Der Hammermörder (1990)

The film is set in the Stuttgart area in the mid-1980s. Erich Rohloff is an ordinary police officer and a loving family man. His family lives in a home they have completely overextended themselves financially to build, despite a modest lottery win. They are at risk of losing the house, and the contractors are pressing them to pay their bills. On top of that, the father suffers from his children’s unfulfilled wishes, while desperately trying to make sure that “people” get a good impression of his family. So nobody is allowed to find out about their financial predicament. The Rohloffs live extremely frugally day to day, but outwardly display status symbols such as an expensive Mercedes. Rohloff seems to have an almost pathological dependence on such things; when talking to friends, he disparages people who drive only a small car and live in a rented apartment, making the contrast between his aspirations and reality all the more apparent. In reality, the family’s financial situation is becoming increasingly hopeless: the bank refuses to increase their loan because it has already garnished the police officer’s salary, leaving the family, on paper, with no money at all for living expenses. The couple also quarrels. Rohloff accuses his wife of being unable to manage money or of hiding large sums from him. He also claims that she neglects the housework and their two sons, making a bad impression on “people.” It becomes clear that Rohloff has never come to terms with the death of their daughter some years earlier. He also appears to be a weak personality: he likes to act as “master of the house” with his wife and harshly put her in her place, but when angry contractors turn up demanding money, he leaves her to deal with them and hides from his creditors. One day, Rohloff suddenly has a large sum of money at his disposal. He tells his wife that he is guarding fur shipments for a man named Wagner as a side job. The man’s identity remains unclear. When the money runs out, Mrs. Rohloff urges her husband—who regularly leaves the house for his supposed side job—to finally demand the wages Wagner owes him. Rohloff claims, however, that he cannot stand up to his employer’s poor payment practices because he earns the money “under the table,” so nobody must find out about it. Eventually, things reach the point where the family sits in a cold room at Christmas because the heating oil has run out and the supplier will only deliver if paid in advance, or where, embarrassingly, they cannot pay the bill at the café during a trip to the zoo. But then Wagner supposedly pays after all, and the family is free of financial problems, at least for a short time. The money is not necessarily spent wisely, however: for example, Rohloff orders new furniture without his wife’s consent, even though the old furniture is still perfectly serviceable. It came from their former rented apartment and, in his view, does not belong in their “presentable” house. During this period, a lone perpetrator carries out a series of bank robberies in the area. He follows the same method each time. First he obtains a getaway car, shooting the drivers, then robs a bank by smashing the security glass at the teller’s counter with a sledgehammer. The press soon dubs him the Hammer Murderer. A massive manhunt is launched. The police also begin investigating their own ranks, since the perpetrator used a standard police weapon. A police officer is arrested fairly quickly after it emerges that he has a great deal of money for no apparent reason. When the news spreads, Rohloff suddenly becomes cheerful and composed, as he has not been in a long time. Among his colleagues, he says that such a ruthless murderer deserves the death penalty. But it soon emerges that the suspect is innocent. Now all police officers have to submit their service weapons for examination. Erich Rohloff also comes under suspicion, but at first manages to get out of the situation. His wife has grown suspicious too: when a hammer left behind by the perpetrator is shown on a television program, it looks familiar to her. Her husband reacts violently and angrily switches off the television. To stop his wife from watching the announced manhunt for the Hammer Murderer on the television program Aktenzeichen XY...ungelöst, he tampers with the television, but she manages to repair it. She also discovers what appears to be a newly purchased sledgehammer hanging in the cellar. The net is now closing in: Rohloff’s weapon has been requested for examination, and he must have his exact blood type determined at a hospital. At first he manages to get a delay by asking to go to a hospital farther away, where nobody knows him, but as soon as the results of the examination of his service weapon are in, he will inevitably be found out. When Rohloff’s wife finally tells him to his face that she believes he is the Hammer Murderer, he shoots her and their eldest son, then flees with their youngest son to the seaside in Italy. There he shoots the boy and then himself.