized execution to prevent more aircraft hijacking, and to send a message.
You then come to the end of the Tatort with a conclusion and the solving of the original murder in the show.
In a way, this was a hyped-up slanted view of the Baader Meinhof period, and suggesting that maybe all the facts aren't really true. A conspiracy? Well, that's the suggestion.
There are three problems with this. First, if you did pull out all the facts from three dead folks in the prison....there's around six different problems with the medical exam, the weapons appearing out of thin air, and the method of death. The lack of gunpower on Raspe's hand? Yeah, that does stand out.
The second problem is that forty years have passed. Most people who remember all of this clearly are fifty or older. These particular have a memory over the period, and the threat of the Red Army Faction. They aren't likely to buy into this suggested alternate history. Folks under thirty? It might have been mentioned once in high school, but this is the crowd who really don't care....nor were they likely to have watched Tatort (it's just not a show that the younger generation would care about).
The third and final problem? You are taking a fictional series, injecting history, and then going to the extent of suggesting that things might not have happened like you think. Al this does is confuse people.
Me?
In the 1960s, Germany was emerging into a difficult period, with a generational difference problem. There was a segment of society in the 16 to 25 year old range.....who saw the political parties as stagnant....disapproved on the relationship with the US/NATO....and perceived a bold new world approaching. In some ways, the Baader Meinhof gang was simply a revolutionary war front, and attempting to drag the government into some confrontation.
The cops? German cops simply weren't prepared for this type of revolutionary war. The justice system, the courts, the laws themselves....weren't made for this type of confrontation. Trying to use the legal system and prosecute people.....while their supporters were prepared to kidnap more people or hold aircraft passengers as hostages? The Germans simply weren't capable of waiting this out or hoping for a solution to arrive. I personally don't buy the story that two guns and a knife were smuggled into the cells. But I also don't buy that the Baader Meinhof gang did this on their own, and didn't have help from the East German Stassi (secret police). It is rather odd that the Red Army Faction basically retires shortly after the Wall comes down.
As for the Tatort episode? I've seen a few remarkable and great episodes...but this turned into a fairly confusing mess about half-way through the 90 minutes. And frankly, I don't have that much sympathy for the Baader Meinhof members.....no matter how you tell the story.
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