Tue, Feb 22, 2022
It is an incredible story in the context of the reunification of Germany, which has only rarely played a role in the media: the story of a special unit that was supposed to investigate and solve major crimes from the time of the GDR and the turnaround. The former investigators from left to right Wolfgang Böckel, Edzard Kranz, Martina Starke, Alexander Schaefer, Ingo Dungs, Martina Schaefer-MasurZERV - The Investigators ARD media library In 1992, the ZERV - the largest SoKo in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany - began investigating crimes from the GDR and the period of reunification. The documentary series goes on a search for clues with the "real" investigators from back then. Ard In 1992, the Central Office for Government and Association Crime, or "ZERV" for short, began its work. It is the largest SoKo of the criminal police in the history of the Federal Republic - and to this day it is as good as unknown. It ends in 2000 after a nerve-wracking race against time, the statute of limitations and the pitfalls between two states. Time had to pass to be able to tell of the eight years of existence of this special commission. Too many cases were kept secret back then or swept under "the carpet", too many secrets were and still are to be guarded. For the first time, the investigators and detectives of ZERV stand exclusively in front of a camera and provide information about their work between two systems. After more than 20 years, director Heike Bittner and co-author Tom Kühne are together looking for clues again. The 30-minute documentary "ZERV - The investigators" for Das Erste takes a look at two spectacular cases of the special commission. Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in December 1989, civil rights activists discovered an arms depot near Rostock. Various hunting and sporting weapons belonging to SED party leaders can also be found in the cellars of the KoKo department - the GDR's secretive commercial coordination department. The surprising thing is that there are also Western-made weapons among them. Wolfgang Böckel - today a former detective chief inspector - is to determine what the weapons are all about - where they come from. He and his colleagues meticulously follow the sales channels - and ultimately help to bring a man to court who was considered virtually untouchable: Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, former head of KoKo and responsible for foreign exchange procurement in the GDR. Martina Starke comes to Berlin from Coburg as an investigator. Actually, she has only committed to ZERV for one year. But there is one case that she can't get out of her head: a man who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for espionage in the GDR in the 1970s. To the very end, he insisted that he was not a spy. There is no longer a crime scene, only archives are available to her. The mountains of files are growing. Martina Starke hopes to find something to rehabilitate this alleged spy today. One year of ZERV turns into four years of intensive police work that Martina Starke has never experienced before. The work of the investigators takes place under difficult conditions: It is the years immediately after reunification, the new authority starts from nothing. There are no structures, no official channels, not even a building at the beginning - instead there are tons of boxes, files and cases that have to be cleared up. With a few exceptions, the investigators come from the old federal states and find themselves in a maelstrom of chaos and being overwhelmed, but also of unexpected freedoms and opportunities. The impending statute of limitations and the race against time - until the end far too few investigators will have to process far too many cases - and some files remain closed to the officials, because East was more closely connected with West and West with East in some places than expected.