Der blinde Fleck (2013)

Ulrich Chaussy is a journalist working for Bavarian Radio. He and his wife, Lise, live in a shared apartment in Munich, which one day is searched by the police. Chaussy is questioned by the police, who unsuccessfully ask him about explosives hidden in the apartment. Soon after the search, the journalist and Lise move into their own apartment near the Theresienwiese. Hans Langemann, head of the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, gives a lecture at a police academy about assassins and their masterminds. In his view, the masterminds control the perpetrators like puppets and cut the strings immediately after the attack, leaving the police investigators with nothing but loose ends. On September 26, 1980, nine days before the federal election, a bomb attack is carried out at the Munich Oktoberfest; 13 people are killed and more than 200 injured. Bavarian Minister-President Franz Josef Strauß orders Langemann to steer the investigation in his preferred direction: “Think of something!” When Gundolf Köhler, a member of the far-right Hoffmann Military Sports Group, is presented as the sole perpetrator, Chaussy has doubts about this, as well as about Köhler’s alleged motive. Together with Werner Dietrich, the lawyer for several victims, he begins conducting his own inquiries and broadcasts his findings on Bavarian Radio. In his research, he receives substantial help from a man who calls himself only “Meier” and leaves him a moving box full of case files. Chaussy is able to speak with witnesses who saw the suspected lone perpetrator, Köhler, with other people shortly before the attack. This was not taken into account in the police investigation. He also suspects there are connections between Langemann and the press, since Werner Winter, a reporter for the magazine Quick, was able to speak with the attacker’s relatives in Donaueschingen before the police could. In addition, a human hand was found at the scene, but could not be matched to any of the victims. In 1984, acting on behalf of victims of the attack, Dietrich applies for the investigation to be reopened. The application is rejected by Federal Prosecutor Kurt Rebmann in Karlsruhe at a very brief press conference, with the explanation that Köhler acted alone. When Chaussy is put under surveillance and his family receives threatening letters, he initially ends his inquiries at the urging of his pregnant wife. Twenty years later, in 2006, she encourages him to resume his research after learning of new developments in DNA testing. It turns out, however, that the evidence had already been destroyed in 1997, so the question of whether there were accomplices can no longer be resolved. Text cards at the end of the film reveal that Langemann was sentenced to a penalty.