Meister des Todes 2 (2020)

The film alternates between Germany, where the fictional arms manufacturer HSW must answer in court for arms deliveries to Mexico, and Mexico, where six students were shot and 43 disappeared. HSW, based in Hochdorf (modeled on Heckler & Koch in Oberndorf), is alleged to have violated the Foreign Trade and Payments Act and the War Weapons Control Act by making arms deliveries to Mexico that could not be authorized. Alex Stengele, head of sales for Central and South America, must choose between his wife, Sabine, and the company—the “family.” She threatens to divorce him if he does not testify in court. After announcing in court that he will testify, he suffers a fatal heart attack, whereupon his widow joins the lawyer and human rights activist Christiane Schuhmann. Together with the students’ relatives, they want to find out what happened to the missing students and the full extent of the arms deliveries to Mexico. Although the two women are able to obtain incriminating material, the trial increasingly turns into a farce, with expendable pawns taking the fall.