Season 56

Paul is kidnapped in the street. An attentive neighbor is killed by the kidnapper before she can give a statement. The parents receive a ransom demand, but detectives Lena Odenthal and Johanna Stern determine that it is a diversionary tactic. The case is strikingly similar to a kidnapping nine years ago, in which Swen, who was nine years old at the time, was released after months of captivity, apparently unscathed, but the perpetrator has not yet been identified. Swen seems to have survived the terrible experiences of his childhood. But he still cannot help the detectives, even though Johanna Stern manages to build a good relationship with the unstable young man. The detectives realize that Swen is being haunted by ghosts from his childhood experiences and that he is still traumatized. They need his memory to find the way to the kidnapper.

Collecting debts is his job. And Fabian Pavlou is very good at it. He is considered one of the most successful field staff at the international company Correct Inkasso. But now Pavlou was brutally attacked on his way home. When the inspectors Max Ballauf and Freddy Schenk arrive at the crime scene, there is no trace of the victim. Did one of the debtors the debt collection manager recently dealt with take revenge - or did he see no other way out? For example, there is the tax clerk Stefanie Schreiter, who is facing a wage garnishment because of her ex-husband's debts. Or the completely indebted masseur Timo Eckhoff, who can no longer pay his electricity bill. Or the married couple Monika and Jost Lehnen, who are facing the foreclosure of their home... Then the colleagues from the manhunt call in. They have located Pavlou's cell phone. At a motorway rest area near Cologne. But the point on the map is moving. Max Ballauf immediately starts to pursue him...

In a rental property in Kiel, Klaus Borowski and his colleague Mila Sahin find 40-year-old insurance clerk Andrea Gonzor shot dead on her bed. Andrea Gonzor had apparently invited people to an erotic party that evening. Numerous traces of semen around the dead woman indicate that the victim had apparently had several sexual partners that night. There are traces of alcohol and tranquilizers in her blood, but there is no evidence of a sexual crime. Borowski and Sahin delve into the world of sex and love addicts. The only key to solving the problem seems to be Andrea's friend Nele. She discovered the dead woman.

Sebastian Bootz is among the guests at a film premiere in Stuttgart when the screen suddenly goes black and a man and a woman threaten the audience with guns. Panic breaks out, several people manage to flee, shots are fired - and a security guard lies dead on the ground. When Sebastian Bootz grabs his gun to stop the hostage takers, he is threatened and shoots the man. But the perpetrators are not deterred. Bootz is disarmed and, along with the remaining guests, becomes hostage of the two unknown men. Because he managed to contact Thorsten Lannert unnoticed, he is one of the first to start work in the operations center. He and the members of the crisis team are working feverishly to find out who the hostage takers are, how they can be stopped and further deaths prevented. Much depends on the cooperation between the two inspectors and this must now prove itself from a distance.

Saarbrücken, deep in the night. An explosion shatters the silence. Sleepless Chief Inspector Pia Heinrich is the first on the scene: a security guard was killed in a brutal robbery of an armored car. When Chief Inspectors Leo Hölzer and Adam Schürk arrive, they are presented with a disturbing scene left behind by a massive explosion. What does the number sprayed on the street mean? Does a trail lead to an internationally wanted criminal gang in neighboring France? Chief Inspector Esther Baumann activates her contacts with the French police. Or does the surviving security guard know more than he admits? The team has barely begun their investigation when events take a dramatic turn and Pia is in danger...

Janusz disappears during a high school graduation party. Marlin, a classmate, calls the police to report him dead before he himself is run over on a country road. Since evidence suggests a violent crime, Leonie Winkler, Karin Gorniak and their boss Schnabel from the Dresden Criminal Investigation Department begin searching for the student and investigating. His classmates remain silent - no one claims to have seen or heard from Janusz again.

In broad daylight, a man is shot dead from a great distance by a sniper in the center of Berlin, near the Friedrichstrasse subway station. Susanne Bonard and Robert Karow are under pressure - and under observation: Preparations are underway for a major state visit to Berlin and the Senator for the Interior is worried about the murder. Public Prosecutor Taghavi demands that the matter be clarified as quickly as possible.

An unknown dead woman is found in a derelict military vehicle. Leitmayr, Batic and Hammermann discover that a vehicle is missing from a nearby army base. The dead woman was obviously employed as a "civilian on the battlefield" for a NATO maneuver that is currently taking place. Together with Military Police Officer Jennifer Miller, the detectives not only find the crime scene, but also another dead person on the premises. Given the maneuver, the police have little time to solve the murder case. They therefore decide on an unconventional investigative method: "embedded investigation".

Techno, ecstasy and party, party, party: In the 1990s, Christian, Meike and René were part of the scene and celebrated above the rooftops of Cologne in the legendary "Colonius". It has been around 30 years since the three last saw each other. Now they are brought together by inspectors Ballauf and Schenk after their former friend, the former scene photographer Alex Schmitz, was found murdered in his apartment. He was also a regular at the "Colonius" - has his past caught up with him? A trail on the Internet leads the investigators deep into the old party world and to their former companions. Christian's daughter Svenja also becomes the focus of the investigation. Her mother Gina disappeared without a trace after a night of partying...

With only days left until his retirement, Borowski uncovers a chilling case linked to a dark house. As he investigates, he's stalked by a killer who anticipates his every move, all while racing against time before his career ends.

It's hot, it's crowded – pregnant Nina and her husband Sven are under stress as they board the cable car that will take them from the summit to the valley. During the ride, Nina gets into an argument with one of the passengers. This escalates into a scuffle. When the gondola arrives at the valley station, the man is dead.

Ira Klasnić wants Rosa Herzog and Peter Faber to investigate a fatal hit-and-run. But it quickly becomes clear that there may be more to the story. The victim, Angela Herrig, is the ex-girlfriend of suspected clan member Lorik Duka. Did he have a score to settle with her? According to Dr. Greta Leitner's autopsy report, the driver must have hit her head-on at high speed. Suddenly, an old acquaintance appears on the scene: Ira Klasnić has called in Inspector Daniel Kossik from the State Criminal Police Office. Faber used to be his boss. The two clashed repeatedly and didn't part on good terms...

Chief Inspector Frank Thiel and Professor Karl-Friedrich Boerne are confronted with a student case that puts their professional and personal relationships to the test. After a party at the Münster Medical Faculty, where Chief Inspector Frank Thiel and Professor Karl-Friedrich Boerne were also celebrating more or less wildly, the body of student Chris Haffmeister is discovered. He died from a mysterious stab wound. During the autopsy, forensic pathologist Boerne quickly determines that Chris was not alone in his final moments.

At Chef André Brauer's Viennese gourmet restaurant "Efeukron," knives are sharpened every day—literally for cooking, but also proverbially for each other. While the well-heeled clientele dines in refined style, a toxic working atmosphere and military morals prevail in Brauer's kitchen: If someone in the "brigade" falls, the next person in the hierarchy moves up! When the egomaniacal boss is found stabbed to death in front of his home after a drinking session with his team and without his wife Alicia present, Bibi Fellner and her colleague Moritz Eisner search among the staff for the murder weapon and the perpetrator.

A knife attacker kills two people in Hanover under the cover of a dense crowd. The nationwide investigation team, including Chief Inspectors Thorsten Falke and Anaïs Schmitz, faces a difficult task: There is no trace of the perpetrator. And there is a danger that he will strike again. To gather possible clues, the decision is made to use the innovative software KROISOS. After a comprehensive data analysis, the program quickly presents a likely perpetrator: the mentally ill René Kowalski. His sister Nora, however, considers it impossible that her brother is the perpetrator. Falke also remains skeptical. Then another crime occurs, almost identical to the first, overturning all certainties...

The world's top chess players gather for a tournament in the Alps: seven men and one woman. The "Queen," Natalie Laurent, is brilliant, provocative, and possibly a cheat, which has earned her many enemies in the male-dominated world of chess. When Laurent's second falls to her death from the roof of the luxury resort, many hypotheses arise: Was a misogynist at work? Was a complicity being silenced? Or did she take her own life? During the ongoing tournament, Leitmayr, Batic, and Hammermann must uncover the tactics and deception behind the scenes to solve the mysterious death. They receive surprising and invaluable help from their forensic pathologist: Dr. Matthias Steinbrecher. He turns out to be a chess ace and proves to the detectives that even pawns can bring down a king.

When a body washes up on a beach on the Weser River, Bremen investigators Linda Selb and Liv Moormann are faced with a mystery. Initially, there are no clues as to the body's identity. In the course of their investigation, the detectives not only encounter stalking perpetrators and victims, but also explosive investigative research and toxic addictions. Meanwhile, Rani Ewers is living a nightmare: Her ex-boyfriend Marek Kolschak is lurking everywhere for the single mother and her daughter Mia – at the playground, on the street, in front of the front door. When she finds the framed family photos on her wall defaced after a visit to the playground, her roommate Paula Södersen urges her to finally report him. Forensic pathologist Edda Bingley provides the team with crucial clues. As clear-cut as the case initially appears, the lines become increasingly blurred, witnesses become suspects, and suspects become witnesses, who suddenly find themselves in mortal danger.

There is unrest in Vienna's city center: An angry protest march attempts to storm the government district, leaving one demonstrator dead in the street: Jakob Volkmann, a front-row participant. Major Bibi Fellner and her colleague Moritz Eisner take over the delicate murder investigation.

Meike Gebken is found dead. She had been living in a women's shelter with her young daughter for four weeks. But what is the motive for the crime? To find out, Rosa Herzog goes undercover in the women's shelter.

Vanessa Tomasi is hanging from a treetop – one side of her long blonde hair has been shaved off! In a nearby bunker. Detectives Grandjean and Ott, along with public prosecutor Wegenast, find the body and discover traces of a horrific.

The discovery of a body raises questions: The man, missing for two years, was buried two meters deep in the earth in the floodplain near Nuremberg. Andreas Schönfeld, a 37-year-old bicycle dealer at the time of his death, was considered friendly and popular with his neighbors, yet Franconian investigators discover that he had no close friends. Chief Inspector Felix Voss - in his first case without his long-time partner Paula Ringelhahn, but strongly supported by Wanda Goldwasser and his current driver Fred - wonders: What connections led to the bicycle dealer's gruesome death? A visit to the victim's mother, Erika Schönfeld, reveals a loving mother-son relationship, and the pain is immense. In their further attempt to reconstruct Schönfeld's life, Felix and Wanda encounter the blind Lisa Blum.

Several people died of cardiac arrest almost simultaneously on a Saturday morning in Zurich and the surrounding area. The cause was electric shock from implanted defibrillators (ICDs), whose manufacturer had fallen victim to a cyberattack. Hackers are demanding a ransom in the hundreds of millions of euros for a digital key that will get the company's computers working again! Detectives Isabelle Grandjean and Tessa Ott are under extreme pressure as reports of further deaths keep coming in.

Frankfurt Commissioners Hamza Kulina and Maryam Azadi encounter unexplained murders in the archives of old police cases and discover links to a former serial killer who led a seemingly normal life.

After running away from the youth home “Seven Sleepers”, 16-year-old Lilly is found dead in a lake. Her boyfriend Pascal is missing. Investigators Winkler and Schnabel are encountering conflicting statements in the home – and another crime is about to happen soon.

In the Altes Land region, Romanian farmer Victor, a temporary farmer, was beheaded. Local police officer Olaf Gerke assumes it was a fatal accident involving agricultural machinery. But Charlotte Lindholm doesn't quite believe this. Following her instinct, she rents a vacant room on the organic farm where the victim last worked. Little by little, she delves into the complex psychological profile of the farming family and uncovers toxic relationships between them.

A young delivery cyclist is run over by a car on a side street in Berlin. The traffic accident quickly turns out to be a murder. Susanne Bonard and Robert Karow search for clues among the victim's acquaintances. Little by little, Bonard and Karow uncover a larger plan. But who are the masterminds, and is the deceased's grieving lover involved?

Mike, in his mid-twenties, introduces his girlfriend Nisha to his parents. The meeting is awkward, becomes increasingly hostile, and escalates when the young couple mentions wedding plans and a pregnancy. Suddenly, Mike and Nisha find themselves standing in the living room of the parents' house, confronted by two dead bodies. Panicked, they decide to cover up the crime.

When Friedemann Berg learns of his brother Reinhard's escape from the psychiatric hospital, he suspects the worst. Reinhard does indeed arrive at the Berg family's isolated farm, accompanied by the taciturn Mika Novak and the violent Luke Badrow. They also arrive in a car and carry a pistol, clearly connected to the murder that Friedemann Berg and Franziska Tobler were supposed to be investigating. It's definitely not a friendly visit, even though Reinhard acts as if he's just spending the night with the family. Held at gunpoint by Luke Badrow on the farm, the detective is trapped. He's paralyzed by Luke Badrow's increasingly aggressive behavior and by his sense of responsibility for his younger brother. And he has no way to contact Franziska Tobler, whose anger at her unreliable colleague is growing. Finally, she drives onto the farm, putting herself right in front of the unpredictable Luke Badrow's gun.

The body of a young woman had apparently lain in her apartment for weeks when it was discovered, prompting Stuttgart detectives Thorsten Lannert and Sebastian Bootz to begin their investigation. Why hadn't anyone missed Nelly Schlüter? Neither her parents nor her brother, and certainly not her best friend, Fine Slowinski? Everyone described Nelly as outgoing and cheerful, but none of them were interested in getting closer to her. Thorsten Lannert and Sebastian Bootz wondered whether Nelly Schlüter was really as lonely as she seemed and searched for the person Nelly would have been better off not letting into her life.

Six years ago, three-year-old Viktoria Reiter and her father, Julian, vanished without a trace. When the investigation yielded no results after a year, the case was closed as a cold case with suspicion of murder-suicide. But Viktoria's mother, Anna Reiter, doubts this theory – and years later, she is still tirelessly searching for her child. Maryam Azadi, who investigated the case as a detective with the missing persons unit at the time, is also haunted by the mysterious case. When Anna, in her desperation, launches an appeal on social media, offering a reward for any information, no matter how small, leading to Viktoria's whereabouts, events take a dramatic turn: A homeless man claims Viktoria is still alive and asks Anna to meet him. Shortly afterward, Anna also disappears – and becomes the prime suspect in a murder case. Together with her colleague Hamza Kulina, who is simultaneously conducting an internal investigation, Maryam takes up the case.

At the presentation of a new bicycle model, instead of the innovation, a freezer containing a frozen corpse is unveiled.

A caregiver in a nursing home lifts the mobility-impaired resident Danijel Filipovic into the bathtub, but leaves him alone briefly—upon his return, he finds Filipovic drowned. Detectives Moritz Eisner and Bibi Fellner investigate in an environment of overwork, understaffing, and interpersonal tensions. Motives are not immediately obvious, but family conflicts and a strained relationship with the nursing staff come into focus.

At a campsite in the German-Dutch border region near Emden, car dealer Joe Glauning vanishes without a trace. Since he left behind personal belongings such as his ID, keys, and cell phone, and traces of blood are found, investigators suspect a serious crime. Federal Police Chief Inspector Thorsten Falke takes on the case, which leads him to the Netherlands and confronts him with involvement in the illegal drug trade. He is assisted by cybercrime expert Mario Schmitt and Dutch police commissioner Lynn de Baer.

The episode "Black Snow" picks up directly where the episode "A Good Day" left off.

During a performance of Chekhov's play The Seagull at a Munich theater, the up-and-coming actress Nora Nielsen collapses on stage and dies. Detectives Batic, Leitmayr, and Hammermann investigate behind the scenes, amidst jealousy, affairs, and casting dramas. The team soon uncovers a dark secret from the recent past, which provides new leads.

Commissioner Murot suffers from the psychological strain of his job and undergoes a novel therapy: with the help of a machine, he can experience his own psyche as a walkable landscape. Meanwhile, single mother Eva Hütter flees with her son Benjamin after facing the loss of custody in court. She hides with the child in a cabin in the woods, but falls into a coma after an accident. Benjamin remains missing. With all leads gone, Murot embarks on a risky experiment: he connects with Eva's consciousness to find clues to the child's whereabouts while she is in a coma. The search becomes a journey through Eva's mind—and to the limits of Murot's own psyche. Ultimately, his colleague Wächter must also intervene in the case to save them both.