Tatort

Tatort
The Tatort logo.
Starring	Götz George Manfred Krug Ulrike Folkerts Miroslav Nemec Klaus J. Behrendt Harald Krassnitzer Eva Mattes Jan Josef Liefers Martin Wuttke Wotan Wilke Möhring and others
Theme music composer	Klaus Doldinger
Country of origin	Germany Austria Switzerland
Original language(s)	German
No. of episodes	978 (+13) (March 6, 2016) (list of episodes)
Production
Running time	90 Minutes
Release
Original network	Das Erste
Picture format	576i (Das Erste [and regional channels of ARD-Network], ORF2, SRF1); 720p (DasErste HD, ORF2 HD, SRF1 HD)
Original release	November 29, 1970 – present
External links
Website

Tatort (German police jargon meaning the scene of a crime) is a German language police procedural television series developed by the German television channel ARD. It is unique in its approach, in that it is jointly produced by all of the station's regional public-service broadcasters whereby every regional station contributes a number of episodes to a common pool. Therefore, the series is a collection of different police stories where different police teams each solve crimes in their respective city. Uniqueness in architecture, customs and dialects of the cities is therefore a distinctive part of the series and often the city, not the police force is the real main character of an episode. The concept of local stations only producing a couple of shows per year has also enabled the shows to be longer (90 minutes) and more fleshed out psychologically than other weekly TV dramas.

The first episode was broadcast on November 29, 1970 and the series has been continuously on the air ever since. This makes it the longest-running TV-drama of Germany. Episodes are broadcast on ARD's main channel Das Erste on Sunday evening at the prime viewing time of 8.15 pm (just after the 8 o'clock Tagesschau news) around three times a month. Reruns are often shown by various regional ARD stations and on foreign broadcasters. Next to the member stations of the ARD, the National Austrian broadcasting corporation Österreichischer Rundfunk joined the production pool in 1971 and airs the program on its ORF 2 channel. Switzerland's Schweizer Fernsehen joined the pool from 1990 to 2001 and again in 2011 and distributes its episodes through its channel SRF 1.

The series Polizeiruf 110 by ARD's regional broadcasters Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (RBB), Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) is closely related to the Tatort format and shares the same program slot on Das Erste.

Concept

The main feature of Tatort is that it is jointly produced by all participating regional TV stations: Each of the eleven companies involved (the nine German regional TV channels or Landesrundfunkanstalten that together form ARD, plus ORF in Austria and SRF in Switzerland), produces its own episodes, starring its own police inspector or team of inspectors. The episodes are then fed into a common pool and shown through all participating stations as part of their common programming. This means that if one Tatort features one team of inspectors in one specific city, the next Tatort will play in another city and feature another set of inspectors. Combine this with the fact that the episodes are, with 90 minutes of length, almost the size of a movie and with the fact that, with rarely more than 30 episodes in one year, the series is broadcast only every other week and you come up with a cultural phenomenon that is closer to a string of made-for-TV movies then your typical run-of-the-mill police series.

This pooling concept was in great part due to the nature of the public broadcast television channel ARD which is jointly operated by all of Germany's public Landesrundfunkanstalten: Originally developed as radio stations, each 'Anstalt' produces its own radio channels, but cooperates on national programs such as the newscasts that are broadcast throughout all channels as a common block. With the advent of television, this was expanded further in that there was only one national channel jointly operated by all Anstalten with a regional block as well as a common programming. But unlike for instance in the USA with its Network affiliate system no single corporation would produce all common programming. Instead the different member stations would each contribute a number of programs to the common block to be shown by all other stations. As a result of this each of the member stations already had the capacity and experience to produce TV-programs, even feature films on their own although no Anstalt had the means and capacity to produce a complete series. Jointly producing one crime series with episodes contributed by each member station was thus a logical step.

Apart from the unique joint-pooling system, the series is also characterized by the relative length of an episode (90 minutes) which allows for more in-dept and psychological fleshing out of the characters. Although almost all episodes feature the investigation of an homicide, it is never just a simple case of whodunit. Often the time available allows for the crime to be shown in all its aspects with equal attention focused on the perpetrators and the victims as on the inspectors. On several occasions the actual police work is just a side note in the story as the main plot is the way one of the persons involved deals with the crime and its aftermath.

With the national broadcasting corporations of Austria and Switzerland joining in, the episodes of Tatort are set in various cities of Germany, Vienna and Lucerne. Originally each of the participating member stations limited their episodes to one team of investigators in one city, for ease of production this was mostly the city the broadcast station was in, but over the years some stations broadcasting over a large area have Tatorts playing in several cities. Notably the WDR has three teams of investigators playing respectively in Cologne, Münster and Dortmund. Episodes are either produced by the station's own production facilities or are filmed and often also written by outside production houses on behalf of the station. This sometimes leads to situations where for instance a Tatort playing in Thuringia is actually produced in Bavaria with only a handful of scenes shot 'on location' in the town the story is supposed to play in.

A similar concept of independently filming and then pooling episodes was used from 1988 to 1992 in the series Eurocops jointly produced by several national European TV stations.

History

Gunther Witte, dramaturge and TV boss at WDR (West German Broadcasting Cologne), developed the series against initial resistance.^[1] Witte and his successors have ensured that one or two detectives are at the center of every story, and the cases are shown from their perspective; they are usually members of a team, and their lives are also included.^[1]

The first Tatort radio drama was broadcast in January 2008.

In 2012, more than 100,000 people participated in the first and only online game linked to the SWR Tatort production, "Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget".^[2]

In January 2014, Tatort received the 50th Grimme Award from the Deutscher Volkshochschul-Verband.^[3][4]

Features

The show is still aired on Sundays at 8:15 p.m. in Germany and Austria and 8:05 p.m. in Switzerland. About 30 episodes are made each year. By June 2014, 926 episodes had been produced, including 13 made in Austria and shown only there.

The episodes of some series of Tatort, such as the discontinued series about Schimanski, played by Götz George, have become cultural icons.

The opening sequence of each episode has essentially remained the same throughout the decades except for slight changes. Klaus Doldinger composed the title music with Udo Lindenberg on drums.^[5]

In East Germany

At the same time the ARD was starting its Tatort format, the DDR had its own police procedural/crime show called Polizeiruf 110 ("Police dial 1-1-0"). The series premiered in 1971, less than a year after the first Tatort. It too was a police procedural, with various teams of investigators in various cities of the DDR, but in contrast to the West, only a small part of their cases involved actual homicides. The psychology of the perpetrators and the victims was also more prevalent. The series continued through all of the 1970s and 80s and even survived the Wende, continuing until 1991.

In 1990 Polizeiruf practiced its own brand of German unification with episode 142, "Unter Brüdern" ("Amongst Brothers"), a crossover with the Tatort investigators Schimanski and Thanner. Until 1991, the series continued more or less independently for 11 more episodes until episode 153 (December 22, 1991), again a crossover, in which Kommissar Thanner becomes the team's superior. Also in 1991, as part of the unification, the DDR's television company DFF was split into the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) and Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB) while the television stations in the new state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern would be operated as part of the NDR.

As MDR, ORB and NDR were all partners in the ARD, it was expected that they would start producing Tatort episodes as well. However, seeing the popularity of Polizeiruf 110, it was decided that the stations would contribute to the Tatort pool, but that its episodes would keep the name of Polizeiruf 110 and their own title music and intro. Still, they would be broadcast over all ARD stations on Sunday evening just like (or instead of) the 'western' Tatort.

Reorganizing took one and a half years, but on June 13, 1993, the now MDR restarted the series in Tatort format. This first episode played in Leipzig, just as in 1991. However, today's episodes produced by the MDR play in Magdeburg, while those produced by NDR play in Rostock. The ORB (and later ORB's successor, RBB) has its episodes headed by the same team of investigators, but take place in various cities of Brandenburg. In addition, Bavarian Broadcasting station BR produces its own Polizeiruf episodes playing in Munich next to its Tatort episodes playing in the same city. Like the original, the Bavarian Polizeiruf episodes focus more on the psychology of the crimes and more on crimes other than homicides. Over the years several other 'western' local broadcasts tried their hands at producing Polizeiruf episodes as a line of 'alternative Tatort' next to the regular ones. However, all of them stopped after a few episodes.

On May 15, 2015, RBB aired the 350th episode of Polizeiruf 110 , the 197th episode of the new format.

In 2013, seeing that Thuringia was so far the only federal state in Germany that had neither a Tatort nor a Polizeiruf playing in one of its cities, the MDR ordered two new series under the Tatort header, playing in Erfurt and in Weimar respectively. Both are produced for the MDR by Bavarian companies.

As 1-1-0 is the speed dial code for police/emergency dispatch in Germany, but not in Austria, Polizeiruf 110 is broadcast in Austria as Polizeiruf 113.

List of Tatort investigators (Kommissare)

Year	Broadcast Station	Investigators	Actors	City	Number of Episodes
1970–1982	NDR	Paul Trimmel	Walter Richter	Hamburg	11
1970–1973	SR	Liersdahl and Schäfermann	Dieter Eppler	Saarbrücken	2
1971–1973	WDR	Kressin	Sieghardt Rupp	Cologne	7
1971–1986	SDR	Eugen Lutz	Werner Schumacher	8 different towns in Baden-Württemberg	16
1971–1979	HR	Konrad	Klaus Höhne	Frankfurt am Main	8
1971–1978	NDR	Finke	Klaus Schwarzkopf	Kiel and other places in Schleswig-Holstein	7
1971–1987	ORF	Viktor Marek	Fritz Eckhardt	Vienna	14
1971–1972	SFB	Erwin Kasulke	Paul Esser	Berlin	2
1972–1981	BR	Melchior Veigl	Gustl Bayrhammer	Munich	15
1972	SWF	Horst Pflüger	Ernst Jacobi	Baden-Baden	1
1973	RB	Walter Böck	Hans Häckermann	Bremen	1
1973–1977	SWF	Franz Gerber	Heinz Schimmelpfennig	Baden-Baden	5
1974–1980	WDR	Heinz Haferkamp	Hansjörg Felmy	Essen	20
1974–1977	NDR	Heinz Brammer	Knut Hinz	Hanover	4
1975–1977	SFB	Martin Schmidt	Martin Hirthe	Berlin	3
1977–1984	SR	Schäfermann	Manfred Heidmann	Saarbrücken	4
1978–1980	SWF	Marianne Buchmüller	Nicole Heesters	Mainz	3
1978–1983	HR	Bergmann	Heinz Treuke	Frankfurt am Main	3
1978–1979	SFB	Matthias Behnke	Hans-Peter Korff	Berlin	2
1979	NDR	Nagel	Diether Krebs	Braunschweig	1
1979–1985	NDR	Delius	Horst Bollmann	Hamburg	3
1980	HR	Sander	Volkert Kraeft	Frankfurt am Main	1
1980	WDR	Paul Enders	Jörg Hube	Essen, Frankfurt am Main	1
1980–1982	NDR	Jochen Piper	Bernd Seebacher	Bremen	2
1980	WDR	Willy Kreutzer	Willy Semmelrogge	Essen	1
1981	HR	Bergmann	Lutz Moik	Frankfurt am Main	3
1981–1985	SFB	Friedrich Walther	Volker Brandt	Berlin	6
1981–1988	SWF	Hanne Wiegand	Karin Anselm	Baden-Baden, Karlsruhe, Mainz	8
1981	NDR	Greve	Erik Schumann	small town in Schleswig-Holstein	1
1981	NDR	Beck	Hans Häckermann	Lübeck	1
1981–1991	WDR	Horst Schimanski and Christian Thanner	Götz George and Eberhard Feik	Duisburg	29
1981–1987	BR	Ludwig Lenz	Helmut Fischer	Munich	7
1982	HR	Werner Rolfs	Klaus Löwitsch	Frankfurt am Main	1
1982	NDR	Nikolaus Schnoor	Uwe Dallmeier	Bremerhaven	1
1983	NDR	Ronke	Ulrich von Bock	Hamburg	1
1984	HR	Rullmann	Hans-Werner Bussinger	small towns in Hesse	1
1984–2001	NDR	Paul Stoever and Peter Brockmöller	Manfred Krug and Charles Brauer	Hamburg and Neuwerk	41, Brockmöller: 38
1984–1986	ORF	Hirth	Kurt Jaggberg	Vienna	3 (+ 7 only ORF)
1985	HR	Reinhold Dietze	Klaus Löwitsch	Frankfurt am Main	1
1985–2001	HR	Edgar Brinkmann	Karl-Heinz von Hassel	Frankfurt am Main	28
1985–1989	SFB	Hans Georg Bülow	Heinz Drache	Berlin	6
1986	BR	Siggi Riedmüller	Günther Maria Halmer	Munich	1
1987–1988	SDR	Georg Thomas Schreitle	Horst Michael Neutze	Stuttgart, Führstadt	3
1987	BR	Karl Scherrer	Hans Brenner	Munich	1
1987	ORF	Passini	Christoph Waltz	Vienna	1
1988	ORF	Pfeifer	Bruno Dallansky	Vienna	1 (+4 only ORF)
1988–2005	SR	Max Palu	Jochen Senf	Saarbrücken and other places in Saarland	17
1988–1989	BR	Otto Brandenburg	Horst Bollmann	Munich	2
1989–1996	ORF	Michael Fichtl	Michael Janisch	Vienna	8 (+1 only ORF)
since 1989	SWF, SWR	Lena Odenthal and Mario Kopper	Ulrike Folkerts and Andreas Hoppe	Ludwigshafen	61, Kopper: 52
1990	DRS	Walter Howald	Mathias Gnädinger	Bern	1
since 1991	BR	Ivo Batic, Franz Leitmayr (and Detective Sergeant Carlo Menzinger until 2007)	Miroslav Nemec, Udo Wachtveitl and Michael Fitz	Munich	69, Menzinger: 45
1991–1992	DRS	Reto Carlucci	Andrea Zogg	Bern	2
1991–1995	SFB	Franz Markowitz	Günter Lamprecht	Berlin	8
1992–2007	MDR	Bruno Ehrlicher and Kain	Peter Sodann and Bernd Michael Lade	first Dresden, later Leipzig, one episode in Cologne as well	45, (two of them together with Ballauf and Schenk)
1992–1997	WDR	Bernd Flemming, Detective Constable Max Ballauf and Detective Constable Miriam Koch	Martin Lüttge, Klaus J. Behrendt and Roswitha Schreiner	Düsseldorf	15, Ballauf: 9
1992–2007	SDR, SWR	Ernst Bienzle and Detective Sergeant Günter Gächter	Dietz Werner Steck and Rüdiger Wandel	Stuttgart	25
1993–2002	DRS	Philipp von Burg and Markus Gertsch	L.I. Kisch and E.C. Sigrist	Bern	9
1995	HR	Leo Felber	Heinz Schubert	Frankfurt am Main	1
1996–1998	SFB	Ernst Roiter and Detective Constable Michael Zorrowski	Winfried Glatzeder and Robinson Reichel	Berlin	12
1996	ORF	Max Becker	Klaus Wildbolz	Vienna	1
1997	ORF	Paul Kant and Jakob Varanasi	Wolfgang Hübsch and Johannes Nikolussi	Vienna	2
1997	NDR	Lea Sommer	Hannelore Elsner	Hamburg	2
since 1997	WDR	Max Ballauf and Freddy Schenk	Klaus J. Behrendt and Dietmar Bär	Cologne, two Episodes in Leipzig as well	62, (respectively two of them together with Ehrlicher/Kain and Saalfeld/Keppler)
since 1997	RB	Inga Lürsen and Detective Constable Nils Stedefreund	Sabine Postel and Oliver Mommsen	Bremen, Bremerhaven	30 (with Stedefreund: 25)
1999–2014	SFB, RBB	Till Ritter and Robert Hellmann, later Felix Stark	Dominic Raacke and Stefan Jürgens, later Boris Aljinovic	Berlin	37, (with Hellmann: 6, with Stark: 31, the last episode only with Stark)
since 1999	ORF	Moritz Eisner and Bibi Fellner	Harald Krassnitzer and Adele Neuhauser	Vienna and other places in Austria	34 (with Fellner: 10)
2001–2008	NDR	Jan Casstorff and Detective Sergeant Eduard Holicek	Robert Atzorn, Tilo Prückner	Hamburg	15
2002–2010	HR	Detective Sergeant Charlotte Sänger and Fritz Dellwo	Andrea Sawatzki and Jörg Schüttauf	Frankfurt am Main	18
since 2002	NDR	Charlotte Lindholm	Maria Furtwängler	Hanover and small towns in Lower Saxony	22
since 2002	SWR	Klara Blum and Kai Perlmann	Eva Mattes and Sebastian Bezzel	Konstanz and other places at the Lake Constance	28 (with Perlmann: 24)
since 2002	WDR	Frank Thiel and forensic doctor Prof. Karl-Friedrich Boerne	Axel Prahl and Jan Josef Liefers	Münster (Westfalia) and around	26
since 2003	NDR	Klaus Borowski, Frieda Jung (2003-2010) and Sarah Brandt (since 2010)	Axel Milberg, Maren Eggert (2003-2010) and Sibel Kekilli (since 2010)	Kiel	24 (with Jung: 14, with Brandt: 8)
2006-2012	SR	Franz Kappl and Stephan Deininger	Maximilian Brückner and Gregor Weber	Saarbrücken	7
since 2008	SWR	Sebastian Bootz and Thorsten Lannert	Felix Klare and Richy Müller	Stuttgart	15
since 2008	MDR	Eva Saalfeld and Andreas Keppler	Simone Thomalla and Martin Wuttke	Leipzig	20 (two of them together with Ballauf and Schenk)
2008-2012	NDR	Cenk Batu	Mehmet Kurtulus	Hamburg	6
since 2010	HR	Felix Murot	Ulrich Tukur	Wiesbaden	4
2011–2015	HR	Conny Mey and Frank Steier	Nina Kunzendorf und Joachim Król	Frankfurt	7 (with Mey: 5)
since 2011	SRF	Reto Flückiger and Liz Ritschard	Stefan Gubser and Delia Mayer	Lucerne	7 (with Ritschard: 6)
since 2012	WDR	Peter Faber, Martina Bönisch, Nora Dalay and Daniel Kossik	Jörg Hartmann, Anna Schudt, Aylin Tezel and Stefan Konarske	Dortmund	5
since 2013	SR	Jens Stellbrink and Lisa Marx	Devid Striesow and Elisabeth Brück	Saarbrücken	4
since 2013	NDR	Nick Tschiller and Yalcin Gümer	Til Schweiger and Fahri Ogün Yardım	Hamburg	2
since 2013	NDR	Thorsten Falke and Katharina Lorenz	Wotan Wilke Möhring and Petra Schmidt-Schaller	Hamburg and other places in Northern Germany	3
2013–2014	MDR	Henry Funck, Maik Schaffert and Aline Grewel	Friedrich Mücke, Benjamin Kramme and Alina Levshin	Erfurt	2
since 2013	MDR	Lessing and Kira Dorn	Christian Ulmen and Nora Tschirner	Weimar	2

Last update: February 28, 2015

Soundtracks (selection)

Some Tatort episodes from the 1980s and 1990s included songs that subsequently became quite well known, and two of them reached the top of the charts: "Faust auf Faust (Schimanski)" by Klaus Lage from the Tatort movie Zahn um Zahn, and "Midnight Lady" by Chris Norman, written by Dieter Bohlen, which appears on the episode "Der Tausch". Some random selected soundtracks:

Artist	Title song	Episode	Year	TV station
Can	"Vitamin C"	Tote Taube in der Beethovenstraße	1973	WDR
Tangerine Dream	"Das Mädchen auf der Treppe"	"Das Mädchen auf der Treppe"	1981	WDR
Warning	"Why Can The Bodies Fly"	"Peggy hat Angst"	1982	SWF
Tangerine Dream	"Daydream – Moorland"	"Miriam"	1983
Jil Anderson	"Without You (Baby, Baby)"	"Haie vor Helgoland"	1984	NDR
Mark Spiro	"Winds Of Change"	"Das Haus im Wald"	1985	WDR
Patricia Simpson	"Dreams In The City"	"Nachtstreife"	1985	ORF
Die Toten Hosen	"Verschwende deine Zeit"	"Voll auf Haß"	1986	NDR
Sandra	"Stop For A Minute"	"Salü Palu"	1987	SR
Roger Chapman	"Slap Bang in the Middle"	"Einzelhaft"	1988	WDR
Bonnie Tyler	"Against The Wind"	"Der Fall Schimanski"	1991	WDR
Wolf Maahn	"Cool"	"Der Mörder und der Prinz"	1992	WDR
Markus Küpper	"Sie hat Schluß gemacht"	"Ein ehrenwertes Haus"	1994	MDR
Ben Becker	"Alter Mann"	"Falsches Alibi"	1995	MDR

See also

• Polizeiruf 110

References

1. ""Ehrenpreis der Jury": Gunther Witte". MDR.de. Das Erste. 13 November 2013. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
2. "Schade, Tatort+ ist zu Ende!" (in German). Das Erste. nd. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
3. "Besondere Ehrung für das Format "Tatort"" (in German). Grimme Institut. nd. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
4. Barbara Möller (29 January 2014). ""Tatort" erhält Besondere Ehrung beim Grimme-Preis". Die Welt (in German) (Axel Springer). Retrieved 8 November 2014.
5. "Tatort". fernsehlexikon. nd. Retrieved 8 November 2014.

Further reading

• Himmelman, Michael (26 August 2009), "German Viewers Love Their Detectives on ‘Tatort’", New York Times.

External links

• Tatort-Spoiler
• Tatort at the Internet Movie Database