Wenn es Nacht wird auf der Reeperbahn (1967)

A young woman in torn clothes staggers through the nighttime streets of Hamburg as if she were drunk. But Eva Falsacher has fled from a man who wanted to strangle her. When she runs half-naked into the street and tries to stop businessman Hans Henningsen’s Mercedes-Benz as it speeds along, he cannot brake in time and hits her. Henningsen then flees the scene. The respectable, well-to-do citizen has just come from a sexual rendezvous with Wanda, a professional prostitute who stole his wallet. Her pimp, Uwe Wagenknecht, immediately takes it from her and plans to use the stolen wallet to blackmail the supposedly honorable businessman a little. Thus begins this story of immorality and moral decay among Hamburg’s upper classes, of wayward youth and drug abuse in the supposedly sinful entertainment district of St. Pauli. Investigative journalist Danny Sonntag is on the trail of a hot story. Despite his editor-in-chief’s explicit instructions, he wants to write a report about crimes caused by drug abuse in the Hanseatic city. The person responsible for local LSD production is the very young Till Voss. Out of sheer boredom, as a pampered and morally dissolute scion of the upper class—and because several high-school girls are eager to be seduced by bad boys like Till—the son of an equally rich and influential industrialist has become involved with a youth drug gang led by a man called Feuer-Hotte. Young upper-class wastrels are in charge there, too. Till uses his chemistry set to make drugs for them. The LSD is used to make young girls—lured in by Till’s unscrupulous girlfriend, Pinky Schön—compliant, so they can be sold while high to wealthy clients. As Sonntag gets closer and closer to uncovering the connections, he is badly beaten by several masked thugs from the drug gang. By chance, Wanda and her pimp Wagenknecht find him and rescue him. Despite his badly battered face, Danny continues investigating the case. After the violent death of a girl named Brigitte, the police gradually begin to take action too, launching an investigation under Commissioner Zinner, an old-school, incorruptible detective through and through. Afraid of both gangs, the drugged-up girls keep silent, because Feuer-Hotte makes no secret of his intention to get rid of any girl who starts talking. If a girl ever fails to obey, Feuer-Hotte likes to slash her across the face with his razor. It soon emerges that the seedy doctor Dr. Buding also has a hand in the operation, as does one of the city’s most respected citizens, Till’s father, Wilhelm Voss. Thanks to the activities of Till, Pinky, and Feuer-Hotte, he makes sure that his aging, well-heeled business friends, constantly craving “fresh meat,” are always supplied with young, compliant girls. Kept high on LSD, the schoolgirls submit without protest to sex with the old men, which is sometimes perverse. Till unexpectedly begins to fall in love with one of the girls, Lottie Norkus. This greatly displeases the discarded Pinky, who starts making a scene. Shortly afterward, Pinky is found dead. Feuer-Hotte has discovered that Pinky arranged to meet Till at her grandmother’s house for one last conversation aimed at making peace. He shamelessly exploits this knowledge to blackmail his drug supplier. Till had actually wanted to end his “career” supplying LSD for Lottie’s sake. But Feuer-Hotte makes it clear that the pampered rich kid must keep making drugs for him. Meanwhile, the body count rises: the gay sauna owner Karlchen “Charlie” Dinoke is coldly murdered with a silenced pistol. Till and Lottie, meanwhile, have their “first time” aboard the Voss family yacht; at the same time, young Margot has taken over Pinky’s role as the new head of the girls’ ring. To involve Lottie in her plans for orgies with wealthy old men, Margot tells her that Till has been unfaithful to her and is involved with Anita, an artist and his longtime girlfriend. She uses doctored, revealing photographs from the extensive photo collection belonging to the dead Pinky. Dosed with LSD, Lottie vows revenge and agrees to take part in the next orgy. One of the wealthy old men climbs on top of her. It is none other than Till’s father, Wilhelm. When Till joins the orgy, Lottie soon realizes her terrible mistake. She rushes into the nearest bathroom and slashes her wrists. Till now turns against Feuer-Hotte as well and strangles him during a fight. Danny Sonntag is getting ever closer to the truth about prostitution, drug abuse, and trafficking in girls and, despite his superior’s explicit prohibition, is determined to drain this Hamburg cesspool. At his side are Detective Commissioner Zinner and his assistant Paulsen, as well as the tough Uwe Wagenknecht, who is always good for a proper brawl. The crucial lead on the two criminal rings comes from Danny’s informant Mumps, an old but well-informed man in Hamburg’s St. Pauli district. But Danny’s victory is only a partial one: he underestimates the power of Hamburg’s upper-class elite—influential businessmen, powerful politicians, and opinion-makers such as his editor-in-chief, who also belongs to the ring of old men who had compliant girls brought to them. And so not a single word about the involvement of Hamburg’s upper classes appears in Danny Sonntag’s sensational newspaper story about the drug underworld and the busted-up girl-trafficking ring.