The exciting, historical political thriller "Bonn - Old Friends, New Enemies" by director and screenwriter Claudia Garde (born 1966, "Tatort: Borowski and the Return of the Silent Guest", "Ottilie von Faber-Castell - A Courageous Woman") is told rival intelligence agencies and a dark family secret during the Cold War era. The focus is on the young Toni Schmidt, who as a foreign language secretary witnesses the rivalry between the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Intelligence Service's predecessor, Organization Gehlen. The central question of whether yesterday's Nazis belong in prison or not is embodied in the series above all by the two figures from contemporary history and their opposing attitudes: Otto John (1909-1997) and Reinhard Gehlen (1902-1979). .
The 20-year-old Toni Schmidt (Mercedes Müller, 26) returns to the then German capital of Bonn after a language stay in London in 1954 - in the middle of the Cold War. Less than ten years after the end of the war, her family settled into what appeared to be an idyllic place. Toni's father Gerd (Juergen Maurer, 55) is a successful building contractor, one enjoys the new prosperity between the fridge and the television at the time of the "German economic miracle". But Toni wants more: she gets a job as a foreign language secretary at the Gehlen organization, the foreign intelligence service and the forerunner organization of today's BND, the Federal Intelligence Service.
Otto John (Sebastian Blomberg, 50), who, as head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, tracked down war criminals who had gone into hiding, noticed Toni in London. John is convinced that Toni's boss Reinhard Gehlen (Martin Wuttke, 60) supports old Nazis and massively hinders his work. On the spur of the moment, John sends his best colleague Wolfgang Berns (Max Riemelt, 38) on Toni in order to recruit her as a spy for his intelligence service.
The ambitious young woman gets caught between the fronts of the secret services. Not only does she come across unscrupulous machinations and dark secrets, she also gets emotionally closer to Wolfgang. But who can she really trust?
Once again, a mini series with a high-class acting ensemble awaits. First and foremost are Mercedes Müller, Sebastian Blomberg, Juergen Maurer, Max Riemelt, Martin Wuttke and Katharina Marie Schubert (45, she plays Toni's mother).
The Berlin actress Mercedes Müller was in front of the camera for the first time in 2003 for the movie "4 friends and 4 paws". In the multiple award-winning literary adaptation "Tschick" (2014) by director Fatih Akin (49), she played the neglected teenager Isa Schmidt, with whom the main actor falls in love. Since 2019, Mercedes Müller has played the role of police officer Emma Walsh in "Irland Crime" and in 2020 she shone as Clara Prank, the daughter of a brewery, in the mini-series "Oktoberfest 1900". Her filmography also includes various Sunday crime novels, many other crime novels, the mini-series "Tannbach" (2018), "Club of the Red Ribbons" (2016) or the tragic comedy "Extraklasse" (2018).
Actor Sebastian Blomberg was born in Bergisch Gladbach, is a celebrated theater star, but was also awarded the Adolf Grimme Prize in 2008 for his performance in the TV film "Guten Morgen, Herr Grothe" about everyday life at German secondary schools. Since the second case (2018) of Heike Makatsch (51) as Mainz "Tatort" commissioner Ellen Berlinger, Blomberg has played her sensitive colleague Chief Inspector Martin Rascher.
The Austrian actor Juergen Maurer wears his hair a little longer in "Bonn - Old Friends, New Enemies" and is therefore not reminiscent of his star roles, the real estate agent Georg "Schorsch" Schneider in the hit series "Vorstadtweiber" (2015-2022) or Inspector Joe Jessen, who he embodies in the crime series "Next to the Track" (2015-2022).
Katharina Marie Schubert is an award-winning actress who attracted attention in her debut in the ensemble film "Shoppen" (2006). This was followed by films such as "Friedliche Zeiten" (2008), "A Gift from the Gods" (2014), "Wellness for Couples" (2016), "Zuckersand" (2017) and the award-winning "Tatort: Anne and Death" (2019 ). The native of Gifhorn, Lower Saxony, celebrated her directorial debut with "The girl with the golden hands" in early 2022.
Max Riemelt was born in East Berlin and has been able to collect many other awards in his acting career since "The Shooting Star of European Film" (2005). Among other things, he got them for "Der rote Kakadu" (2006), "Die Welle" (2008), "Im Blick des Crimes" (2010) or the movie "Head Burst" (2019). He was last seen in "Ein Taxi zum Bescherung" (2022) and 2022: Everyone is talking about the weather" (2022).
Martin Wuttke is a former "Tatort" star. From 2008 to 2015, the native of Gelsenkirchen solved various murder cases in and around Leipzig as Commissioner Andreas Keppler together with actress Simone Thomalla (57) as colleague and ex-partner Eva Saalfeld. The investigative duo Saalfeld and Keppler said goodbye in their seventh year at the end of April 2015 with the "crime scene: low instincts". In 2022 he celebrated his Sunday crime comeback in the Frankfurt crime thriller "Tatort: Leben Tod Ekstasy" as a controversial psychoanalyst and the only survivor of a psycholysis session. Wuttke has also appeared in international productions such as "Inglourious Basterds" (2009), "Cloud Atlas" (2012) and "A Most Wanted Man" (2014).
According to the broadcaster, the series is based on true events during the Cold War. The lawyer Otto John was a resistance fighter on July 20, 1944 and from 1950 to 1954 the first President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. He lamented the supposedly growing influence of former Nazis in the Federal Republic and also named Reinhard Gehlen, the president of the BND's predecessor organization. When John appeared in the GDR in July 1954, he caused one of the biggest political scandals in the young Federal Republic.
"The series [...] takes us into an epoch in which the foundations were laid for the further development of our country, an epoch that has shaped our social self-image to this day. With different political omens, this applies not only to the one told here western Germany," explains Jörg Schönenborn, ARD coordinator for fiction and WDR program director for information, fiction and entertainment.
And he adds: "First and foremost, as a thriller series, it offers exciting entertainment; the historical context has been researched in detail, so this series can also enlighten us about a lesser-known chapter in the history of the young Bonn Republic."
The miniseries takes place in 1954. Alexander Bickel, Head of PB Fiktion WDR, explains: "The war is over, it's far from over. The comfort of the onset of prosperity in West Germany tempts one to refuse the demons of the past. But it can the beautiful appearance cannot hide the fact that people are severely traumatized, that the Nazi ideology still occupies their heads. Only those who are young or incorrigible idealists look ahead carefree. The others settle down in repression; or they are among those who [...] are now benefiting from the fact that the Bonn Republic cannot do without the old cliques either."
The six parts of the miniseries "Bonn - Old Friends, New Enemies" will be broadcast in double episodes. Episodes one and two will be broadcast on Tuesday (January 17) from 8:15 p.m. Episodes three and four will follow a day later, on January 18th. The station will show the last two episodes on Tuesday, January 24th.
The miniseries "Bonn - Old Friends, New Enemies" is accompanied by three documentaries. "Old Friends, New Enemies - The Documentary" runs on the opening day of the series after the first double episode, i.e. on January 17 at 9:45 p.m. in the first. "Permanent Representatives - The Bonn Chancellors" and the six-part documentary series "The Spies - On behalf of the GDR" as well as all other content can now be seen in the ARD media library.
