TV-12 | 6 episodes, 50m approximately | War drama, Thriller | 2024
Before German Reunification, the East German communist regime was good at only three things: arms dealing, persecuting dissidents, and generating paperwork. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the former oppressors did their best to cover up the paper trail documenting their crimes, but there were still many military-grade arms secretly cached in the former East Germany (GDR).
A United Germany
It is 1991. West and East Germany are now one united country, but many East Germans prefer the old system. West German financial crimes detective Peter Simon (Fabian Hinrichs) is part of the newly constituted ZERV, and he’s just arrived in the eastern half of a freshly reunified Berlin, at the behest of his boss, senior West German police official Hans Thieme (Rainer Bock). Many of the regular East German cops give him the cold shoulder and mock his social awkwardness behind his back, especially homicide detective Karo Schubert (Nadja Uhl). Nevertheless, Simon and Schubert must jointly investigate the murder of an informant, who had intended to warn ZERV of an imminent sale of East German arms to a foreign state.
Schubert resents Simon’s smug confidence in the West’s moral superiority, but she grudgingly comes to respect his integrity. They’re also both prone to obsessive behavior. For the last five years, Schubert has doggedly investigated her father’s presumed death in an unlikely accident. Even though his body was never recovered, Schubert’s mother, Elisabeth (Imogen Kogge), begs her to move on. Instead, she redoubles her efforts when she discovers that the murdered informant was her missing father’s old colleague.
Simon and Schubert soon discover that her victimized father and the prime suspect, Hajo Gärster (Thorsten Merten), were deeply involved in facilitating the old regime’s arms business through a dodgy logistics firm. Of course, several high-ranking GDR officials whom Gärster still reluctantly protects, directed the operation.
ZERV has other investigations running simultaneously. These include the search for the adoption records of children forcibly removed from dissident parents and placed with families loyal to the state. Simon takes a personal interest in Roland Merker (Jürgen Lehmann), who lost his daughter after their unsuccessful escape attempt to the West. ZERV also searches for survivors of a particularly brutal GDR-era juvenile detention center, to aid the defense of Bianca (Caroline Cousin), a troubled teen on trial for stabbing Volker Herrich (Jörg Witte), a sadistic communist and school headmaster who repeatedly assaulted her.
Believable Characters
As two lead detectives, Ms. Uhl and Mr. Hinrichs have highly watchable odd-couple chemistry in procedural scenes that are comparable to most network cop shows. Their personalities clash dramatically, but their slowly developing, subtle rapport is handled nicely.
Henriette Hölzel is terrific as Frauke Beckmann, Simon’s right-hand investigator. It is a role that takes on great significance when she might be rendered wheelchair-bound after being injured in the line of duty. The actress plays these scenes with great sensitivity and surprising honesty.
Ms. Cousin is completely believable and deeply poignant as the damaged Bianca. Her subplot is a devastating indictment of the GDR’s systemic human rights abuses. Likewise, Mr. Lehmann is truly piteous as the guilt-wracked Merker, whereas Mr. Witte makes Herrich a truly vile monster. In contrast, Mr. Merten’s Gärster is an intriguingly conflicted criminal, largely a product of the rotten socialist system.
Entirely helmed by director Dustin Loose, “Divided We Stand” has a consistent noirish tone. It captures the look and atmosphere of immediate post-unification East Berlin, a land of economic stagnation, handed-down stone-washed denim, and deafening electronic dance clubs. This is important, because the post-communist setting is intrinsic to the crimes that ZERV uncovers. It is a vivid snapshot in time and often entertainingly suspenseful.
Recommended for politically and historically astute thriller fans.
