Death in Lübeck

On a frosty January night in 1996, a frantic woman in Lübeck, Germany manages to get through to the emergency line. "Neo-nazis, fire, Hafenstrasse," is all she is able to scream into the telephone before she along with her five children are engulfed in flames. In the end ten people were burned alive in the house inhabited by refugees, who dreamed of a new life in prosperous and democratic Germany. To this day the police have been unable to track down the culprits, despite the fact that the following day three extremely suspicious youths, who did not hide their neo-Nazi sympathies, were detained. A pair of German filmmakers decided to reconstruct the case, with the help of black-and-white material and expressive music. The very strange approach of the public prosecutor is treated with playful irony by a cabaret performance, which in its "Lübeck Ballad" subjects the entire investigation to uncompromising criticism. The raw poetry of the black-and-white footage in places is reminiscent of the industrial films of the silent era.