“Tatort”: That’s why so many inspectors are suspected of murder

ARD crime thriller from Vienna
Moritz Eisner behind bars: That’s why so many detectives in the “crime scene” are suspected of murder

Normally, inspectors hunt the murderers in the “crime scene”. On Sunday it was the other way around: Viennese investigator Moritz Eisner was suddenly suspected of murder. Not the first time in the crime series.

Bibi Fellner wasn’t the only one who thought it was impossible: the otherwise decent Moritz Eisner, of all people, is said to have committed a murder? The investigator couldn’t believe that. With her, most viewers probably firmly believed in Eisner’s innocence. In the end it was clear: the police officer fell victim to a perfidious plot that was actually directed against Fellner.

Fans of the crime series probably weren’t particularly shocked by the fact that one of the good guys was suddenly under suspicion. Because something like this happens more often at the “crime scene”. At the turn of the year 2021/2022 alone, there was an extreme increase in this topic. The viewers may have felt a little like “Groundhog Day”: They tuned in to the ARD crime drama on Sundays at 8:15 p.m., and a short time later the inspector was suspected of murder. Only to be rehabilitated again by 9:45 p.m. at the latest. Because the show must go on.

This happened on January 23, 2022 The Saarbrücken inspector Adam Schürk (Daniel Sträßer) is the victim of a perfectly orchestrated intrigue with which his own father wanted to put him behind bars. Just a week earlier, it was Inspector Frank Thiel (Axel Prahl) from Münster who was trying to get him to commit a crime using a very similar method: in both cases it was a poisonous substance that was administered to the investigators.

While in the Westphalian crime thriller it was a devilish drug called “Devil’s Breath” that made the inspector compliant, in Saarland the poison of a frog was used to transform a police officer into a willing murderer. In both cases the style of the intrigue is very similar.

Same pattern as the Christmas “crime scene”

It wasn’t that long ago that another inspector was hunted down using very similar means: Charlotte Lindholm, played by Maria Furtwängler, was lured to the Hotel Atlantic in Hamburg with the promise of a one-night stand. Her alleged lover was already dead in bed when the policewoman entered the room, who couldn’t remember anything. Because she too was doused with a substance.

It is actually not uncommon for an inspector to be suspected of murder in the “crime scene”. Inspector Lessing from Weimar, played by Christian Ulmen, and Professor Boerne from Münster have also already found themselves in the crossfire of the judiciary. The topic is seductive for authors: if a figure who has been familiar for years is investigated, this increases identification. As a viewer, you get much more excited than when you simply have to answer the question: Who was the murderer – and will the inspector catch him?

So it’s entirely understandable why this variant occurs much more often in TV crime dramas than is likely to be the case in real life. It is not known that homicide detectives are regularly suspected of crimes. But that could also be because very few real perpetrators are capable of a plot as perfidious as the one to which Moritz Eisner almost fell victim.

There is something very comforting about the fact that reality is ultimately not quite as bleak as it is portrayed in TV crime dramas.