"Tatort" from Hamburg: Which identity is real?

If one sees the state and its organs as an institutionalized expression of the moral principles to which a society is committed, the use of undercover investigators requires a special justification.

Even within the judiciary and law enforcement, their role is disputed.

The delay in investigating the NSU murders has shown just how misguided they can be.

In another case, two undercover investigators were exposed in Hamburg in 2015, who had infiltrated the left-wing autonomous center "Rote Flora" and also, instrumentally or authentically, had had romantic relationships.

Because the police suspected a terrorist cell or criminal activities there.

That state officials who delve into the foreign milieu under false identities and take part in crimes for the sake of credibility

changing sides seems psychologically understandable.

To what extent friendships, relationships and love in false identities are real or fake is another question.

In Hamburg's "Tatort: ​​Schattenleben", the author Lena Fakler takes the "Rote Flora" undercover scandal as an opportunity to give inspector Julia Grosz (Franziska Weisz) a dramatic private life.

Her professional partner Thorsten Falke (Wotan Wilke Möhring) is meanwhile investigating in the background, supported by colleague Thomas Okonjo (Jonathan Kwesi Aikins), who quickly realizes why he of all people was delegated to support the investigation of an arson attack that resulted in death.

If the only black investigator is used in the Hamburg police force on suspicion of structural racism and esprit de corps, the manager makes a good impression in case of doubt, so the calculation.

The arson attack on the house of riot policeman Bastian Huber (Robert Höller), to which his wife falls victim, looks like the act of left-wing chaos.

Especially since it is a fire series.

All of the police officers involved, Falke and Okonjo find out, were conspicuous for using excessive force during arrests.

Internal investigations came to nothing.

Is the neighborhood scene taking revenge?

Or does someone use the suspicion for their own purposes?

Ela Erol (Elisabeth Hofmann), who lived in a left-wing "Flinta*" housing project (Flinta* stands for women, lesbians, intersexual, non-binary, trans and agender people), was close to the crime scene.

The undercover cop disappears

Ela disappeared after asking Grosz for help.

Twenty years ago, when they were police students, they were inseparable for a summer of love.

Until Ela wanted to make the relationship official and Grosz wasn't ready for it.

Ela is an undercover investigator and lives with the intoxicating Nana (Gina Haller) in a feminist housing project.

When Grosz follows Ela's footsteps with a false identity, personal boundaries become blurred, for which camerawoman Zamarin Wahdat finds shots of great visual appeal, sometimes with an intoxicating party atmosphere.

Which is followed by director Mia Spengler's staging of a hangover.

Ela's alleged ex-boyfriend and her middle-class existence in the Pinneberg family home also come into focus.

Confusion is followed by a sad, disorderly ending in “Schattenleben”.

As decidedly ambiguous as the “crime scene” is in some respects, as much as it advocates diversity, the policeman figures and their actions lose sight of it.

Fatal esprit de corps gets the case rolling, but you don't see it.

The enlightenment is moderately exciting.

This is probably intentional, because most of this "crime scene" revolves around representation.

Mia Spengler, Lena Fakler, Zamarin Wahdat and the producer Sophia Ayissi Nsegue direct the "old aunt Tatort" for an audience that would otherwise hardly bother to go to ARD on Sundays at 8:15 p.m.

For the first time, the "Inclusion Rider" was used by public broadcasters, "a contractual clause

according to which certain population groups must be involved in the production at a corresponding percentage.

It's not that new.

The UFA's commitment to diversity is trying something similar, and the SWR "Tatort: ​​Für immer und dich" by Julia von Heinz has already convincingly made participation proportional representation in 2019.

Anyone who doesn't understand television in such a way that prominent formats have to guarantee the eternal return of the familiar will get some perspective here.

A contribution to the diversity of the "Tatort" series that is not successful in every detail, but definitely worth discussing.

Anyone who doesn't understand television in such a way that prominent formats have to guarantee the eternal return of the familiar will get some perspective here.

A contribution to the diversity of the "Tatort" series that is not successful in every detail, but definitely worth discussing.

Anyone who doesn't understand television in such a way that prominent formats have to guarantee the eternal return of the familiar will get some perspective here.

A contribution to the diversity of the "Tatort" series that is not successful in every detail, but definitely worth discussing.

The scene of the

runs this Sunday at 8:15 p.m. on the first.