"Crime scene" check Could you steal ID cards or money from the Berlin Federal Printing Office?
Crime scene at the Bundesdruckerei? Detectives Bonard (Corinna Harfouch) and Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) investigate a dead bicycle courier.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
The "Tatort" investigators Susanne Bonard (Corinna Harfouch) and Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) visit the headquarters of the bicycle courier service "Cheetahs".
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) and Susanne Bonard (Corinna Harfouch) find little empathy for the riders from the bike courier dispatcher (Leonie Krieg).
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) questions the employee (Leonie Krieg) of the bike courier service who is responsible for scheduling the riders.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
A moment ago, young mother Denise Bonnefoy (Magdalena Wiedenhofer) thought her husband Xavier Weberlein (Hannes Wegener) was the victim and dead. But shortly after the shock, he enters the door in good health.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
The driver's relatives, his brother Luis (Henry Morales, left) and roommate Gabriel (Alberto Wolf), are devastated by the terrible news of the fatal traffic offense.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
Bundesdruckerei security employee Annika Haupt (Annett Sawallisch) has been working for "the German Fort Knox" for a long time.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
Crime scene at the Bundesdruckerei? Detectives Bonard (Corinna Harfouch) and Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) investigate a dead bicycle courier.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
The "Tatort" investigators Susanne Bonard (Corinna Harfouch) and Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) visit the headquarters of the bicycle courier service "Cheetahs".
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) and Susanne Bonard (Corinna Harfouch) find little empathy for the riders from the bike courier dispatcher (Leonie Krieg).
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) questions the employee (Leonie Krieg) of the bike courier service who is responsible for scheduling the riders.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
A moment ago, young mother Denise Bonnefoy (Magdalena Wiedenhofer) thought her husband Xavier Weberlein (Hannes Wegener) was the victim and dead. But shortly after the shock, he enters the door in good health.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
The driver's relatives, his brother Luis (Henry Morales, left) and roommate Gabriel (Alberto Wolf), are devastated by the terrible news of the fatal traffic offense.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
Bundesdruckerei security employee Annika Haupt (Annett Sawallisch) has been working for "the German Fort Knox" for a long time.
Image: rbb/Schiwago/Hardy Spitz
In "Tatort: Erika Mustermann" from Berlin, Bonard (Corinna Harfouch) and Karow (Mark Waschke) have to find out what scams are going on at the Bundesdruckerei. Could criminals really be up to something there?
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- A dead bicycle courier brought the Berlin "Tatort" duo to a rather mysterious place in their case "Erika Mustermann".
- Bonard (Corinna Harfouch) and Karow (Mark Waschke) investigate at and in the German Federal Printing Office. This is where not only money but also identity documents are produced.
- Due to secrecy, the makers were not allowed to film in the printing works itself. But would a coup also be possible in real life?
In the opening credits of "Tatort: Erika Mustermann", there is an insert that is rather unusual for the traditional German crime format: "The plot of this film, including the equipment and internal processes of the Bundesdruckerei, is fictitious."
In fact, hardly any other German location is as secret and as strictly controlled as the institution subordinate to the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF), where German money and ID documents are produced.
Around this mythical place, "Tatort: Erika Mustermann" invents a thriller about a dead bicycle courier and the question of what exactly the man was carrying that made him a victim. Almost more exciting than the murder mystery plot, however, are the questions surrounding the Bundesdruckerei. Has there ever been a scandal here? What does the taciturn store do for the country and its people? And who is Erika Mustermann anyway?
What was it all about?
A bicycle courier was fatally run over. Before his death, the man had frequently traveled to the Bundesdruckerei printing office in Berlin-Kreuzberg. The dead man's bag was missing at the scene of the accident. As you might have guessed, bicycle couriers do not transport newly printed banknotes. They are delivered under heavy security. So what was interesting about the dead man's cargo?
Susanne Bonard(Corinna Harfouch) and Robert Karow (Mark Waschke) investigated in two directions. Firstly, they contacted the Bundesdruckerei and got to know the company from the inside. The "Cheetahs" bike couriers, where many South Americans and low-wage riders from other countries pedal their bikes, were also investigated by the detectives.
They hoped for a connecting element from a security employee at the Bundesdruckerei: Annika Haupt (Annett Sawallisch) knew the dead bike courier privately.
What was it really about?
The Writers Room around Dagmar Gabler, Josefine Scheffler and Thomas André Szabó as well as director Torsten C. Fischer had to take a few leaps for the film in order not to discredit the Bundesdruckerei. After all, it is a highly sensitive federal institution whose processes and security standards must remain secret.
In fact, film scenes were only allowed to be shot outside the building. All the scenes set inside the building and the procedures there are fictitious. The appeal of the thriller lies in the question: can a high-security state apparatus be tricked - and if so, how?
Who is Erika Mustermann?
Whenever the photo of a German model identity card is shown, it depicts a fictitious average woman named Erika Mustermann. She was originally supposed to have been born Erika Gabler in Munich on September 12, 1945. Her date of birth was later changed to August 12, 1964.
She became famous throughout Germany in the 1980s with the new machine-readable ID card, which was presented to Germans with her black and white picture. The face on the ID card belonged to a real employee of the Bundesdruckerei. Over the years, various women have posed for the model photo.
How much money and which papers are produced at the Bundesdruckerei?
Probably the most secure printing works in Germany not only produces Germans' money, but also highly official identification documents such as ID cards, passports and driving licenses.
According to the Federal Ministry of Finance, around 693 million banknotes, 3.7 million passports and around 2.6 million driving licenses are produced every year. In 2024, there was a boom in orders for passports - with orders of over 700,000 per month.
Technically, however, the Bundesdruckerei could even produce around 50,000 ID cards per day. Work is mainly carried out on German money and papers. However, Bundesdruckerei has also occasionally worked for foreign customers.
Has money or identity documents ever disappeared from the Bundesdruckerei?
There is no reputable source that mentions the loss of banknotes or embossed money. However, it is known that blank ID documents, i.e. ID cards that have not yet been personalized or provisional ID cards supplied to authorities by the Bundesdruckerei, would be "worth a lot of money" in criminal circles.
There are no reports that fresh banknotes from Bundesdruckerei have disappeared. In Berlin in 2022, 77 passports that were transported by UPS courier from the Bundesdruckerei to a citizens' office were reported as "missing", according to a report in the "Bild" newspaper.
Who prints money and identity documents in Switzerland?
In addition, D-Trust GmbH, a subsidiary of the Bundesdruckerei Group, reported an attack on an application portal on January 13, 2025. The personal data of applicants may have been stolen. Although this was not a "physical theft of ID cards", it was a relevant security incident, the company reported.
Money and identity documents in Switzerland are mainly produced by the company Orell Füssli Security Printing Ltd in Zurich. The Swiss National Bank (SNB) commissions Orell Füssli to print all banknotes. The company also produces Swiss passports on behalf of the federal government.
What's next for the Berlin "Tatort"?
With the next episode of "Tatort: Gefahrengebiet", planned for spring 2026, Corinna Harfouch as Susanne Bonard is already saying goodbye again.
Shortly before her retirement, she is involved in one last case that takes her from Berlin's Teufelsberg into the middle of the wilderness, while her colleague Robert Karow immerses himself in the dystopian world of preppers and bunkers. The script and director was Mira Thiel, who had already written and directed the episode "Tatort: Am Tag der wandernden Seelen" about the Vietnamese scene in Berlin for the duo Karow & Bonard.
It was perhaps the pair's best case to date. In this respect, the chances of the great Corinna Harfouch bidding a worthy farewell to her Tatort career (only five cases in six films through the two-parter at the beginning) are quite good.
