Von Schirach series "Penalty": They all get life imprisonment

A mostly reliable way of finding the truth in criminal proceedings is the chronology.

Evaluated time also plays a special role in the issue of attribution of blame.

How long does an affect last?

What is a sudden decision?

Enlightenment is a necessarily backward process.

Reconstruction is necessary in order to finally describe a possibly incomplete but enlightening sequence, an event that is moving forward again, before the court.

In the anthology series "Crime" and "Guilt" (ZDF) based on Ferdinand von Schirach, deeds and their classification were in the foreground.

The participatory television games “Terror – Your Judgment”, “God” and “Enemies” in the first and third programs supposedly posed difficult legal questions for viewers to dispose of.

Admittedly, such legal understanding tutoring did not come for free.

Vain criminal defense figures and legally biased positions had to be accepted again and again.

The focus is shifted

Since the series "Glauben" with Peter Kurth as a crashed, brilliant defender, Ferdinand von Schirach and his home production company Moovie have apparently gotten through the public broadcasters.

"Glauben" ran on RTL+ (formerly TV Now), and the new six-part anthology series "Strafe" was also produced for viewing on RTL+.

The focus has shifted – towards the perpetrators, whose actions are being closely observed.

In the case of public service broadcasters, the victims should be given the central place, at least when it comes to the social mandate and the notions of relevance that have just been widely discussed.

Of course, “Strafe” is not about glorifying the offender, playing it down or simply explaining it.

It's a bit more complicated and luckily more problematic.

In the film adaptations from the collection of short stories "Strafe" the "perpetrator" or the definition of what an "act" is in the legal, moral and ethical sense is now more illuminated.

The focus is on the forms of punishment - imposed by the court, personally endured, unjustly endured - which sometimes only peripherally affect the need for social order and legal peace.

It is assumed here that the law can disturb the sense of justice.

These six films have come a long way from the often simple introductory law didactics of earlier productions.

Time reverses in the most depressing installment of the anthology series.

We only see from the end, the context is missing.

A woman (Jule Böwe) comes home to a trashed apartment block.

The man, completely drunk, demands a screwdriver to repair the satellite dish on an adventurous balcony parapet construction.

A push, a fall, death.

Enter the prosecutor, who orders a police officer to let the woman go, despite observations from a neighbor.

You have no evidence, it's not even enough for an initial suspicion.

The woman got away.

She takes her punishment with her.

From there, "A Light Blue Day" tells flashback after flashback.

The woman just got out of jail.

She spent several years in prison because, according to the court, she had killed her crying baby because she was overwhelmed.

As a "child killer" she is tormented by inmates and staff.

In the wood workshop she learns to make toddler puzzles, works overtime for animal figures.

It goes further and further back, sometimes dramaturgically slowed down, as if the story hesitates to show the day of the crime.

Up to the hours before the child's death.

"A light blue day" is sometimes factual, sometimes melodramatic.

Both are combined in Jule Böwe's intense portrayal of a woman who you don't have to find sympathetic in order to suffer with her.

No defender will protect them, prejudice is part of the punishment.

The film closes with a logical twist in a peculiar mixture of factual observation and an emotionality that is precisely calculated in terms of its effect.

The five other films also have their own signature, their own directors.

In addition to "Ein hellblaue Tag" by David Wnendt, there are "Die Schöffin" by Mia Spengler, "Das Seehaus" by Patrick Vollrath (with Olli Dittrich), "Der Dorn" by Hüseyin Tabak, "Der Taucher" by Oliver Hirschbiegel (with Josef Bierbichler) and "Subotnik" by Helene Hegemann.

And at the end, the impression is of a portrait gallery of the injured and guilty.

The six episodes of

are available on RTL+