Documentary series by Julian Vogel | 87min | 67min | 85min | DE 2023

Camera: Luise Schröder, Julian Vogel
Sound: Oscar Stiebitz, Julian Vogel
Editor: Gregor Bartsch, Sebastian Winkels

Munich 2016, Halle 2019 and Hanau 2020: three right-wing extre­mist attacks by so-cal­led „lone wol­ves: Alleged lone per­pe­tra­tors who, see­mingly wit­hout being part of clas­sic extre­mist struc­tures, radi­cal­i­zed them­sel­ves on the Internet and sud­den­ly struck in public spaces. These are sto­ries that now domi­na­te the head­lines: Right-wing ter­ror is curr­ent­ly con­side­red the grea­test thre­at to demo­cra­cy in Germany, accor­ding to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. And this despi­te the fact that until recent­ly such per­pe­tra­tors were often clas­si­fied as men­tal­ly ill, „con­fu­sed” lone per­pe­tra­tors and thus denied their racism. These times are over: After the attack in Hanau, Frank Walter Steinmeier spo­ke of an „attack on all of us”. But who are „all of us”?

The tri­lo­gy „EINZELTÄTER (Parts 1–3)” inde­pendent­ly takes the per­spec­ti­ve of the peo­p­le who­se rela­ti­ves were actual­ly the tar­get of the attacks and who­se lives will never be the same again.

EINZELTÄTER Part 1: MÜNCHEN

Arbnor lost his sis­ter in the 2016 attack at the Olympia shop­ping cen­ter, Hasan and Sibel lost their son. For a long time, the rela­ti­ves had to fight for the sta­te to reco­gni­ze the racist back­ground of the crime. Only after the attacks in Halle and Hanau did they succeed.

EINZELTÄTER Part 2: HALLE

EKarsten lost his only son Kevin in the Halle attack. While the public wat­ches the tri­al of the right-wing extre­mist per­pe­tra­tor, he strug­gles to deal with his grief. He finds sup­port in the Halle FC fan scene.

EINZELTÄTER Part 3: HANAU

The racist attack of February 19, 2020 has chan­ged Hanau-Kesselstadt. People of dif­fe­rent ori­g­ins live here, and six of the nine vic­tims died here. After the attack, peo­p­le here stick tog­e­ther, try to deal with the con­se­quen­ces of the act, and fight for cla­ri­fi­ca­ti­on. And this is whe­re the father of the per­pe­tra­tor and the sur­vi­ving rela­ti­ves of the vic­tims live in the imme­dia­te vicinity.

Since 2018, I have been in cont­act with sur­vi­vors of the racist attack in Munich in 2016, which was initi­al­ly clas­si­fied by the inves­ti­ga­ting aut­ho­ri­ties as a non-poli­ti­cal ram­pa­ge. This chan­ged with the attack in Halle in 2019, in the wake of which the Munich act was clas­si­fied as right-wing vio­lence and right-wing extre­mism as the grea­test thre­at to the secu­ri­ty situa­ti­on. After the attack of Hanau 2020, which brought the pro­blem of right-wing „lone per­pe­tra­tors” ulti­m­ate­ly into public con­scious­ness, I deci­ded to make a docu­men­ta­ry film that accom­pa­nies the mour­ning work of the bere­a­ved and their rela­ti­onship to the social dimen­si­on of the­se three acts. The result was a tri­lo­gy. The fami­lies in Munich and Hanau are united by the fact that their mour­ning work is inter­wo­ven with the fight against racism. In Halle, the situa­ti­on is dif­fe­rent: Kevin’s father Karsten has to deal with the death of his child becau­se someone wan­ted to strike a mino­ri­ty to which he hims­elf does not belong. For me, his grief was no less tou­ch­ing than the grief of the other peo­p­le affec­ted. It was imortant to me to also dedi­ca­te mys­elf to his story