Copyright: WDR/Bavaria Fiction GmbH/Thomas Kost
Inspector Peter Faber (Jörg Hartmann) explores little-known corners of the Ruhr city in Dortmund’s “Tatort” (TV broadcast: January 15).
A huge cave system under the Dortmund city center played an important role in the “crime scene” with Commissioner Faber on Sunday evening – but do the “catacombs” also exist in reality?
Even the first scene of the Dortmund “Tatort” thriller “You stay here” was pretty great. A beard jogger, who turned out to be Commissioner Peter Faber (Jörg Hartmann) when zooming in, jumps at dawn from a ten meter high wall into a dammed pool of water.
The scenery? Apparently an old industrial monument. The nostalgic Ruhr area “crime scene” on Sunday (January 15, 2023) was about lost places like these. The finale took place in a gigantic cave system under the city center. But do the Dortmund “catacombs” really exist? What is it all about and why hardly anyone knows about it?
Crime scene “You stay here”: What was it about?
Peter Faber’s remaining colleagues, Rosa Herzog (Stefanie Reinsperger) and Jan Pawlak (Rick Okon), are dealing with a bloody case without a body. In Dortmund’s Westpark, the two are standing in front of a large pool of blood, but the body is missing.
However, Andreas Richter is missing, head of a Dortmund real estate company that has made many enemies in recent years through aggressive purchases and luxury renovations of old apartments. One of the tenants of Richter’s property is Peter Faber’s father, Josef Faber (Wolfgang Rüter), with whom the inspector has apparently not had any contact for decades.
Crime scene from Dortmund: What was it really about?
In the thriller, Faber’s grief for Bönisch mixes with the grief for an old Ruhr area culture. A culture of little people struggling with the loss of their living space and way of life. With the gentrification of their districts, not only is affordable housing disappearing, but also a special neighborhood culture in which people help each other or spend time comfortably in the wonderfully antique hairdressing salon of Peter Faber’s childhood friend Martin Engel (Andreas Schröders).
Actor Jörg Hartmann, who for the first time in ten years wrote his own screenplay for the crime thriller in Dortmund, comes from Herdecke and is himself a child of the Ruhr area. In this respect, the author and actor is mainly following in the footsteps of his own childhood and youth memories.
Are you really allowed to swim in this “reservoir”?
“No, for God’s sake,” says Jörg Hartmann in an interview with the agency teleschau about the impressive first scene of the thriller. “What Faber is doing is strictly forbidden. The Herdecke pumped storage power plant is one of the oldest in the world and an industrial monument. It’s from the 1920s.” In fact, it would be extremely dangerous to jump into that pool. The film scene was accordingly “faked”.
“I still remember from my childhood,” Jörg Hartmann continues, “that we secretly climbed over the wall to have a look. That’s burned into my head as something fascinating, uncanny. But we wouldn’t have dared to jump into the water. The water from the reservoir is also pumped downwards. The actual power station and the lake are much lower. It would be a suicide mission to jump in there.”
Do the Dortmund “catacombs” actually exist?
In fact, hidden under the center of Dortmund is the largest air-raid shelter in Europe, probably even in the world. As a protective measure against bombing in World War II, a cave system almost five kilometers long was built here, which offers shelter for 80,000 to 100,000 people. In fact, some Dortmunders lived here more or less continuously underground for a year during the bombing of the Ruhr area. Their story is alluded to in the final scene of the thriller in the “Memoirs” of Peter Faber’s father, who is suffering from dementia.
The 19 entrances to the “catacombs” were all closed after the war. For safety reasons and because for a long time the city had no interest in coming to terms with the sometimes less than creditable history of the bunker. For several years, however, there have even been guided tours – you can visit parts of the facility.
What is the relationship between actor Jörg Hartmann and Dortmund?
Actor Jörg Hartmann was born in Hagen in 1969 and grew up in neighboring Herdecke. From there it is 13 kilometers to Dortmund. “We used to roam around Herdecke,” recalls Jörg Hartmann, who now lives in Potsdam with his family, of his childhood. “Through the mountains and large forests in the direction of the reservoir, which also plays a role at the beginning of ‘Tatort: You stay here’. I didn’t go to Dortmund until later. When I was older and wanted to go to the disco. Mostly by train. My parents never owned a car.”
Hartmann also only developed an emotional relationship as an adult – during Jürgen Klopp’s golden coaching era – with the Borussia Dortmund football club, which Hartmann now describes as a sympathizer and fan.
How is the Dortmund “crime scene” going on?
First of all three. The vacancy Martina Bönisch – actress Anna Schudt left at her own request a year ago and her role “died” – will not be filled for the time being. The next, running sometime in 2023, “Tatort: Love is Pain” (script: Bob Konrad and Hanno Hackfort, director: Sabine Bernardi) brings Peter Faber back to the service.
Together with Rosa Herzog and Jan Pawlak, he has to solve the death of a tram driver whose unknown perpetrator showed himself confidently in the surveillance camera. But who is the man and why did he commit the crime? The murderer is to be found with the help of police officer Beate Gräske (Sar Adina Scheer), a “super-recognizer” with the special ability to recognize faces. (ch)
