Mitten in Deutschland: NSU (2016) User Reviews

Half-documentary narration with both uneven pace and combining

[BeneCumb · 7/10 · 1 November 2016]

Versatile stories based on real events have a vast "deficiency" - most viewers know what is going to happen and how it all ends. Therefore, screenwriters and filmmakers should focus on other aspects, find some new angles or artistic supplements to make the creation an interesting and aggregated whole.

As for the miniseries in question, in my opinion, the task became often too complex. The three rather long episodes, dealing with different aspects of the "case", are too secluded, intertwining has flaws, and following is not equally interesting. The 1st episode is far more strongest and exciting, the 2nd is the weakest, being a story of Turks with tragic fate where NSU is mentioned only in the background. The 3rd part is hectic and full of conspiracy theories, and flashbacks make it all more confusing rather than assisting. As I was unaware of the events, I had additional thrill in the beginning, but soon I began to focus more on acting (several pleasant performances, no unnecessary "jutting out") and living-events proceeding from the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Due to the above-mentioned, I would give 7 points in general, with Episode 1 - yet 8 points. All in all, Mitten in Deutschland: NSU is not a weak creation, but not at the level of e.g. Deutschland'83 or Weissensee.

Spoiler Alerts! Chilling, sad, and well done

[im-davis514 · 8/10 · 23 March 2017]

I remember the news report when Beate Z was caught after burning up her apartment and this being tied to a murder-suicide by a couple of guys in the aftermath of Zschape's capture. As the resurgence of these extremists seems to be one of the unexpected demons unleashed after the reunification of Germany, I generally have an eye and ear open for such developments. What I didn't understand was: (1) the nihilistic idiocy of the people in the NSU (national socialist underground), which is the focus of episode 1; (2) the primarily Turkish targets of nine murders, robberies, and unknown numbers of random verbal and physical assaults (the focus of episode 2); (3) that a country that nearly blinked out of existence in the last spasm of NS delusional thinking, horrific violence against numerous countries, ethnicities, religions, and by-standers could descend into internecine information hoarding, as apparently went on between the German intelligence services, Federal police, the newly-free local police departments (some of whom had been STASI) of what had been East Germany, and other, hinted parties (the focus of episode 3).

The whole process started with the tearing down the wall in 1989. Apparently, some East German (and other) youth saw the NS beliefs espoused by their lunatic leader (d. 1945, suicide by bunker) as the only appropriate response to the authoritarian "Communism" of the East German/USSR leaders and a rise in immigrant populations, particularly from Turkey (a partner in Germany's defeat during WWI and mostly playing both sides in WWII), but also from Germany's African colonies, was to become violent, drunken, drugged- up thugs who sang awful songs, visited concentration camps on a lark, threatened and mugged anyone they wanted, and generally were a disgusting mirror image of the brown shirts, although in miniature.

This escalated until 2000 when a Turkish flower salesman was shot eight times in his roadside van, then photographed as he died. More murders and robberies (as well as a bombing in Koln) occurred over the the next 11 years, and Zschape was captured. It took her four years to admit to her association with the murder-suicide NS members and even then she failed to take any personal responsibility for her complicity in their activities.

I'll say that watching the first episode made me wonder why humanity deserves to live. The self-absorption of these young fools, believing that their behavior is the only solution to their new- found freedom from the Soviet bloc, is maddening. Their visits to Buchenwald were sickening. But it was well done as a film, so I read up on what to expect from ep. 2 and 3. Episode 2 dealt with death of Mr. Simsek and Semiya Simsek's evolution into a lucid speaker against racial violence. The grief into which his family was plunged as various police units came, interrogated them repeatedly as new detectives were assigned or took over from their retired predecessors, accused them of being part of a non-existent drug importation ring, blamed them for their husband's and father's death, then went silent for long periods (it happened in 2000 and the NS members fell into police laps in 2011 - try to understand what that must have been like!). Episode 3 could have been the outline for an episode in M. Clouseau's bumbling career, had it not been for the tragic in-fighting that kept local police from doing their jobs, and kept the NSU functioning as the Federal police and intelligence services hoped that their moles would uncover something broader than the "mere" murder of a "few" Turkish shopkeepers.

I always want to understand how these kinds of violent behaviors play out in human history. This series did an honest job of showing how delusional behavior, official lies, and incompetency results in unnecessary death and mistrust of governments. Well done, but not for those who avoid provocative material.

BeneCumb's review is spot on....

[lazygafiltafish · 6/10 · 22 March 2020]

It started out good, but then it did drag a bit. I get why they broke it up the way that they did (episode 1 shows the filth in their day to day life; episode 2 shows what the family of one of the victims went through; and episode 3 shows the investigation ), but the flow just didn't work.

I also am still puzzled by things within this miniseries. 1. The cover up was simply because one of the higher ups in the police liked to go to gay orgies with the head on the NS party? If that's not it, I don't know why there was a cover up to begin with unless the older police detectives had the same beliefs as the NS which didn't seem to be the case (it just wasn't addressed).

2. The girl's normal non NS friend from high school seemed like within 2 years got married and had 2 years. Timeline just felt weird.

3. Why was the NS informant killed in the end if the investigation was already over?

4. How did the trio know to leave the apartment before the cops came?

5. Did the Turkish girl have something going on with the young German detective because they alluded to that in their scenes?

6. How did the main NS guy (the one who wanted to get into the army) get actually involved in NS activities? His family seemed like loving, normal, educated middle class people whereas the other 2 came from broken, low class families (the type you expect to be skinheads).

7. And most importantly, did 1 of the NS murderers actually get killed from the police? To me it seemed like they just committed suicide knowing the jig was up, but then the young police woman seemed to think 1 was killed for whatever reason by the police.

9. Why did the the NS girl turn herself in?

Just so much confusion for me.

Extremely good show

[lincolnls050505 · 10/10 · 11 August 2018]

Crazy how powerful this show is like it has had me obsessed with trying to research neo nazi info etc i am obsessed with ww2 tho specifically nazi germany aspect

Touching a shameful part of recent German history

[criscal · 7/10 · 22 September 2021]

The series has not well done by trying something new by separating the different views of perpetrators, victims and police into different episodes. It would have made much more sense to tell the story as one time-line. The actors were chosen well, they were "quality" and not cheap ones usually used for documentary-flicks.

The shameful part is that the German state has not done its best to find out the truth about the NSU that could have had the same impact as the case Dutroux in Belgium. The very definite possibility is that the secret service "Verfassungsschutz" has kept their helping and protecting hands over a right-wing terrorist cell that has operated for many years until the two men of the group had no way out with their camper van because of a street block after a bank robbery they had committed. It is a definite possibility that the men of the group have been eliminated in that camper and their camper set on fire and that the camper has been ordered to be towed away by complicit police men before forensics were done.

Realistic movie

[erik-sprokkereef · 9/10 · 21 December 2018]

This is a very realistic movie about the uprise of a neo nazi group in former East Germany

shocking, makes u wake up

[hagit-34254 · 10/10 · 27 June 2018]

I am not sure if this is a true story, but it feels so real. Wow! I look back at things that happened in the world, and I wonder if they happened because of all this hatred. it is like u did this, then they will do this. X there is so companies that are called X are they all related? The series is in German, with English Subtitle. Is this what going on in the world today? God protect us all, amen.

The story had a lot more to offer

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 30 September 2016]

"Mitten in Deutschland: NSU" or "NSU: German History X" (wow.. what a bad title) is a German mini-series from earlier this year that aired on television. It consists of three parts and each of them runs for slightly over 90 minutes, the first even over 100 minutes. It gives us an insight into the time of far-right terror here in Germany that does not go that far back in history and it is about the three NSU (national Socialist Underground) members Uwe Mundlos, Uwe Böhnhardt and Beate Zschäpe killing several Turkish (and one Greek) people living and working in Germany. It needed them to start robbing banks until the police finally got on their trail. Mundlos killed Böhnhardt and himself while the trial against Zschäpe is still going on, has been for over three years now I believe and yesterday was actually the first time she made a statement and spoke in court for the first time when she was (as expected) accusing the two dead men of being responsible.

But lets not look at reality now, lets look at these award-nominated almost 5 hours. Each of the three episodes is from another director (Schwochow, Aladag, Cossen) and the cast is also very different. Some actors appear in two episodes, but apart from the connection of the topic, it's almost three stand-alone movies. The first is about the trio of killers. The second is about the victims. And the third is about the police investigating. I think the standout here is Anna Maria Mühe (yes, she is the daughter of Ulrich) who plays the female terrorist. Schuch is solid, even if his role does not have a lot to offer really, while Urzendowsky only stays memorable because of his physical transformation. And films two and three also have many known German actors such as Hennicke, Schilling, Gersak, Lukas, Groth, Fries, Noethen, Berkel and more. It's really a great cast list.

But the project offers very little and I do believe it was a missed opportunity. The runtime is somewhat justified, but really more from the perspective that the trio worked together for such a long time, over two decades. I do not like the general idea of splitting it into three individual movies. I am okay with the idea of bringing in victims and the police, but I would have preferred one director in charge of these films and he should have made them all and given us a chronological take on the subject. The focus in this case could have been the trio at the core of it all with occasional sub-plots about victims and police and I think this would have turned out more interesting than two individual films so far away from the main focus. Anyway, I still think the actors did a somewhat decent job, also in films 2 and 3, even if I probably never will like Florian Lukas as a serious actor and I also felt that the focus on him was also too big. He was too much in the center of it all. And I also did not like some of the fictitious dramatization aspects, such as the guy who dies in the very last scene apparently. It was okay from the drama perspective, but in terms of authenticity, it took the whole thing too much in the fantasy/fiction department.

All in all, I do not think this was a failure, but I also do not think the film managed to deliver the dramatic/emotional impact that it could (maybe should) have delivered. It's really a very important subject in German history and I think the name Zschäpe will still be known to Germans (and foreigners) with an interest in politics 50 years from now. I am almost certain that there will be more movies in the future about the NSU and what they did, who they were and what motivated them to commit their horrendous actions. This movie (collection of movies) does not do the subject justice. I have to give it a thumbs-down and I can only repeat myself in saying that this was truly a missed opportunity (especially with the cast at hand) and that, by now, I'd rather recommend to see a documentary instead of this film.