Brezeln für den Pott (2014)

Roland Reuter, an employee of the Weckle industrial bakery, is sent from Stuttgart to Duisburg to get the company’s branch there back into the black. If he succeeds, he stands to be promoted to the executive board. Despite this prospect, his wife Sybille is not enthusiastic about moving, especially since Roland only tells her about his transfer at the last minute. So he goes alone, without his family, to the unfamiliar city, where people speak quite differently from back home. On his very first evening, he encounters the Rhinelanders’ notorious high spirits, which do not suit the pedantic Swabian at all. Reuter begins his first day at the company with a tour of the premises and immediately spots countless opportunities for change and cost-cutting. In a passionate speech to the staff, he tries to rally them around their potential and willingness to contribute. To show that he is prepared to make sacrifices too, he leaves his expensive luxury hotel and moves into a small workers’ apartment. Reuter also begins by analyzing the accounts. Dietmar Grabowski, the assistant to the managing director, helps him with this. During an inspection visit to the bakery outlets at the various discount stores, he encounters a health-inspectorate official who is smoking. Dutiful Reuter wastes no time informing the authorities of this misconduct, with the result that the public health department now intends to inspect the outlets twice as often. One of the outlets even has to close as a result. Reuter may be authoritarian at work, but he is far less self-assured around his family, whom he now sees only on weekends. He tries to please his daughter in every way and avoids any confrontation with his wife. To compensate, he makes the employees in Duisburg suffer twice as much from his insistence on correctness. This keeps him an outsider. That changes when he unexpectedly becomes a member of the local pigeon-breeding club, “Kehre Wieder.” The longer Reuter is away from home, the more jealousy begins to grow between the spouses. When Roland buys a homing pigeon named “Veronica” online for 850 euros, his wife completely misinterprets the expense. In turn, Roland fears that his wife is being unfaithful to him. Both begin to question their love. Meanwhile, his work at the company is beginning to bear fruit, and the accounts are already looking very promising. Nevertheless, headquarters in Stuttgart disapproves of Reuter’s methods of winning the staff’s trust. They do not consider him suitable for a position on the executive board, and he has to stay in Duisburg. But after he and his wife talk things through and both feel sure of their affection for one another, he is happy to accept this.