The German-Danish sequence “The Cum-Ex” affair | EUROtoday

How can the advanced relationships of the biggest worldwide tax fraud of all time be conveyed to a tv viewers? You can inform linearly, let investigations like spectators within the unclear in regards to the criminals and placed on the bang impact on the finish. Script writer Jan Schomburg determined towards it within the German-Danish co-production “The Cum-Ex” affair, which celebrated its premiere a number of weeks in the past. In the eight elements of his sequence, he depends on pace, ambiance and, above all, readability.

Less than 4 minutes have handed within the pilot sequence, you’re in the course of it: the famend tax lawyer Bernd Hausner, on whose recommendation the financial bosses and high politicians of the state hearken to the nation, explains his newest plan to the opposite attorneys of his legislation agency: in shares with and with out dividend entitlement with the assistance of so -called empty sellers, a capital positive aspects tax paid as soon as from the tax workplace. Investment with a excessive return. In order to relax his hopelessly overwhelmed colleagues, Hausner tries the picture of empties withdrawal within the grocery store: As if by magic, a deposit bottle could be two from the grocery store fund for a second and thus extra money. “The supermarket is actually the state. And we don’t want to say that we have pity with the state.”

Because Hausner himself was a finance officer, the circumstances between good and evil are shortly clarified. At the identical time, the relation to actuality has been made: Banks, inventory sellers, funds and traders have been looted, advising and lined by attorneys with the Cum-Ex-Masche with the Cum-Ex-Masche. After an evaluation of the transaction knowledge of those enterprise by the Mannheim monetary scientist Christoph Spengel, the tax loss in Germany quantities to a minimum of 7.2 billion euros. In Denmark, the place the second storyline of the sequence performs, it was the equal of two billion euros: the creators of the sequence estimate the full harm to Europe to 146 billion euros.

In the presentation of his characters and the motion, Schomburg refers to analysis by German and Danish investigative journalists, particularly Oliver Schröm (now writer on the “Stern”), who contributed quite a few TV and print contributions to make clear the scandal and wrote two well-regarded books. There are a number of causes that the sequence continues to be not a documentary with characteristic movies and isn’t as straightforward to devour because the Netflix manufacturing “King of Stonks” from 2022, which was impressed by the billion-dollar fraud at Wirecard.

On the one hand, it is because of its narrative construction. Each episode illuminates each what is occurring in Germany and in Denmark, depends on time jumps and lack, which can be essential in view of an archery from 2005 to 2023. In this nation we comply with the speedy success of Hausner and his younger Adlatus Sven Lebert in addition to their private relationship-which corresponds to the a number of convicted cum-ex-stripper Hanno Berger and his ex-business associate Kai-Uwe Steck. The third essential character, the formidable prosecutor Lena Birkwald, is barely launched in the course of the sequence; It is unmistakably modeled on the previous Cologne chief investigator Anne Brorhilker.

In Denmark, then again, the robust lady is the main target proper from the beginning. She is dedicated to the banks and a passive supervisor: the finance officer Inger Brøgger is combating a hopeless struggle towards lobbyists within the customs and tax authorities Skat, which stop them from clarifying tax fraud. When a door lastly opens for the idealistic Brøgger, this ends in a private tragedy and betrayal.

With sober photos and calm sequences, the Danish narrative strand creates an excellent steadiness for the extra visible hare-and-igel recreation, which Hausner, Lebert and her pursuer Birkwald carry out. The extra of her characters – wasteful luxurious on the a part of the unscrupulous attorneys and a boyish prosecutor in practical clothes, who volunteers in her free time – is desired – is desired and works by consideration to element. The characters achieve depth, which is especially evident in Leber’s battle together with his mother and father’ home and the substitute of Leber’s from his foster father Hausner.

The proven fact that the stereotypes aren’t bored is basically because of the robust line -up to the supporting roles. Nils Strunk embodies the change of liver from the shy junior lawyer to the cool, tactical opportunist. The occupation of the previous grasp Hausner with Justus von Dohnányi is a stroke of luck: his recreation of vanity, extreme morality and outbreaks of anger creates an concept of ​​the ivory tower wherein many cum-ex professionals nonetheless sitting right now.

In the function of the prosecutor Birkwald, Lisa Wagner, in flip, advantages from her earlier expertise within the area of crime sequence. It offers the charger a ruggedness that may even embody the then Federal Finance Minister Olaf Scholz due to his attainable affect on the Hamburg tax authority – the one time that the sequence leaves its fictional framework. But Lena Birkwald additionally has to take setbacks. Your searches within the space of ​​the Hamburg SPD and the tax authorities are prevented. The controversial prosecutor threatens to lose the backing of her authority. Their efforts to have Hausner from Switzerland additionally ship failed throughout a go to to Zurich.

At the second of the defeat, the primary private encounter between the antagonists happens on the closing in Zurich. It appears like a tribute to the well-known dinner scene from Michael Mann’s “Heat”, wherein Al Pacino and Robert de Niro sitting reverse themselves as hunters and chased: Birkwald and Hausner, who protects his escape to Switzerland from the investigators, are on impartial soil at truffle pasta and white wine. In dialog, the Cum-Ex stripper should admit that each one the hundreds of thousands price him his private freedom. When his final trump card doesn’t stab and Birkwald explains that he needs to make the world a greater place “by providing him and his congestion packages of his just punishment, Hausner is beaten – he leaves the restaurant without a word.

Shortly afterwards, Hausner is delivered to Germany. The process is made. But Birkwald already has the next perpetrators targeted. Even the hesitant Denmark now has stock traders arrested. Like a fable, the extremely entertaining format thus sends a clear moral message on its last meters: if you deliberately reveal society, this betrayal will soon get this.

All episodes of The Affäre Cum-Ex can be found within the ZDF media library from Saturday.