The "Stahlnetz" series went to great lengths to present us with the entire spectrum of criminal activities and the corresponding work of the police in finding and providing evidence for the perpetrator(s).
Of course, there is a backlog of murder cases that cannot be overlooked, but these show a wide distribution into intentional, planned, unplanned, and cases committed in connection with other planned crimes. But apart from that, we also see outright theft, fraud and extortion, juvenile delinquency as well as organized gangs. Some cases are also shown from the point of view of the perpetrator(s) and the police, i.e. The perpetrators are clear to the audience from the start and we then see the work of the police from a different perspective.
In the course of the series, more and more sensitive topics are dealt with, such as sex crimes and prostitution. The importance of forensics is being re-emphasized and explained over and over again, in keeping with the low salaries of police officers, even at the higher ranks. While in the early episodes the main focus is on the investigating officers, the narrative from the point of view of the perpetrators begins to assert itself more, until finally in the late episodes the investigating commissioner often recedes into the background and the police apparatus hunts down the perpetrator is shown as a whole.
The first episodes were made in 1958, from then on not only the intervals of the broadcast of the individual episodes varied, but also their length, with the length of the episodes increasing more and more, as did the intervals of the broadcast. The only real constants are the screenwriter Wolfgang Menge and the director Jürgen Roland. On closer inspection, however, one must also notice that, beyond the two, there are also other striking loyalty among employees, especially behind, but also in front of the camera. Gerda-Maria Jürgens has 10 episodes, followed by Heinz Engelmann with 7 and a long list of actors with multiple appearances, sometimes in larger, sometimes smaller roles. Incidentally, Heinz Engelmann is the exception here, because he only played leading roles and only inspectors. In addition, there are always appearances by actors whose great career was still ahead of them and often took place in a completely different genre.
There are two more taboo subjects that seem remarkable to me here, which undoubtedly must have arisen again and again in Germany in the late 1950s and 1960s. First, of course, there is the third Reich, which has hardly passed, and the resulting World War II; and the resulting new state of DDR, not recognized by West Germany and referred to there as "the zone".
Both topics hardly ever appear in the cases shown, almost never play a decisive role and are hardly ever mentioned. This almost seems to have been a requirement, because only if you listen closely, there is now and then an acoustic reference to it. The zone is mainly mentioned in the cases set in Berlin, where it is almost impossible not to mention it. Things are different with the Nazi past. Here there is only rarely a subordinate clause or insertion that sounds like extempore, which is then not discussed any further. If one did not know what happened, no clear reference to Germany's past could be gleaned from this series. One almost gets the impression that everyone involved was born after the Second World War, which of course is absolutely ridiculous. It is also clear that war crimes have not found a place in the series.
Despite this, or perhaps because of this, the series represents an exciting piece of contemporary history, because the topics that were not dealt with were repressed and avoided anyway in general dealings and in the large media. On the other hand, you get a good insight into the normal life of the population at that time, illustrated with many local photos of large cities and the people on the streets. I always find the series fascinating.
