Angles:
1. Retrieval of the erotic film, from Anno's perspective;
2. The movements of the Fourth International;
3. The movements of the Reichswehr;
4. The local gang;
5. The movements of Gereon and Lotte;
Contents:
i. Background
ii. Plotline from five perspectives
iii. Review
I. Background:
1. Gereon went to war, abandoned his brother, had PTSD;
2. Gereon's PTSD was treated by a psycho-analyst who turned out to be no other than his brother Anno, and he was doing narcotics;
3. Gereon went to Berlin because his father needed him to track down a certain film;
4. Gereon has a long-standing relationship with Helga, who abandoned him for his brother before the war, only to be with Gereon again after she was widowed;
5. Lotte worked part-time at the police station;
6. Lotte worked illegally at a nightclub;
II. Plotline from four perspectives
i. Retrieval of the erotic film
Edgar the Armenian was the local gang leader, whose business included a high-end restaurant, a night club MOKA EFTI, escort services (which was under protection of Wolter), pornography production, narcotics and so on. Anno was his drug supplier and private doctor; the Father was his enforcer.
Anno lured Gereon to Berlin by having Kornig make a film of Gereon's father. Father would definitely want the film destroyed, but he wouldn't be able to do so himself, so he would send Gereon to Berlin, which was exactly what Anno was betting on.
Gereon came to Berlin, and was receiving psychological treatment from Anno. It is presumed that he got to know Anno through Edgar. And Gereon's dealings with Edgar was still not clear.
After Gereon came to Berlin Anno told Kornig to destroy the film, for its mission was completed. After that Anno would only have to let Gereon chase his own tail to keep him in Berlin. But Kornig did not destroy the film, and in a police raid, Kornig was taken into custody, and Franz was threatened into cooperating. If Gereon got the film, he might return to Koln immediately. So Anno asked Edgar to send the Father to take care of Kornig, and asked Franz to take the film from the production factory, and keep it in Edgar's private room.
During the raid, Franz tried to escape and fired a shot at Gereon from a Lignose. Wolter took the Lignose and pried out the spent bullet for Gereon.
From the spoils of the raid, Gereon learned from the one piece of negative where the film was made from the resident photographer Graf; he tracked down the film factory, and knew that Franz was the one picking up the negative. Gereon and Wolter took Franz into custody. In turned out Franz suffered from PTSD as well, and was also under care of Anno. In custody, Franz suffered from withdrawal, and finally gave away the location of the film.
Franz lured Edgar out; Gereon sneaked in the private room and took all the films and Edgar as hostage; in the chaos, Gereon shot Edgar in the hand, but let him go after they reached safety.
Gereon and Wolter destroyed all the films and went to celebrate in a night club. Edgar had his hand treated at Anno's, and sent the Father to pick up Gereon and take him to Anno's. During session, Gereon escaped and killed the Father in pursuit.
ii. The movements of the Fourth International;
The Fourth International in Berlin was led by Kadakow, he was determined to support Torosky in Istanbul. His day job was a violinist, and sometimes he played at MOKA EFTI. His lover Svetlana let out that her family had a train full of gold and she was willing to devote the gold to Fourth International. Fourth International ambushed a train outside Berlin, and added the train of gold to it. Fourth International personnel personated as train staff and drove the train into Berlin. Meanwhile, Fourth International in Berlin forged necessary papers for the train of gold to be diverted to Istanbul, only that Svetlana filled in Paris as final destination. On the other side, Svetlana ratted the Fourth International to the Soviet embassy in Berlin, and their base was raided and all but Kadakow were butchered.
When the train arrived at Berlin, Svetlana tried to take control of the gold, but the driver Boris would not cede control. In struggle, Svetlana was arrested and Boris escaped.
After one night in a cell, Svetlana was released. She went to the train yard and switched the number tag on the train with gold.
Kadakow escaped the slaughter and went to Svetlana's. He was persuaded of Svetlana's innocence, only to be double-crossed again.
Boris went to Kadakow's apartment, but Kadakow no longer lived there, it was Gereon's room by then. During struggle, Boris dropped the cargo papers under Gereon's bed. By the time, the Russians were waiting for Kadakow outside the apartment. When Boris emerged, they took him instead. After torture, Boris told the Russians about the gold. But he only told them about a train with gold in it, without telling them the number of the train. BUG: Boris was there when the ambush took place, and therefore he should know the number of the train with gold. And the Russians did not get it out of him.
After escaping from death for the second time, Kadakow went to Edgar for help. He told Edgar about the gold, and the gang members raided the train yard at night. Only that Kadakow opened the wrong train and was poisoned by phosgene. BUG: the train with gold was added at last, and therefore it should be the last train car of the whole train. Even without the number tag he should know which train to open.
iii. The movements of the Reichswehr;
Key members of the Reichwerhr: Major-general Seegers, Wolter
The Reichswehr had been smuggling phosgene and weaponry into Germany through Nyssen's company; they had been training armies against the Versailles treaty with the help of the Russians. Note that Premier Hindenburg the State Secretary Wendt acquiesced the Reichswehr's activities.
When the Reichswehr was smuggling a train of phosgene into Berlin, at a check point General Seegers signed on a paper in order for the train to pass. The Reichswehr would want the train be released and moved to another location as fast as possible. But the Russians detained the train claiming there was a train car of smuggled goods and should be found out and returned to Russia.
But before the Russians could find out which car, the gang raid happened, and the fact that the train was full of poisonous gas was known to the police. Benda, a social democrat, was determined to bring down the Reichswehr. This gas event provided the best opportunity to investigate into the Reichswehr. But since the police did wrong during the May 1 riot, the Russian ambassador used it as leverage, and asked Wendt as intermediary to make the police let the whole train be returned to Russia.
It turned out that Svetlana and Nyssen was in bed first. She knew his company was smuggling through freight trains, and that was when she came up with the idea of smuggling the train with gold into Berlin. But she could not do so alone, so she hooked up with Kadakow and used him to smuggle the train with gold into Berlin. In this phosgene matter, Nyssen became the scapegoat and was forced out of the board of his company and he desperately needed a feat to regain Reichswehr's good graces; Svetlana was desperate not to let the train back to Russia, where it would be out of her reach forever. So Svetlana told Nyssen about the gold, and Nyssen told Wendt; and the three of them together with Wolter, they came up with a plan to intercept the gold outside Berlin.
In the meantime, the Reichswehr was conniving to initiate a military coup and force Hindenburg to step down. They planned to assassinate both German and French Foreign Minister. Their plan was thwarted by Gereon, and the coup was a failure.
iv. The movements of the gang
The gang had to do with the porn film, but basically it was Anno's doing. Besides that, Edgar meddled with the gold business. After Kadakow opened the wrong train, Edgar still did not give up hope on the gold. A guy from the train yard told him that Lotte knew the whereabouts of the gold, so he abducted Lotte the pressed her for information. BUG: how could Edgar be sure that Lotte knew the whereabouts of the gold?
v. The movements of Gereon and Lotte
a. Gereon went to Berlin to find that film, which was accomplished;
b. During the May 1 riot, Gereon and Wolter knew the police wrongly shot civilians. Wolter wrote the report in the police department's favor with a straight face. At first Gereon did not think this was right, but he would not want to help the communists either. At the end Wendt offered him a position in a secret internal affairs department, and he made up his mind to protect the police department. Therefore he perjured at the court. But this brought grudge from the communists. When they were about to lynch him, Edgar appeared to took Gereon to Anno. That was when Gereon remembered that he abandoned Anno in the battlefield, and that the doctor was none other than Anno himself.
c. Boris was taken by the Russians after he broke into Gereon's room. The next day Boris's body was in the morgue. Gereon decided to investigate the murder. Lotte was at the morgue with Bolm, and Gereon mistook her for an official member of the force. He decided to use Lotte to get inside info on the case; and Lotte thought if police she could help solve the case, she might be able to join the force as a criminal assistant.
Gereon and Lotte got Svetlana's address from Kadakow's belongings, but it led nowhere; after another check of Kadakow's belongings, they found the band Kadakow played violin for. From the band leader, they knew the base of operation of Fourth International. Lotte and Janicke went to the place, where the slaughter took place, but it was already scrubbed clean; all they could find was a fake document stating that a train car was bound for Istanbul, which was also a dead end.
Lotte asked an assistant criminal pathologist Rudi to dissect Boris's body, and learned that he was a railway worker. Lotte went to the train yard, just in time to see Benda seized control of the train after the poisonous gas situation. Lotte called Gereon to the scene, and from then on, Gereon worked with Benda to bring down Reichswehr.
Later, the slaughtered bodies of the Fourth International members were discovered. Wendt used the May 1 deaths to make Zorgiebel let go of the train as well as turn a blind eye to Reichswehr's activities; but Gereon and Benda used the slaughter to press the Russian ambassador to give away files of Reichswehr menbers.
d. As a Reichswehr member, Wolter wanted to know what Gereon was doing in Berlin, so he threatened Lotte to spy on Gereon. Wolter knew that someone close was spying on him, but it turned out the spy was Janicke, an assistant, who was spying on behalf of social democrat Benda. Janicke knew Wolter was conniving to intercept the gold, but his cover was blown, and was silenced by Wolter. But unluckily, Wolter used the Lignose to kill Janicke; and Gereon switched the bullet he used to kill the Father with the one fired from the Lignose. Therefore, Wolter knew Gereon killed the Father, and Gereon knew Wolter killed Janicke.
e. Gereon learned that Janicke was spying for Benda, and that he had a notebook that could hold important info. Gereon stole the notebook from Wolter's home study (nice long take) and gave it to Lotte to decipher. But Lotte was abducted by the gang and pressed for info. Lotte deciphered Janicke's notes, and told Edgar about Reichswehr's plan to intercept the gold.
f. While Lotte was absent, Gereon and Benda were busy compiling evidence to bring down the Reichswehr. But the premier only gave them little time to interrogate the suspects, and then they were released. The first thing they did after the release, they undertook to overthrow the government by a military coup, which was stopped by Gereon. After that, Benda wanted to hold a press conference to expose the Reichswehr's criminal deeds, but was ordered down by the premier.
g. After Lotte was released, she and Gereon went to pursue the gold even without back up from Benda. Wolter and Reichswehr were waiting, but were mostly taken out by the gang; then the gang were knocked out by Gereon's colleges. Gereon and Wolter found the gold was indeed coal, and Wolter was killed during escape. QUESTION: if Gereon really did find the gold, who would he give it to? Because among all the people who wanted the gold, Svetlana, Reichswehr, the Russians, the gang , none of them was the rightful owner of the gold.
h. Benda was killed by an IED planted by the Nazis with the help of his maid Greta who thought her lover, an alleged communist Fritz was 'killed' by the police for stirring up disturbances. And Wendt too Benda's place and made Gereon secret internal affairs officer. Lotte was officially enlisted as a criminal assistant.
vi. Sub-plots
a. Lotte found a job at Benda's house as a maid for Greta.
b. Fritz was a Nazi, but he blended himself in the protesters of the May 1 riot, trying to find an angle, which was none other than Greta.
c. Gereon slept with his former landlady Elisabeth.
d. Helga had something to do with Nyssen.
e. Moritz had the potential to become a Nazi.
vii. Conclusions: their missions and ends
Gereon:
a. to retrieve the film and destroy it: accomplished;
b. to investigate the murder of Boris and the Fourth International members: not accomplished;
c. to bring down the Reichswehr: not accomplished;
d. to thwart Reichswehr's assassination: accomplished;
e. to bring the killer of Janicke to justice: accomplished, in a manner of speaking;
Lotte:
a. To become a formal member of the police force: accomplished;
III. Review
i. About the May 1 riot, of course the communists couldn't win, because whatever the police did, they have the law on their side.
ii. Honestly, there was no surprise that Gereon perjured before the grand jury. His loyalty was indeed frail, but helping the communists would do him no good either. If he helped the communists, he would become a traitor of the police department; besides , the communists would not thank him for helping.
iii Gereon and Helga kind of remind me of Jack and Marilyn. But they are distinctively different. Yes both women were not loyal, for they both left the man of their heart for the brother and or money and status. But Jack would not have Marilyn back even if his brother was dead; Gereon and Helga? They couldn't wait to be together again once Anno was declared MIA, not to mention that Gereon left Anno for dead in the battle ground. So it makes Jack a man of responsibility, of high morality, with a line in his mind that he would not cross; and it makes Gereon a weak-minded, morally disoriented and depraved man. It might look like that Gereon is loyal to the police department, in that he wouldn't turn on his fellow officers, wouldn't let Wolter get away with killing Janicke or conspiring to kill high ranking dignitaries;but what if the police department is led by other political forces? Such as the Nazis? I suppose as a Jew he would actually take part in persecuting the Jewish.
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