Crime Novels and the Third Reich

The Nazi era was long taboo as a subject of light fiction in Germany. But crime fiction has drawn many readers to a topic that would normally put them off. European authors are enjoying great success with crime stories set in the Third Reich, which was itself the scene of inconceivable crimes.

In 2004, Dominique Manotti published her darkest novel, "Le Corps Noir" about the French Gestapo in Paris in August 1944. Philip Kerr has been sending his hardboiled investigator Bernie Gunther to the darkest corners of the Nazi Reich since 1988. And in contrast to Kerr, Volker Kutscher began his series of novels in the Weimar Republic, investigating how his protagonist Gereon Rath deals with the transition from democracy to dictatorship. Crime novels reach millions of readers around the world. They are like a drug: atmospheric with a delirium of violence and lawlessness and great high contemporary relevance. Our camera follows the writers to Berlin, New York, Paris, London and Cologne and takes the viewer into grim, unfamiliar places.