Tatort is a long-running German/Austrian/Swiss crime television series set in various parts of these countries. The show is broadcast on the channels of ARD in Germany, ORF in Austria and SF1 in Switzerland.
A stranger asks Thorsten Falke to meet him. He hopes, he says, that the commissioner will keep a promise that is more than 20 years old and help him out of an emergency. Since the stranger demands a commitment without revealing the further circumstances, Falke refuses. Shortly afterwards the man is pulled dead from the Elbe. It turns out he had been living under a false identity. In order to find out who the man really was, Falke and his colleague Julia Grosz have to delve deep into their own past. And with the man the two ultimately suspect, nothing seems to be as initially assumed.
An unknown man is found dead on the banks of the Rhine. He suffered a heart attack. However, he was not alone at the time of his death; someone previously sprayed pepper spray into his face. The investigators Odenthal and Stern notice a mysterious witness: Julia, in her mid-40s. Everything indicates that she saw the man or even specifically met him.
The opportunity of a lifetime comes to André Stamm out of nowhere. A comrade from his army days offers him a promising job at the investment company “Concreta”. Rocko Andersen made a lot of money from the company. A fancy car and an apartment above the rooftops of the city: André will soon be able to afford all of this. All he has to do is do what company founder Christopher Komann demands of his team: sell, sell, sell! Andre is ready for this. His wife Anja is currently expecting their first child. He wants to offer his family a prosperous life. And in fact: he wins new customers straight away on the job and earns big commissions. But a short time later, things at “Concreta” get completely out of control...
Shortly before closing time, a jeweler in Stuttgart is robbed. He himself is injured and his customer dies while trying to escape. The robbers' actions are similar to an attack from the previous year and so the Maslov and Ellinger families, who are related by marriage, become the focus of Thorsten Lannert and Sebastian Bootz's investigation. The adult members of the family have a lot of experience in deflecting police inquiries and providing alibis. That leaves 13-year-old David, who is housed in a youth home. The detectives suspect that the teenager, who is underage, was employed as a guard during the attack. The social worker Annarosa, who looks after him, defends the boy with complete conviction and in principle doesn't make any effort to support the police; she doesn't think much of state rules.
“The Curse of Money” begins where “The Cold of the Earth” ended. The chief inspectors argue because Leo Hölzer had to discover that his partner Adam Schürk was in possession of the loot from his late father's bank robbery. But there is no time to resolve the conflict, because shortly afterwards Leo, all alone on the country road, is almost run over by a car in which two women and two men, completely overconfident, are apparently playing a dangerous game in which they take turns covering the driver's eyes . A short time later, a woman dies on the same street, and Leo suspects there is a connection. But because there is a lack of evidence, there are no official investigations. So Leo investigates on his own. The first clue leads him to the casino...
After the murder of an inmate in the prison, Inspectors Leitmayr and Batic have to move their office to the prison with the help of Kalli Hammermann, who was recently promoted to senior inspector, in order to investigate between the fronts of two rival prison groups with the support of correctional officer Claussen. Their leaders are driven by power games, vigilantism and corrupt dealings, making it extremely difficult for the police to solve the murder. When the model prisoner Scholz, who was released at the same time and who finally wants to live with his musically gifted son Ferdinand again, comes into the sights of the investigators, events come to a head for Leitmayr and Batic. Is the boy in danger?
Detective Director Liebig was celebrating his 60th birthday at Göttingen police headquarters when the party was suddenly disrupted: there was a serious accident in the neighboring old town. A van crashed into a crowd. Charlotte Lindholm and Liebig's wife Tereza, a doctor at the local hospital, are the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. Ilie, the driver of the car, is taken to the hospital's intensive care unit. The investigation begins at the same time: What if it was a shooting spree? But what was Ilie's motive for committing this terrible act? To clarify this, Charlotte Lindholm and Anaïs Schmitz delve into the world of low-wage workers. When Charlotte Lindholm doesn't feel sufficiently supported by the Liebig Criminal Directorate in her investigation, she asks her colleague's husband, forensic pathologist Nick Schmitz, for help.
Chief Inspector Faber is back on duty, but his job as head of the homicide squad is gone for now. And prosecutor Matuschek wouldn't mind if nothing changed. Faber's colleague Rosa Herzog is now taking over the management on an acting basis. Chief Inspector Jan Pawlak, on the other hand, apparently has little interest in his job. Instead, he prefers to have fun in Alkim Celik's betting shop "Mutluluk" (Turkish for "luck"). When Celik's brother-in-law Lukas Becker is found dead, the "Mutluluk" suddenly becomes the focus of the investigation. An old acquaintance of Faber's is now back on the scene: Tarim Abakay . This time Faber doesn't want to let him get away with it. But his sleuthing doesn't remain without consequences for long: Faber is intercepted by Ira Klasnic and her two armed companions in the parking lot in front of his father's nursing home. Did Abakay send them?
The notoriously unfaithful Tobias Exner has been cheating on his wife Greta, from whose money he lives, for a long time. With his anonymous acquaintance “Kitty13”, whom he met on a dating portal, Tobias plans to murder his wife in order to be rich and free. He already has a plan to make her disappear. But before Tobias Exner can implement his plan, he himself disappears without a trace. All lines of investigation lead Klaus Borowski and Mila Sahin to the mysterious dating contact...
When the club owner Otto Hübner is found shot, Inspector Bibi Fellner has to drive to the crime scene without her partner. Moritz Eisner, who celebrated his 60th birthday the evening before, is sleeping off his intoxication. As soon as he gets back to work, Hübner's business partner shoots the inspector. The bullet only grazes Eisner, but he soon faces serious problems. Traces of the crime scene and other evidence make him a suspect! Although Eisner remembers little after his film tear, Bibi believes his protestations of innocence. At a manufacturer of lifelike 3D masks, the two come across social media photos of Eisner that Claudia's new friend Lukas posted. Although police chief “Ernstl” Rauter believes in Eisner’s innocence, “the internal affairs department” does not hesitate to arrest his colleague. In order to find out who wants to frame the inspector for murder, Bibi not only has to find a killer, but also has to turn to previous cases.
Chief Inspector Thiel and Professor Boerne seem overqualified: the dead Sabine Schmidt is completely intact on the outside, she was popular with everyone, and the facility exudes a harmless cosiness. But how did the two dead squirrels come about right next to her, who apparently died at the same time? Not only does Thiel find that strange, the other tenants of the facility also seem to be hiding something. And so, together with his assistant Mirko Schrader, he takes on, among other things, Sabine's brittle neighbor Klaus Karger, who has a very special relationship with his plot. The historian Ulrich Winer shows a noticeable interest in Thiel's investigations, while his wife Vera thinks it's all a waste of time. While the professor in forensic medicine was still puzzling over the exact cause of death, his plant-savvy assistant Silke Haller noticed another irregularity in Sabine's plot, which led the team to investigate of international significance...
A micro-adventure turns into horror: The friends Ayla Ömer, Viola Klemm and Marlene Seifert try to find their way back home from the deep forest without any technical aids. They want to test whether this "dropping" in unfamiliar terrain is safe for their sheltered teenage children. But when night falls, the three neighbors from middle-class Bremen-Schwachhausen are lost in the forest - and the next morning one of them is dead. The Bremen investigators Liv Moormann and Linda Selb encounter many inconsistencies and numerous suspects. On the one hand, there is the “cell phone man”, who years ago secretly photographed campers while they were sleeping and is suspected of murdering a woman. On the other hand, the seemingly intact facade of the well-off neighborhood with the husbands Klaus Seifert, Emre Ömer and Mirko Klemm gradually begins to crack. There are also arguments among the teenage children. Selb's aunt, Johanna Selb, has a lot of insider information about the suspects.
Workers find a female torso in a sewer beneath Munich Central Station. During their investigation, Batic, Leitmayr and Hammermann come across disturbing violent videos on the Internet. The cases seem to be connected and it quickly becomes clear that there could be another murder soon. In their desperate search for the perpetrator, the detectives encounter a frightening world of crimes displayed online - and end up in danger themselves.
At a crime scene in the zoo, detectives Tessa Ott and Isabelle Grandjean experience a surprise: the victim is a chimpanzee. Although public prosecutor Anita Wegenast classifies the terrible act as damage to property in a formally legally correct but morally questionable way, Tessa, indignant, continues to investigate on her own. But little by little, more and more bodies appear in Zurich, which at first glance have little in common. There could also be a crime behind the disappearance of a suspect. The investigator Ott and Grandjean are forced to act. Only when they recognize a pattern in the actions can they solve the murder mystery. However, the fact that her careerist superior Wegenast, who is well connected and working on her promotion, wants to take advantage of the results of the investigation turns out to be a risky move in a political game...
A man was killed in a secret location under a bridge. The chief inspectors Ballauf and Schenk find out that the victim, the unemployed Peer Schwarz, was deliberately run over by a car. In his apartment they find large amounts of cash and documents that point to the systematic blackmail of well-known personalities. Did Peer Schwarz have to die at the hands of one of his own blackmail victims? A trail also leads Ballauf and Schenk to the popular former pop singer Mariella Rosanelli, who now runs a youth center. During the investigation, an argument breaks out between Ballauf and Schenk. Freddy accuses Max of not really paying attention. He isn't either, because Nicola Koch has recently won Max Ballauf's heart. Just another short affair, as Schenk suspects, or will Max Ballauf finally settle down? When Ballauf realizes that there could be a possible connection between his private happiness and the current case, his newfound work-love balance becomes a tightrope walk for him...
A dead man died in his house from multiple stab wounds, but there are no signs of break-in or evidence of robbery. Initial investigations also lead nowhere until Karow comes across a hidden door in the house. What the two inspectors find there takes their breath away. Bonard and Karow immerse themselves in the Vietnamese world of Berlin. You meet the veterinarian Dr. Lê Müller from Charlottenburg. Müller knows the dead man from before and knows more than she lets on, but she doesn't trust the police. The LKA officer Pham Thi Mai puts Bonard and Karow on the trail of a young Vietnamese woman - is she the woman they are looking for? The investigation leads Karow to a pagoda in Lichtenberg, where the souls of the ancestors have their place. However, the community's cultural center is under acute threat of demolition. This hits a sore spot for Karow. In order to solve the challenging case, Bonard and Karow also have to grow together emotionally as a team.
Hansi Pagel has been in prison for several years, convicted of violence against his wife Andrea and their children. He comes into the focus of inspectors Franziska Tobler and Friedemann Berg when the psychologist and psychiatric expert Lisa Schieblon is found strangled in the trunk of her car.
The Viennese rapper "Ted Candy" is on the way up: good-looking, talented - and business-minded! In order to switch to a bigger label, the newcomer breaks away from his mentor Akman Onur. When Ted dies after a concert - high on coke and full of adrenaline - Moritz Eisner and Bibi Fellner don't have to look long for a suspect.
Tobias Benzinger is shot dead, a young lawyer in a law firm with a considerable number of rather shady clients and a high success rate in criminal cases. Franziska Tobler and Friedemann Berg suspect that his death could have something to do with the law firm's cases. The head of the law firm, Rainer Benzinger, is extremely negative towards this theory. He retreats entirely into attorney-client confidentiality, refuses to allow any insight into his clients' affairs, and is not swayed by the fact that Tobias was his stepson. Friedemann Berg is outraged by this behavior, especially since he has learned that the two Benzingers had different opinions about the direction of the law firm.
Tristan Grünfels, a psychologist and victim counselor for the Frankfurt police, has problems. He keeps losing his temper, talking to himself and then losing touch with his already dysfunctional family. When he leaves the chaos of his home one morning to head to his practice, one thing leads to another and he kills a police officer. Unfortunately, a misunderstanding leads him to become the victim counselor for the relatives and thus unintentionally accompanies Janneke and Brix in the investigation into the murder case. While his inner voice keeps telling him to turn himself in to the police, everything only gets worse: his wife is having an affair, his teenage daughter is pregnant and his son prefers smoking weed to going to school. The situation escalates and the entanglements between Grünfels, Brix and Janneke culminate in a major showdown.
Everyone in prison liked Lenni. And everyone believed in the 25-year-old's innocence. When Lenni takes his own life, his sisters are plunged into deep despair. Shortly afterwards, another death occurs: this time Karl Dellmann and his wife Katja and their family are directly affected. Like a devilish game of dominoes, events in Nuremberg unfold one after the other - at the end of which two families, united in grief and loss, face each other, separated by anger and guilt. Paula Ringelhahn, Felix Voss and Wanda Goldwasser must try to stop a series that leaves a trail of destruction and death behind.
Hagen von Strelow is on a flight from South America to Frankfurt am Main. He is a wanted war criminal who is to be put on trial (belatedly) in Germany. Inspector Murot and his assistant Wächter are waiting for him there. Murot had been on his trail 30 years ago, but Hagen von Strelow managed to escape at the last moment. In 1944, von Strelow and Inspector Rother took part in a murder investigation in a small village. A British pilot who was in possession of explosive documents that were crucial to the war was murdered. During the course of the investigation, it turns out that the war-weary investigator Rother is doing everything he can to ensure that the documents do not fall into the hands of the Nazis, and is also protecting the Jew Else Weiß, who is in hiding in the village. With fatal consequences?
In the law firm of lawyer Patricia Prinz, her husband is shot dead. Jasper Ünel was also a lawyer, but during the investigations by Lena Odenthal and Johanna Stern, his ambitious wife turns out to be the one who has attracted aggression. Currently, it is Marie Polat, recently dismissed without notice as an employee of a call center, who is no match for Prinz's skill and unscrupulousness in court. For the young woman, not only her job but also custody of her son depends on her winning the case against the call center. Lena Odenthal and Johanna Stern experience how massively Polat's credibility is undermined in Patricia Prinz's trial. But Marie Polat is not the only one suspected of having taken the law into her own hands; Lena Odenthal is also accused of not having followed the legally prescribed procedure. In an internal procedure, she is suddenly accused of unjustified use of firearms, with Johanna Stern as the main witness.
During a traffic check on a country road, shots are fired in broad daylight - one police officer dies, a second is critically injured. Instead of helping their colleagues, two policewomen flee from the exchange of fire. Dresden police officers Winkler, Gorniak and their boss Schnabel take over the investigation. Under pressure, they coordinate a large-scale search for the perpetrator, who is able to go into hiding.
Hanna Riedle has only just moved away from her village and started a new life in the city when she becomes the victim of a violent crime. During their investigation, detectives Lannert and Bootz discover that she has left in a dispute.
When the janitor of one of Cologne's largest brothels falls to his death from the seventh floor, detectives Ballauf and Schenk are called to the scene. Evidence quickly mounts that the victim was pushed and other people's lives might be in danger.
After the death of his colleague Grosz, Thorsten Falke is taking a break in the remote St. Joseph monastery when the parish pastor dies in a fire. Child pornography material is found in his estate, which confirms Falke and his colleague Eve Pötter's suspicion that the fire may have been set intentionally.
Captain Hendrik Wilkens lies shot dead in his room on Christmas Day. He and his husband had taken in a Filipino sailor for the holidays. Together with Hendrik's children and grandchildren, it was supposed to be a peaceful Christmas. For Liv Moormann and Linda Selb, it looks like a robbery and murder. But was life really as harmonious in the Wilkens family as it seems?
The body of the lawyer Oskar Weintraub lies - completely pierced by the spear of an exotic warrior sculpture - in the middle of Doreen Prätorius' house. This house resembles a museum of exotic art, and the circumstances of the death raise just as many questions as the condition of the house owner, who cannot remember anything - not even the cause of her own serious injuries. Now Doreen Prätorius is at the center of the murder investigation: How did this fragile-looking woman end up in this situation? Is she the victim of a tragic accident or perhaps a manipulative personality herself who crosses every line for her definition of freedom?
Advent in Zurich. Who wants to be alone now? Detective Isabelle Grandjean meets the handsome Marek from Warsaw at the Christmas market. She spontaneously embarks on an adventure with the seductive stranger. Hours later, the detective receives a cryptic message with GPS coordinates. Without informing her colleague Tessa Ott, Grandjean drives to the location. There she finds a body that reminds her of an earlier case: a double murder, the solution of which laid the foundation for her meteoric police career. An antique coin in the mouth of the poisoned victim causes the investigator to disappear. While Tess and public prosecutor Anita Wegenast are getting to grips with the case, Grandjean tries to make up for a fatal mistake on her own. She believes that the perpetrator, who took his own life in prison, had an accomplice. Or is there a copycat? When Grandjean meets Marek again, however, she has no idea who he really is...
A young woman is arrested in an Asian shop. She is completely beside herself. Her clothes, hands and face are covered in blood. She is holding a knife in one hand. Did she commit murder? And what about the "Chinese dog" that is said to have seen everything? The Dortmund homicide squad team is initially in the dark. But then the fine gold chain that the young woman is wearing around her neck provides a clue to her identity. A jeweler recognizes the piece of jewelry: he had made the valuable chain several years ago for the Dortmund steel dynasty Haiden family. The suspect is the 25-year-old daughter of the factory owner family. She claims to have killed someone, but can't remember anything. All in all, a murky case with traces from the Ruhr area to China.
Paul is kidnapped in the street. An attentive neighbor is killed by the kidnapper before she can give a statement. The parents receive a ransom demand, but detectives Lena Odenthal and Johanna Stern determine that it is a diversionary tactic. The case is strikingly similar to a kidnapping nine years ago, in which Swen, who was nine years old at the time, was released after months of captivity, apparently unscathed, but the perpetrator has not yet been identified. Swen seems to have survived the terrible experiences of his childhood. But he still cannot help the detectives, even though Johanna Stern manages to build a good relationship with the unstable young man. The detectives realize that Swen is being haunted by ghosts from his childhood experiences and that he is still traumatized. They need his memory to find the way to the kidnapper.
Collecting debts is his job. And Fabian Pavlou is very good at it. He is considered one of the most successful field staff at the international company Correct Inkasso. But now Pavlou was brutally attacked on his way home. When the inspectors Max Ballauf and Freddy Schenk arrive at the crime scene, there is no trace of the victim. Did one of the debtors the debt collection manager recently dealt with take revenge - or did he see no other way out? For example, there is the tax clerk Stefanie Schreiter, who is facing a wage garnishment because of her ex-husband's debts. Or the completely indebted masseur Timo Eckhoff, who can no longer pay his electricity bill. Or the married couple Monika and Jost Lehnen, who are facing the foreclosure of their home... Then the colleagues from the manhunt call in. They have located Pavlou's cell phone. At a motorway rest area near Cologne. But the point on the map is moving. Max Ballauf immediately starts to pursue him...
Borowski and the Hungry Heart. In a rental property in Kiel, Klaus Borowski and his colleague Mila Sahin find 40-year-old insurance clerk Andrea Gonzor shot dead on her bed. Andrea Gonzor had apparently invited people to an erotic party that evening. Numerous traces of semen around the dead woman indicate that the victim had apparently had several sexual partners that night. There are traces of alcohol and tranquilizers in her blood, but there is no evidence of a sexual crime. Borowski and Sahin delve into the world of sex and love addicts. The only key to solving the problem seems to be Andrea's friend Nele. She discovered the dead woman.
Sebastian Bootz is among the guests at a film premiere in Stuttgart when the screen suddenly goes black and a man and a woman threaten the audience with guns. Panic breaks out, several people manage to flee, shots are fired - and a security guard lies dead on the ground. When Sebastian Bootz grabs his gun to stop the hostage takers, he is threatened and shoots the man. But the perpetrators are not deterred. Bootz is disarmed and, along with the remaining guests, becomes hostage of the two unknown men. Because he managed to contact Thorsten Lannert unnoticed, he is one of the first to start work in the operations center. He and the members of the crisis team are working feverishly to find out who the hostage takers are, how they can be stopped and further deaths prevented. Much depends on the cooperation between the two inspectors and this must now prove itself from a distance.
Saarbrücken, deep in the night. An explosion shatters the silence. Sleepless Chief Inspector Pia Heinrich is the first on the scene: a security guard was killed in a brutal robbery of an armored car. When Chief Inspectors Leo Hölzer and Adam Schürk arrive, they are presented with a disturbing scene left behind by a massive explosion. What does the number sprayed on the street mean? Does a trail lead to an internationally wanted criminal gang in neighboring France? Chief Inspector Esther Baumann activates her contacts with the French police. Or does the surviving security guard know more than he admits? The team has barely begun their investigation when events take a dramatic turn and Pia is in danger...
Janusz disappears during a high school graduation party. Marlin, a classmate, calls the police to report him dead before he himself is run over on a country road. Since evidence suggests a violent crime, Leonie Winkler, Karin Gorniak and their boss Schnabel from the Dresden Criminal Investigation Department begin searching for the student and investigating. His classmates remain silent - no one claims to have seen or heard from Janusz again.
In broad daylight, a man is shot dead from a great distance by a sniper in the center of Berlin, near the Friedrichstrasse subway station. Susanne Bonard and Robert Karow are under pressure - and under observation: Preparations are underway for a major state visit to Berlin and the Senator for the Interior is worried about the murder. Public Prosecutor Taghavi demands that the matter be clarified as quickly as possible.
An unknown dead woman is found in a derelict military vehicle. Leitmayr, Batic and Hammermann discover that a vehicle is missing from a nearby army base. The dead woman was obviously employed as a "civilian on the battlefield" for a NATO maneuver that is currently taking place. Together with Military Police Officer Jennifer Miller, the detectives not only find the crime scene, but also another dead person on the premises. Given the maneuver, the police have little time to solve the murder case. They therefore decide on an unconventional investigative method: "embedded investigation".
Techno, ecstasy and party, party, party: In the 1990s, Christian, Meike and René were part of the scene and celebrated above the rooftops of Cologne in the legendary "Colonius". It has been around 30 years since the three last saw each other. Now they are brought together by inspectors Ballauf and Schenk after their former friend, the former scene photographer Alex Schmitz, was found murdered in his apartment. He was also a regular at the "Colonius" - has his past caught up with him? A trail on the Internet leads the investigators deep into the old party world and to their former companions. Christian's daughter Svenja also becomes the focus of the investigation. Her mother Gina disappeared without a trace after a night of partying...
With only days left until his retirement, Borowski uncovers a chilling case linked to a dark house. As he investigates, he's stalked by a killer who anticipates his every move, all while racing against time before his career ends.
It's hot, it's crowded – pregnant Nina and her husband Sven are under stress as they board the cable car that will take them from the summit to the valley. During the ride, Nina gets into an argument with one of the passengers. This escalates into a scuffle. When the gondola arrives at the valley station, the man is dead.
Ira Klasnić wants Rosa Herzog and Peter Faber to investigate a fatal hit-and-run. But it quickly becomes clear that there may be more to the story. The victim, Angela Herrig, is the ex-girlfriend of suspected clan member Lorik Duka. Did he have a score to settle with her? According to Dr. Greta Leitner's autopsy report, the driver must have hit her head-on at high speed. Suddenly, an old acquaintance appears on the scene: Ira Klasnić has called in Inspector Daniel Kossik from the State Criminal Police Office. Faber used to be his boss. The two clashed repeatedly and didn't part on good terms...
Chief Inspector Frank Thiel and Professor Karl-Friedrich Boerne are confronted with a student case that puts their professional and personal relationships to the test. After a party at the Münster Medical Faculty, where Chief Inspector Frank Thiel and Professor Karl-Friedrich Boerne were also celebrating more or less wildly, the body of student Chris Haffmeister is discovered. He died from a mysterious stab wound. During the autopsy, forensic pathologist Boerne quickly determines that Chris was not alone in his final moments.
At Chef André Brauer's Viennese gourmet restaurant "Efeukron," knives are sharpened every day—literally for cooking, but also proverbially for each other. While the well-heeled clientele dines in refined style, a toxic working atmosphere and military morals prevail in Brauer's kitchen: If someone in the "brigade" falls, the next person in the hierarchy moves up! When the egomaniacal boss is found stabbed to death in front of his home after a drinking session with his team and without his wife Alicia present, Bibi Fellner and her colleague Moritz Eisner search among the staff for the murder weapon and the perpetrator.
A knife attacker kills two people in Hanover under the cover of a dense crowd. The nationwide investigation team, including Chief Inspectors Thorsten Falke and Anaïs Schmitz, faces a difficult task: There is no trace of the perpetrator. And there is a danger that he will strike again. To gather possible clues, the decision is made to use the innovative software KROISOS. After a comprehensive data analysis, the program quickly presents a likely perpetrator: the mentally ill René Kowalski. His sister Nora, however, considers it impossible that her brother is the perpetrator. Falke also remains skeptical. Then another crime occurs, almost identical to the first, overturning all certainties...
The world's top chess players gather for a tournament in the Alps: seven men and one woman. The "Queen," Natalie Laurent, is brilliant, provocative, and possibly a cheat, which has earned her many enemies in the male-dominated world of chess. When Laurent's second falls to her death from the roof of the luxury resort, many hypotheses arise: Was a misogynist at work? Was a complicity being silenced? Or did she take her own life? During the ongoing tournament, Leitmayr, Batic, and Hammermann must uncover the tactics and deception behind the scenes to solve the mysterious death. They receive surprising and invaluable help from their forensic pathologist: Dr. Matthias Steinbrecher. He turns out to be a chess ace and proves to the detectives that even pawns can bring down a king.
When a body washes up on a beach on the Weser River, Bremen investigators Linda Selb and Liv Moormann are faced with a mystery. Initially, there are no clues as to the body's identity. In the course of their investigation, the detectives not only encounter stalking perpetrators and victims, but also explosive investigative research and toxic addictions. Meanwhile, Rani Ewers is living a nightmare: Her ex-boyfriend Marek Kolschak is lurking everywhere for the single mother and her daughter Mia – at the playground, on the street, in front of the front door. When she finds the framed family photos on her wall defaced after a visit to the playground, her roommate Paula Södersen urges her to finally report him. Forensic pathologist Edda Bingley provides the team with crucial clues. As clear-cut as the case initially appears, the lines become increasingly blurred, witnesses become suspects, and suspects become witnesses, who suddenly find themselves in mortal danger.
There is unrest in Vienna's city center: An angry protest march attempts to storm the government district, leaving one demonstrator dead in the street: Jakob Volkmann, a front-row participant. Major Bibi Fellner and her colleague Moritz Eisner take over the delicate murder investigation.
Meike Gebken is found dead. She had been living in a women's shelter with her young daughter for four weeks. But what is the motive for the crime? To find out, Rosa Herzog goes undercover in the women's shelter.
Vanessa Tomasi is hanging from a treetop – one side of her long blonde hair has been shaved off! In a nearby bunker. Detectives Grandjean and Ott, along with public prosecutor Wegenast, find the body and discover traces of a horrific.
The discovery of a body raises questions: The man, missing for two years, was buried two meters deep in the earth in the floodplain near Nuremberg. Andreas Schönfeld, a 37-year-old bicycle dealer at the time of his death, was considered friendly and popular with his neighbors, yet Franconian investigators discover that he had no close friends. Chief Inspector Felix Voss - in his first case without his long-time partner Paula Ringelhahn, but strongly supported by Wanda Goldwasser and his current driver Fred - wonders: What connections led to the bicycle dealer's gruesome death? A visit to the victim's mother, Erika Schönfeld, reveals a loving mother-son relationship, and the pain is immense. In their further attempt to reconstruct Schönfeld's life, Felix and Wanda encounter the blind Lisa Blum.
Several people died of cardiac arrest almost simultaneously on a Saturday morning in Zurich and the surrounding area. The cause was electric shock from implanted defibrillators (ICDs), whose manufacturer had fallen victim to a cyberattack. Hackers are demanding a ransom in the hundreds of millions of euros for a digital key that will get the company's computers working again! Detectives Isabelle Grandjean and Tessa Ott are under extreme pressure as reports of further deaths keep coming in.
Frankfurt Commissioners Hamza Kulina and Maryam Azadi encounter unexplained murders in the archives of old police cases and discover links to a former serial killer who led a seemingly normal life.
After running away from the youth home “Seven Sleepers”, 16-year-old Lilly is found dead in a lake. Her boyfriend Pascal is missing. Investigators Winkler and Schnabel are encountering conflicting statements in the home – and another crime is about to happen soon.
In the Altes Land region, Romanian farmer Victor, a temporary farmer, was beheaded. Local police officer Olaf Gerke assumes it was a fatal accident involving agricultural machinery. But Charlotte Lindholm doesn't quite believe this. Following her instinct, she rents a vacant room on the organic farm where the victim last worked. Little by little, she delves into the complex psychological profile of the farming family and uncovers toxic relationships between them.
A young delivery cyclist is run over by a car on a side street in Berlin. The traffic accident quickly turns out to be a murder. Susanne Bonard and Robert Karow search for clues among the victim's acquaintances. Little by little, Bonard and Karow uncover a larger plan. But who are the masterminds, and is the deceased's grieving lover involved?
Mike, in his mid-twenties, introduces his girlfriend Nisha to his parents. The meeting is awkward, becomes increasingly hostile, and escalates when the young couple mentions wedding plans and a pregnancy. Suddenly, Mike and Nisha find themselves standing in the living room of the parents' house, confronted by two dead bodies. Panicked, they decide to cover up the crime.
When Friedemann Berg learns of his brother Reinhard's escape from the psychiatric hospital, he suspects the worst. Reinhard does indeed arrive at the Berg family's isolated farm, accompanied by the taciturn Mika Novak and the violent Luke Badrow. They also arrive in a car and carry a pistol, clearly connected to the murder that Friedemann Berg and Franziska Tobler were supposed to be investigating. It's definitely not a friendly visit, even though Reinhard acts as if he's just spending the night with the family. Held at gunpoint by Luke Badrow on the farm, the detective is trapped. He's paralyzed by Luke Badrow's increasingly aggressive behavior and by his sense of responsibility for his younger brother. And he has no way to contact Franziska Tobler, whose anger at her unreliable colleague is growing. Finally, she drives onto the farm, putting herself right in front of the unpredictable Luke Badrow's gun.
The body of a young woman had apparently lain in her apartment for weeks when it was discovered, prompting Stuttgart detectives Thorsten Lannert and Sebastian Bootz to begin their investigation. Why hadn't anyone missed Nelly Schlüter? Neither her parents nor her brother, and certainly not her best friend, Fine Slowinski? Everyone described Nelly as outgoing and cheerful, but none of them were interested in getting closer to her. Thorsten Lannert and Sebastian Bootz wondered whether Nelly Schlüter was really as lonely as she seemed and searched for the person Nelly would have been better off not letting into her life.
Six years ago, three-year-old Viktoria Reiter and her father, Julian, vanished without a trace. When the investigation yielded no results after a year, the case was closed as a cold case with suspicion of murder-suicide. But Viktoria's mother, Anna Reiter, doubts this theory – and years later, she is still tirelessly searching for her child. Maryam Azadi, who investigated the case as a detective with the missing persons unit at the time, is also haunted by the mysterious case. When Anna, in her desperation, launches an appeal on social media, offering a reward for any information, no matter how small, leading to Viktoria's whereabouts, events take a dramatic turn: A homeless man claims Viktoria is still alive and asks Anna to meet him. Shortly afterward, Anna also disappears – and becomes the prime suspect in a murder case. Together with her colleague Hamza Kulina, who is simultaneously conducting an internal investigation, Maryam takes up the case.
At the presentation of a new bicycle model, instead of the innovation, a freezer containing a frozen corpse is unveiled.
A caregiver in a nursing home lifts the mobility-impaired resident Danijel Filipovic into the bathtub, but leaves him alone briefly—upon his return, he finds Filipovic drowned. Detectives Moritz Eisner and Bibi Fellner investigate in an environment of overwork, understaffing, and interpersonal tensions. Motives are not immediately obvious, but family conflicts and a strained relationship with the nursing staff come into focus.
At a campsite in the German-Dutch border region near Emden, car dealer Joe Glauning vanishes without a trace. Since he left behind personal belongings such as his ID, keys, and cell phone, and traces of blood are found, investigators suspect a serious crime. Federal Police Chief Inspector Thorsten Falke takes on the case, which leads him to the Netherlands and confronts him with involvement in the illegal drug trade. He is assisted by cybercrime expert Mario Schmitt and Dutch police commissioner Lynn de Baer.
The episode "Black Snow" picks up directly where the episode "A Good Day" left off.
During a performance of Chekhov's play The Seagull at a Munich theater, the up-and-coming actress Nora Nielsen collapses on stage and dies. Detectives Batic, Leitmayr, and Hammermann investigate behind the scenes, amidst jealousy, affairs, and casting dramas. The team soon uncovers a dark secret from the recent past, which provides new leads.
Commissioner Murot suffers from the psychological strain of his job and undergoes a novel therapy: with the help of a machine, he can experience his own psyche as a walkable landscape. Meanwhile, single mother Eva Hütter flees with her son Benjamin after facing the loss of custody in court. She hides with the child in a cabin in the woods, but falls into a coma after an accident. Benjamin remains missing. With all leads gone, Murot embarks on a risky experiment: he connects with Eva's consciousness to find clues to the child's whereabouts while she is in a coma. The search becomes a journey through Eva's mind—and to the limits of Murot's own psyche. Ultimately, his colleague Wächter must also intervene in the case to save them both.
A confused, 16-year-old girl is found in Dresden at night with a blood-stained scalpel. She reports that her father has kept her and her sister Jana imprisoned in a cellar for life, and that Jana is still there. Detective Winkler believes the traumatized teenager, while Schnabel has his doubts. Investigations and forensic examinations uncover evidence of family bloodstains – and suddenly Amanda herself is under suspicion of murder.
In the Black Forest, Detective Friedemann Berg discovers a frightened nine-year-old girl (Eliza) hiding in a clock case. Shortly afterward, her father's body, weighed down with stones, is found in a forest lake. His colleague Franziska Tobler and a child psychologist investigate, while Berg tries to help the selectively mute child overcome her trauma and find the missing mother.
During the final rehearsal of Haydn's "The Creation," a member of the props department is found shot dead at the opera house—posed as if in a stage production. A weapon from the costume department is missing. Ballauf and Schenk's investigation initially leads them to the singers, but soon a second murder occurs.
A toddler is found dead, his brother has disappeared. Stuttgart detectives Lannert and Bootz take up the investigation. At the center of the case is a family with a public past, whose internal conflicts increasingly come into focus.
Bremen detectives Moormann and Selb are investigating the death of a law student who was pushed down a flight of stairs near a nightclub. Their investigation focuses on her conflict-ridden shared apartment, a homeless suspect with her cell phone, and the immense pressure she was under to perform. The investigation uncovers a web of stress, family secrets, and shattered hopes.
On the edge of a Berlin industrial wasteland, the body of a homeless man is found with distinctive bite marks. Initially, a wolf attack is suspected. However, the investigation by Susanne Bonard and Robert Karow reveals a violent crime. While Bonard follows a wilderness instructor, Karow uncovers connections within the survivalist and prepper community.
Businessman Emil Feidt is found murdered in a village on the German-French border. The Saarbrücken investigative team, led by Chief Inspector Esther Baumann, investigates the case, which takes them to Baumann's hometown of Hohenweiler. They quickly suspect that the murder is connected to the unsolved death of Feidt's daughter five years earlier. Their investigation leads them into a web of long-standing feuds, guilt, and unspoken truths, further fueling the spiral of violence in the village and raising the question of whether evil is rooted in the individual or the community.
In Dortmund, several men are murdered in the red-light district – initially, it appears to be a power struggle. However, a deeper motive quickly emerges: the victims have false identities and are implicated in war crimes during the Yugoslav Wars. Detective Inspector Ira Klasnić reaches her emotional breaking point when repressed memories resurface and the State Criminal Police Office (LKA), led by Daniel Kossik, becomes involved.
Following the fatal accident of a bicycle courier who had shortly before been about to turn himself in, Lena Odenthal and Johanna Stern investigate on suspicion of murder. Stern goes undercover at his former courier service to uncover connections. This brings the internal structures of the collective business into focus, as well as personal motives.
Years after a high-rise fire that claimed 13 lives, Detective Hamza Kulina is reunited with his ex-girlfriend Almila, who lost her mother in the blaze. Evidence pointing to improperly installed insulation leads him and his colleague Maryam Azadi to a building materials manager with political connections – and puts them in danger.
They vow to each other not to be shot in their final case – a cliché Franz Leitmayr and Ivo Batic are determined to avoid after 35 years of service. But their farewell case turns out to be extremely dangerous: deep beneath the city, an unidentified woman's body is discovered. From just a few clues, the investigators piece together a perpetrator profile – everything points to a phantom who roams Munich apartments, targeting young women. Together with Kalli Hammermann, they build up the evidence against a suspect, but he always seems to be one step ahead. When they themselves become the targets, the finale raises the question of whether they can keep their promise.
Ivo Batic and Franz Leitmayr's retirement comes to an abrupt end when they learn that their last case was based on a lie. Kara Roth, the witness from back then, contacts them in a panic: she claims her life is in danger and that her statement was fabricated. Shortly afterward, she disappears. As private citizens, Batic and Leitmayr resume the investigation. Without official identification, they initially encounter obstacles, but then take advantage of the freedom they enjoy beyond police regulations. Their search for Kara, however, puts them in the crosshairs of powerful adversaries – and forces them to risk everything once again.
Frank Anders is the star of the cult children's show "Sachen und Lachen" (Things and Laughter), which he co-hosts with his wife, Caro. A well-established core team has been working on the show for years. But when cameraman Stefan Glück, nicknamed Happy, is found murdered in the trunk of his burned-out car, Ballauf and Schenk take over the investigation. It quickly becomes clear that a toxic work environment prevails behind the scenes. Frank Anders, in particular, dominates the studio and frequently clashes with puppeteer Yassin Meret – the perpetrator could be one of their own.
Following a manslaughter in the back room of a Freiburg club, the suspected perpetrator, Ramin Taremi, is arrested and interrogated by Friedemann Berg, who is hoping for a quick confession. Meanwhile, at the crime scene, Franziska Tobler tries to calm the victim's agitated biker gang and gather evidence about the sequence of events. The report from the riot police, who were first on the scene, could be crucial. However, the six officers are still in their van, under time pressure to agree on a common version of events before writing their report.
The "Sonnenhof," a social-pedagogical residential community for teenagers, is the last chance for its residents. After the death of the facility's director, David Walcher, the institution is plunged into crisis. Suspicion falls on 16-year-old Cihan, who has been missing since the night of the crime. Detectives Moritz Eisner and Bibi Fellner must solve the case in a sensitive environment.
During a nighttime pizza delivery in Zurich, bicycle courier Moya Alemu witnesses two masked men transporting a corpse.
Charlotte Lindholm's latest case takes her to Kleinhude in Lower Saxony – to a so-called dementia village, where people with dementia are given the opportunity to lead normal everyday lives. One of the residents, the universally popular Mr. König, is suspected of being a serial killer who has murdered seven people. At least, that's what Chief Inspector Vogel claims. Furious that no one believes him, Vogel asks Charlotte Lindholm for help. But Vogel, too, has a secret – just like the management of the dementia village. As her investigation unfolds, Charlotte herself begins to doubt her own memory. But she's not mistaken: there are several suspects.
Ballauf and Schenk are investigating the violent death of a teacher. The young man was stabbed to death in cold blood in a park; the murder weapon was a hunting knife. The detectives quickly pick up a trail leading to the victim's sister, but she has seemingly vanished into thin air. She is believed to be part of the "prepper" community and to have gone into hiding at a survival workshop in a concealed bunker. While Ballauf and Schenk race to locate her hideout, tensions mount inside the bunker itself. Mistrust, fear, and hidden secrets create an oppressive atmosphere among the group, and the situation threatens to escalate.
An eventful night confronts Lena Odenthal and Johanna Stern with a Ludwigshafen neighborhood where respect for self-appointed "sheriffs" outweighs respect for the police. An ATM heist in downtown Ludwigshafen goes wrong: Dennis Lohberg is killed in the explosion. Lohberg was the leader of a local gang that included his brother Chris and his ex-girlfriend Fiona; both are now the focus of the investigation.
Detective Chief Inspector Mila Sahin and police psychologist Elli Krieger take charge of the investigation in Kiel. Their first case together begins with the discovery of a young woman—presumed murdered—on the Kiel Fjord.
Detective Mila Sahin doubts that her friend and colleague Anna Nowak died as the result of a drug-related accident. Despite opposition from her superior, she conducts a covert investigation into Kuper, whom she suspects to be the key figure in a network of corruption, money laundering, and organized crime. Meanwhile, Oscar and Viola Berger find themselves under pressure due to illicit dealings within their company, Prometheus. Ultimately, Mila joins forces with police psychologist Elli Krieger to confront Kuper.
A drag artist is brutally stabbed to death in a short-stay hotel. Detectives Voss, Goldwasser, and their new colleague, Rathgeber, are faced with a puzzle: countless traces of DNA, but no murder weapon. At first, it appears to be a crime rooted in the red-light district. However, the clues lead the team away to an idyllic setting - the victim's family home. There, the case evolves into a question of justice.
