What did the German physicist Werner Heisenberg and his friend and mentor Niels Bohr talk about in September 1941? Historians are still puzzling over the exact course of the meeting in Copenhagen. Did Heisenberg and his colleague Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker warn the Danes about Nazi efforts to build a nuclear bomb? Or did they try to use it for the experiments in which they both worked?

For the shades of gray of historical tradition of the Norwegian-British miniseries "saboteurs in the ice" no time. She has a tension dramaturgy to feed, fed by the race for the construction of the first atomic bomb. Blurs disturb only there.

So Heisenberg does not just want to pull his Danish friend on his side in this version - he even hands him the sketch of a reactor. He then invites Heisenberg to an evening roast pork dinner, but makes it clear that her friendship is history afterwards.

The tension dramaturgy rumbles and rattles

"Saboteurs in the ice" ran on Norwegian television in 2015 and, as expected, set record quotas there. The story is ultimately based on a national myth: It is about the operation "Gunnerside", for which in February 1943 ten Norwegian soldiers sabotaged the planned production of heavy water for German bombing. In 1965, the action had been filmed before, then under the title "password 'Heavy Water'" by Western director Anthony Mann with Kirk Douglas.

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"Password: 'Heavy Water'": Anthony Mann filmed the action in 1965

Even if the new version gives more time to tell the happenings: In the golden age of the television series, it hardly looks more modern than Mann's forty-year-old version.

The machine of "saboteurs in the ice" puffs like that of a rattling steam locomotive, constantly fueled by a cinematic means of voltage generation that still works: the good old parallel montage. And despite all the weaknesses, this dramaturgy can be thoroughly enjoyed. Right at the beginning of the year the first guilty pleasure .

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"Saboteurs in the ice": survival fight in the cold

The screenplay by Petter S. Rosenlund rotates between four locations. In Berlin, the so-called Uranverein formed with Heisenberg (Christoph Bach) and other leading German scientists to advance plans for nuclear energy - and thus for a bomb. This requires heavy water, which is produced in large quantities only in a factory in the north of Norway occupied by the Wehrmacht.

Professor Leif Tronstad guesses what the Germans need the material for; He flees to England, where he builds a troop of Norwegians in the British army to thwart the plans of the Nazis. A first attempt fails, four men remain alone in the wintry wilderness and fight from now on for survival. The new director of Norsk Hydro, where the heavy water is produced, meanwhile has to locate a saboteur in his own ranks and get it with the SS to do.

No sense of the bitter irony of the story

Indeed, "saboteurs in ice" has more in common with war movie ham like "The Eagle Has Landed" or "The Bridge of Arnhem" and their quite questionable narrative strategies than with modern TV entertainment. Here, war becomes a playground for heroes with a determined look, who, despite the seriousness of the situation, still have time for a few casual sayings. Real guys just gonna do the job.

This works as long as "saboteurs in the ice" is concerned with generating tension and atmosphere. It is terribly wrong, especially with the narrative thread playing in Germany. The motivation of the Nobel laureate Heisenberg, which Christoph Bach plays as an unpleasant nerd, remains completely unclear in the corset of the parallel montage.

And a sense of the bitter irony of the story goes off the series with her heroic poses also. For all the troubles and human sacrifices in spite of the fight for the Norwegian heavy water was not crucial for the race for the atomic bomb.

"Saboteurs in the ice", from Tuesday, 23 clock, ARD