Zwölf Winter (2009)

After his release from prison, Mike Roth meets up with his friends and former fellow inmates Klaus Starck and Alex Greif, who have been committing bank robberies since 1988. Roth joins them, but Greif drops out a short time later after developing leukemia. At first using forged license plates and rubber masks, and later motorcycles and helmets, the perpetrators rob an average of three small banks and savings banks each winter over a period of twelve winters, across the country. They prepare the robberies professionally in spring and autumn and carry them out only during the dark season, shortly before closing time. The duo’s principles include moving quickly, avoiding unnecessary violence, and ensuring that no one is killed or injured. Their goal is the “perfect crime.” While Starck continues to lead the inconspicuous life of a small-town bourgeois, Roth prefers a lavish lifestyle of parties, beautiful women, and fast cars. His extravagant spending spurs him to commit ever more robberies. By disguising their true age through physical training, the two perpetrators manage for years to outwit the police and send their investigations down the wrong paths. In 1999, Bonn state criminal investigators Gerd Prothmann and Reiner Geugis finally notice similarities that lead them to conclude they are dealing with serial offenders, and they form the “Winter Investigation Unit.” Their attempt to track down the perpetrators turns into a game of cat and mouse, in which the criminals repeatedly manage to evade the police. The officers receive the decisive tip from Glowalla, a former fellow inmate who is trying to take revenge on Starck over a past altercation. His betrayal leads to the arrest of the gangster duo.