Erzgebirgskrimi - Die letzte Note (2025)

As part of Chemnitz’s year as European Capital of Culture, an orchestra from the music school is set to perform Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen. The ensemble also includes forester Saskia Bergelt and forensic pathologist Dr. Kulikova. Culture Councillor Angelika Hilbrich finds Marianne Bach, the music teacher who initiated the project, dead in her apartment. Her valuable violin has been stolen. Suspects include the forensic pathologist, whom Bach arbitrarily dismissed from the orchestra, and the talented young violinist Faris Massoud. Conductor Florian Messerschmidt, who is having an affair with Dr. Kulikova, also arouses suspicion. Faris, who is from Syria, wants to keep his relationship with Rahel, a Jewish violinist, secret from his family, who already have other marriage plans for him. During questioning, he pulls out a knife, but Winkler is convinced of his innocence and later speaks up for him to the police. In the late 1980s, when the city was still called Karl-Marx-Stadt, Marianne Bach worked in musical talent development and founded her own music salon, where wild parties were held, political discussions took place, and Orwell’s 1984—a book banned in the GDR—was read. During questioning, Winkler also learns that Bach’s music-school class was disbanded after party proceedings over anti-state agitation. It later emerges, however, that Bach had been romantically involved with Florian Messerschmidt, who was 17 at the time and her pupil. An unknown informant had reported the socially unacceptable relationship to the school administration, whereupon the class was disbanded and Bach was transferred as a punishment. Decades later, Bach discovered that the informant had been the current Culture Councillor, Angelika Hilbrich, who had acted out of revenge because Bach had rejected her as musically untalented. Confronted with this revelation, the councillor tried to apologize, but Bach responded arrogantly and condescendingly. In a fury, Hilbrich struck her former teacher down with Bach’s own violin. Saskia Bergelt takes up residence in Winkler’s apartment in connection with the music project, but he still cannot bring himself to acknowledge their relationship openly. The forester is plagued by nightmares about the shot she fired at her ex-boyfriend in the previous episode.