"Westwall" (ZDF): an amazing start in a captivating series

In the excellent ZDF series, a young policewoman in love gets caught between the fronts of neo-fascists and the protection of the constitution.

Frankfurt am Main – Who actually protects the constitution from the protection of the constitution? This is the all-important question that “Westwall” boils down to. The ZDF series is based on a novel of the same name, but in fact Benedikt Gollhardt first wrote the scripts and then, when he couldn’t find a buyer, made a book out of it. He is not only listed as an author but also as a “creative producer”, so he also had a significant influence on the implementation of his work. This possibly explains one or the other detour of the story; four episodes would have done it too.

Still, “Westwall” (ZDF) is captivating, especially since Gollhardt has designed an impressively complex plot. The central figure is a commissioner candidate embodied by Emma Bading in a very complex way: one day Julia meets Nick (Jannik Schümann), who is the same age. Because the young man is missing part of his left little finger, her friend and colleague Lydia (Lorna Ishema) is convinced that something is wrong with him, and Julia actually discovers a huge swastika on his back after the first night together: Nick belonged to Teenager joins a neo-Nazi clique, but gives credible assurance that it is all behind him.

“Westwall” on ZDF: Who is on which side?

Nevertheless, he does his part to ensure that nothing in Julia’s existence will remain the same as it used to be: She will lose a loved one, find another person and be in great danger several times. She also has to live with the fact that she can’t trust anyone more than she realizes that she is just a character in a staged game.

The ZDF series “Westwall” cleverly initially leaves it open who is on which side. The amazement is therefore great when sympathizers turn out to be fascist subversives, while an alleged enemy of the state wants to save democracy. It was therefore important to also cast the secondary characters prominently. It goes without saying that the neo-fascists do not shy away from murder, but even the supposedly good are not squeamish in their choice of means; even if at least they don’t walk over corpses.

Julia’s feelings for Nick, alternating between affection and anger, form the emotional red thread of the story, but two other relationships are at least as interesting: The policewoman repeatedly clashes with her trainer Berthold Roosen (Rainer Bock), who strangely enough makes her own unforgivable missteps lets pass; apparently he wants to make amends with her for what went wrong with his daughter.

Roosen’s counterpart on Nick’s side is constitutional protector Keppler (Devid Striesow), who likes the boy but has no qualms about abusing him for his goals. Keppler is a man with a mission that is basically an obsession: for years he has been chasing a woman who also once belonged to the right-wing scene and now takes care of street children. She lives with her group near the former western wall, which is still reminiscent of the mighty anti-tank barriers and dilapidated bunkers in the Eifel.

“Westwall” on ZDF: high-quality image design

Keppler is convinced that Ira Tetzel (Jeanette Hain) has never given up her convictions, but even he cannot foresee the dimensions of the plan in which the woman is involved. The little terrorists she brings up in the Eifel follow her “mother” not for ideological reasons, but because she has given them a home. In her speeches in “Westwall”, Ira chooses the same words as the police instructor: Both appeal to a sense of community and emphasize that the group is a family. In any case, the ambivalence of many roles is another attraction of the series.

From the ranks of the well-known cast on ZDF (including Suzanne von Borsody, Inka Friedrich, Kostja Ullmann and Stephan Grossmann), alongside Emma Bading and Jannik Schümann, David Schütter stands out as Ira’s man for the rough; the actor is particularly remembered for his performances in the Sky series “8 Days” (as a tragic preacher) and in the three-part ARD series “Our wonderful years”.

The concentration on this trio should also be a signal to a young audience that ZDF would like to reach with “Westwall” primarily via the media library. Compared to the productions of the streaming services preferred by this target group, the six-part series is rather dignified despite the clever cliffhanger. The image design is on a high level, especially since cameraman Andreas Köhler succeeded in many impressive backlight settings, but Isa Prahl’s staging could have been even more compact.

The director’s last work was an intense “Tatort” from Cologne (“Gefangen”, 2020), in which Inspector Ballauf was haunted by his demons. After her feature film debut “1000 Types of Rain” (also with Bading, 2018), a drama about a young man who refuses to leave his room, she made several television films of varying quality, such as the ARD drama ” What we knew – Risk Pill ”(2020), but also a rather weak“ Marie Brand ”episode.

ZDF is showing episodes one and two of “Westwall” today, the entire series is in the media library. Neo shows episodes one to three and four to six on December 7th and 8th from 9.45pm. (Tilmann P. Gangloff)