Frühling - Kleiner Engel, kleiner Teufel (2023)

Nine-year-old Stella takes her little brother Moritz for a walk in his stroller. She tells passers-by that she is looking after Moritz because he is teething and their mother got very little sleep all night. Nobody suspects that Stella feels neglected and is annoyed by her “difficult” little brother, who is still a baby. While out with Moritz, she discovers a beehive in the woods. She gets the idea to use the insects to take “revenge” on her brother. She leaves Moritz in his stroller beside the hive and throws things at it to stir up the bees. Then she goes home, leaving Moritz behind with the bees. When she reaches the village, she skips around looking visibly cheerful, as though everything were perfectly fine. Heidrun Niedermayer, from Café Hagen, sees her. But when Stella gets home, she suddenly flies into a panic as if by magic and tells her mother that there had suddenly been so many bees and she had just run away. Her mother then has to stay in the hospital with Moritz, who has been stung several times. While the father is away for work—he is a senior teacher at Oberstufe at the Gymnasium—Katja looks after Stella and her older brother Tommy. Stella acts like a well-behaved girl and pretends that all is peaceful in the family and that she loves animals. However, Katja notices signs that the birds nesting outside Stella’s bedroom window are getting on her nerves. Stella also neglects her pet, a pig named Trump. When Katja visits the Lamprecht family the next morning, father Georg is disposing of the remains of the bird’s nest that fell down. Katja learns that none of the chicks survived the fall. After finding a household broom in Stella’s room, she thinks it possible that Stella may have knocked the nest down. Katja speaks with Heidrun Niedermayer several times at Café Hagen. Heidrun assures her that Stella was cheerful on the walk back without her brother and showed no sign of panic or distress. When Katja raises certain inconsistencies with Mama Ida, the psychologist feels that her honor has been insulted and is sure Stella is not to blame at all. After a superficial, unproductive conversation with Stella, Katja is sent away from the house. But Katja cannot let the matter go and talks to Tom about it. He asks hunter Loisl to review footage from his wildlife cameras. Early the next morning, Loisl comes to Tom and brings them the footage. Katja immediately drives to the Lamprechts’ to show Ida the recordings, which clearly show Stella stirring up the bees and deliberately leaving Moritz alone in the woods. Ida has to admit that she misjudged her daughter and acknowledges to Katja that she was right. Together, they conclude that the nine-year-old needs therapy, though her prospects for success are considered quite positive because Stella is still very young.