CRIME NOVELS AND THE THIRD REICH
They write crime novels about an era that until now has rarely been the subject of crime fiction: the Third Reich, itself the cause of inconceivable crimes and atrocities. The film shows the three writers Dominique Manotti, Philip Kerr and Volker Kutscher at work in Berlin, New York, Paris, London and Cologne.
They have written crime novels about an era that until now has rarely been the subject of crime fiction: the Third Reich, itself the cause of inconceivable crimes and atrocities. Dominique Manotti, Philip Kerr and Volker Kutscher have broken an unspoken German rule that the Third Reich should not be the subject of entertainment literature. The crime novel is now engaging numerous readers in a subject they would normally avoid. The film shows the three writers at work in Berlin, New York, Paris, London and Cologne, and takes viewers to historically charged locations: Dominique Manotti shows us the headquarters of the French Gestapo in Paris, Philip Kerr researches for his new book in Babelsberg and the Wannsee Conference venue, while Volker Kutscher reads from his new novel in a former concentration camp in Berlin, then guiding us through Cologne. His protagonist Rath has arrived in the Third Reich and in 1933 witnesses a very different carnival procession in his home town. All the novels' protagonists find themselves in a hellish world that challenges them with existential questions: How do you survive in a world that has become so insane that the fate of one person can determine the destiny of humanity?