Mein Mörder kommt zurück (2007)

The student Tanja Siebert falls in love with Marcus Steiner, unaware that he is the boss of a Berlin criminal gang. By the time she gradually realizes how he makes his money, she is already financially and emotionally dependent on him. When Tanja finally decides to break things off, Steiner has her beaten and tries to execute her with three shots. Miraculously, Tanja survives the attack and offers her knowledge to the State Criminal Police Office, which has been keeping the gang under surveillance for some time. Her testimony in court leads to Marcus Steiner being sentenced to twelve years in prison. Tanja is placed in the witness protection program and given a new identity and biography. To keep her from having any contact with her former life, the State Criminal Police Office finds her a job on a farm far from Berlin. Eight years later, Vera Grote—Tanja Siebert’s new name—is happily married to Mischa Grote and is the mother of their son, Leo. Her employer, farmer Hermann Stuhr, is a computer enthusiast who points out to Vera that everyone can be found on the internet. At home, Vera enters her real name online and finds a wanted ad for Tanja Siebert, offering a “sure thing” reward of 50,000 euros for information. From the newspaper, she learns that Marcus Steiner has been released from prison on parole after serving two-thirds of his sentence. Vera, who has confided her true past only to her psychologist, grows increasingly anxious. When a patient who looks strikingly like her is murdered outside her psychologist’s office—the patient had swapped appointments with Vera—Vera is pushed over the edge. All she can see around her now is betrayal and greed: her husband Mischa, Vera’s best friends Romy and Arno, farmer Stuhr, and even a photographer on the street—all are under suspicion. Vera is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. After the murder outside the office is solved as a crime of passion, Vera is visibly relieved. But Mischa’s remark that he saw Vera briefly and clearly on television in a report about the crime drives her to despair. She reveals her true identity to Mischa, but he does not take her story seriously. He gives Vera sedative drops and drives away with her. During a brief stop in the woods, the desperate Vera knocks Mischa unconscious and flees by car back home. There, a killer is lying in wait for her: it is the photographer who had been taking pictures of the new building across the road. Before he can pull the trigger, he is struck dead with a statue by Mischa, who has arrived in the meantime. Shaken, Mischa realizes that everything Vera told him was true. Vera wants to call the police. The consequence would be that the State Criminal Police Office would give her another new identity and she would have to leave Mischa and Leo. Mischa refuses, saying he could not live without Vera. He asks her to trust him. Days later, a detective goes door to door in the settlement asking about a missing person: the photographer Mischa had killed. The missing man and his car were reportedly seen in the settlement. Romy, Arno, Mischa, Vera, even farmer Stuhr and his hired hand all deny knowing anything about the missing man. Through cinematic flashbacks, viewers learn that each of them helped dispose of the killer’s body and car, as well as the evidence of the killing. A little later, Vera tells her psychologist that Steiner has been arrested again and his parole has therefore been revoked. She says that although she has not lost her fear of him, she has found something—love and friendship—that is stronger.