The murder capital

As every television viewer knows: Anyone visiting Münster needs to be careful. There are fraudsters, criminals and murderers lurking around every corner. Luckily, they are always caught in the end – by Münster’s super TV detectives.

Münster – of all places – a hotbed of crime? At least on television: It’s now more than 25 years since Münster-based TV investigators first started making life difficult for the local baddies. With dead Chinese princesses, castrated breeding stallions and Father Christmases who’ve gone astray – script writers’ imagination seems to know no bounds. With private detective “Wilsberg” on the ZDF channel and the “Münster-Tatort”, part of the long-running “Tatort” (“Crime Scene”) series, on the ARD channel, the two public broadcasters have succeeded in creating a couple of highly popular formats in Münster that regularly attract millions of viewers. And they meanwhile also attract lots of real-life tourists: Guided tours for amateur detectives tracing the footsteps of Münster’s TV investigators are enjoying an unexpected demand. There is naturally also great glee over this boom on the part of Filmservice Münster.Land, a department of the City Press Office, that has played a major role in promoting Münster’s career as the “capital of crime”.

With an average 13 million viewers, the “Tatort” episodes from Münster, with the ill-matched duo of Inspector Thiel, played by Axel Prahl, and pathologist Professor Boerne, played by Jan Josef Liefers, are indeed the ARD’s most successful “Tatort” productions of all, achieving the best viewing figures of all current German television series.. And purely by way of interest, the script writers may have been inspired to some degree by a real-life Münster fact. While completely different in character from the TV’s blasé Professor Boerne – Professor Bernd Brinkmann, forensic pathologist in Münster, is one of the most highly regarded practitioners of his profession not just throughout Germany, but indeed worldwide. As one of the “fathers” of forensic DNA analysis, he has played a major part as an expert witness in countless court cases – for example in the Kachelmann trial. He follows the activities of his TV “colleague” with a mixture of (professional) scepticism and (human) amusement.

Münster and its investigators – an affection has grown up between them that appears genuinely mutual. While the Münsteraners regularly watch the film shoots with keen interest and the advance screenings of the new TV episodes are nothing short of major cinema events, the investigators themselves admit to being real Münster lovers. Leonard Lansink has not only been awarded Münster’s Town Hall Medal (“Rathaus-Medaille), but has also been a member of SC Preussen Münster Football Club for many years and, with his “celebrity waitering events” at the Aasee Terraces, assisted by his colleagues, succeeds in raising large sums of money to donate to Münster Cancer Counselling Centre (Krebsberatungsstelle Münster). Art aficionado Axel Prahl has been involved in one of Münster’s cultural debates, playing a prominent role in efforts to keep one of the works from the last “Skulptur Projekte” event permanently in Münster. And Ina Paule Klink, who plays “Alex”, has admitted in an interview that the Wilsberg actors have thought more than once about renting a flat together in Münster. A Wilsberg flat share in Münster? The locals would die for it.

Some interesting facts & figures (perhaps worth following up further?)

• On average, two “Tatort” episodes and four “Wilsberg” films are shot in Münster each year with the assistance of Filmservice Münster.Land. A total of 67 "Wilsbergs” and 36 Münster “Tatorts” have been screened to date.
• The first “Wilsberg” novel was filmed by the ZDF in 1994, at that time with Joachim Krol in the title role. Since 1997, the private eye has been played by Leonard Lansink.
• The “Wilsberg” series draws some of the biggest audience numbers of any ZDF programme. The “Mordeney” episode in January 2018 achieved a new record of 8.31 million viewers, equivalent to a market share of 25.3%.
• The Wilsberg character was created in 1990 by successful Münster crime fiction writer Jürgen Kehrer, who now and again still contributes to a script for the series.
• The offbeat “Tatort” duo Boerne and Thiel first went manhunting in Münster in 2002. The Münster-based episodes are the most successful of the whole “Tatort” format and achieve the highest ratings of all German TV series. The episode entitled “Fangschuss”, for example, which was shown in April 2017, recorded the biggest audience (14.56 million viewers) and the highest market share (39.6%) of any “Tatort” since 1992.
• Meanwhile, the “crime” theme attracts thousands of tourists to Münster every year, tracing the investigators’ footsteps on a guided tour or even booking a complete whodunit arrangement. For individualists, Münster Marketing has published a free “crime flyer”.
• “Celebrity waitering” by the Aasee to raise funding for the Münster Cancer Counselling Centre: Leonard Lansink and his team of waiters will once again be serving the guests with their food and drinks at Münster’s Aaseeterrassen. His team includes big names from the worlds of culture, sport and politics, and also the music scene.

www.stadt-muenster.de/tourismus/tatort-wilsberg-co.html
www.stadt-muenster.de/filmservice
www.krebsberatung-muenster.de/category/benefiz