WaPo Berlin

Episode 1

Wem gehört die Stadt?

49 mins

On Hanna Kowollik's first day at work, the body of a Federal Foreign Office employee is found in the Spree Canal near the controversial Humboldt Forum. Hanna isn't the only new member of the team: Wolf Malletzke, who broke both arms while repairing the roof of his summerhouse, is being represented by his colleague and friend Axel Sommer. The WaPo team's initial investigations reveal that Markus Förster was allegedly killed with a hammer in the beer garden of the Flussbad association. The association wants to build an open-air swimming pool accessible to all citizens in the heart of Berlin's historic center - a project fiercely opposed by cultural officials and conservative politicians. Jasmin learns from an employee of the association, Jenny Baumann, that the deceased had an argument with local resident Gerhard Hentschel the day before. Hentschel turns out to be a bitter loser of the reunification process. He dismisses the argument with Förster as a trivial matter. On the evening of the murder, Tizia Idris was on duty in the beer garden. She wanted to bring her daughter, just a few months old and whom she had to leave behind in Sudan while fleeing Eritrea, to Germany as quickly as possible. Hentschel supported her in this effort despite his apparent misanthropy. But then Förster promised to help her. The investigation also focused on the dead man's widow, Rebecca Förster. Apparently, her husband had unexpectedly agreed to the divorce she had initiated. But as long as her husband hadn't officially agreed to the divorce, Rebecca and their son would inherit a fortune worth millions. Undoubtedly a motive for murder. But Jenny also had a motive: Förster had given her an alibi during violent riots at the time, but he wanted to retract it. As the investigation progressed, the WaPo Berlin team began to doubt whether the victim, Markus Förster, was really as friendly and helpful a person as everyone had initially portrayed him to be. When the murder weapon was finally found, the case took another dramatic turn.