Theresa Wolff - Waidwund (2022)

A body is discovered in the basin of the Bismarck Fountain on Jena’s market square. It is examined by young forensic pathologist Theresa Wolff. The man was shot at point-blank range, and the place where he was found is not the crime scene. The victim is businessman Günter Blaubach. After the autopsy, Wolff concludes that the killer must have chased the man through a forest before bringing him down like a wounded animal. Theresa Wolff has to deal with the investigating commissioner, Bruno Lewandowski. His investigation so far has established that, in the early 1990s, Blaubach took over a former East German company in Jena and drove it into bankruptcy, leaving several hundred people unemployed. Blaubach had already received death threats at the time, and Bodo Zoch had to answer for them in court. When questioned, Zoch still shows bitterness toward profiteers of reunification like Blaubach, who had enriched themselves at others’ expense after the end of East Germany. The next day, another body is found: Burkhardt Sachs, also a businessman who had dealings with Blaubach. It cannot be ruled out that there may be more victims. The case stirs long-forgotten memories in Theresa Wolff, who is never satisfied with merely examining a corpse and also wants to understand the circumstances behind a death. As a child, her father, a forester, used to take her on hunting trips. She recognizes the victims as men who once went hunting with her father, who died recently. While Lewandowski is convinced that the motive lies in the company’s 1995 bankruptcy, Wolff suspects that everything is connected to events from her childhood. Back then, she witnessed someone die. Only gradually does she begin to remember what happened: after a boisterous drinking party among hunting companions, all of whom had close professional ties to one another, there was a supposed hunting accident that has been covered up ever since. The former hunting friends arranged everything to make it look as though Marlies Pohlmann, the woman who was killed, had fled abroad with company funds. Norbert Rucher, one of the hunting friends, unexpectedly turns up at Wolff’s apartment. After talking with him, she becomes convinced that she herself accidentally shot the woman back then, when her “Uncle Norbert” let her fire a rifle into the darkness. The thought haunts her, and she keeps investigating until she finds Marlies Pohlmann’s remains. She also learns that shortly before his death, her father wanted to speak to Pohlmann’s daughter, Nora, presumably to reveal a secret and be able to die in peace. Wolff now suspects who fired the fatal shot back then, and realizes that Nora Pohlmann wanted to lure Norbert Rucher to Jena by murdering Blaubach and Sachs. Nora Pohlmann is apprehended before she can kill Rucher as well.