Der Metzger muss nachsitzen (2015)

When restorer Willibald Adrian Metzger returns home from his workshop late one evening, he stumbles over a corpse in the park. To his shock, he realizes he knew the man from school. Metzger goes to the police station to report finding the body and there, once again, runs into an old schoolmate: Pospischill. Now a police inspector, Pospischill wants Metzger to show him where he found the body, but by then it has disappeared, leaving Metzger baffled. The next day, he discovers that someone has broken into his workshop. Nothing has been stolen, however. Instead, Metzger finds a photograph from his school days and a note bearing the words: “... and in every beginning there dwells a magic.” Shortly afterward, Pospischill visits him, and the two talk about the old days. The inspector still refuses to believe that Metzger came across Felix Dobermann’s body. It is strange, though, that Dobermann has not been seen anywhere since his release from prison. Metzger therefore says he will organize a class reunion to bring everyone together again. He does not feel entirely comfortable about it, however, since he does not have the fondest memories of school. He especially suffered at the hands of Felix Dobermann, who was always teasing and humiliating him in front of the others. His shyness meant he could never properly stand up to them. After preparing the invitations, Metzger distributes them to his former teachers as well; some of them still teach at the school. By chance, he runs into his secret teenage crush, Danjela Djurkovic, and immediately tells her about finding the body and that someone apparently wants him to become an amateur detective again. On the day of the reunion, everyone is very surprised that “their” Metzger of all people invited them. As they reminisce about the old days and the many pranks they pulled, Metzger pays close attention. Things get a little more interesting as the evening wears on and the alcohol takes effect, but nobody gives themselves away as a possible killer. On the contrary, nobody really knows what their old friend Dobermann is up to these days. Since some of those invited did not show up, Metzger decides to go and sound them out. First, he visits his former teacher, Prof. Eder. Eder is now married to Birgit Kitzler, whom Metzger and his classmates had all been in love with back then. Felix Dobermann, in particular, had pursued her relentlessly. It went so far that the two were caught being intimate, and Dobermann then had to leave the school. Shortly after his conversation at Birgit Kitzler’s, Metzger is summoned to a bridge. But while waiting there for his informant, someone hits him from behind and throws him into the water. A mysterious hearse driver rescues him from the river, and later he wakes up in Danjela’s bathtub. Metzger comes up with an idea for how he might find the body. It leads to some success: the trail takes him to the apartment of his old schoolmate Mario Sedlatschek, where clear signs indicate that Dobermann was shot. As Metzger had suspected 25 years earlier, both Dobermann and Sedlatschek were gay and a couple. Dobermann’s pursuit of women had always been merely a cover to conceal his true orientation. Metzger also discovers that Dobermann went to prison for a murder that had actually been committed by Prof. Eder out of jealousy. After Prof. Eder inadvertently admits this, Inspector Pospischill arrests him. However, Eder was not responsible for Dobermann’s death. The mystery is solved when, after Eder’s arrest, Sedlatschek gives Metzger a letter from his friend Dobermann. In it, Dobermann writes that he took his own life and, with Sedlatschek’s help, laid the trail for Metzger so that he could prove his innocence as an amateur detective, since illness prevented Dobermann from doing so himself. He apologizes to Metzger for having teased him so badly at school, saying he is truly sorry—especially since he had always envied Metzger for being able to be himself and never having to “hide.”