Herrhausen – The Banker and the Bomb

His rise seems unstoppable, his creative drive unlimited: In the 1980s, Deutsche Bank boss Alfred Herrhausen not only wanted to revolutionize the financial sector, but also to overcome the division of the world into East and West. German Film award winner Oliver Masucci shines in the title role of the business boss who was murdered in 1989 and whose power and boldness made him a target for dangerous enemies. The award-winning screenplay by Thomas Wendrich – awarded best screenplay at the Series Mania festival in Lille – uses true events for this breathless political thriller. Producer Gabriela Sperl won the Bernd Burgemeister Television Award in Munich for the production. Director Pia Strietmann staged this dramatic chapter of contemporary German history in an intellectually gripping and breathlessly stirring way.

The tense contrast between Herrhausen’s self-assured actions and dark nightmare sequences – atmospherically filmed by Florian Emmerich – creates a multi-layered characterization of a man whose legacy still shapes the banking industry today. The historical significance of his controversial loans to the ailing socialist regimes of the Soviet Union and Hungary, which accelerated the fall of the Iron Curtain, is made tangible in this epic feature film. The role of his opponents – from the American secret service to the GDR regime to the RAF and its Palestinian terrorist allies – form the starting points for the fictionalized reading of the events that have remained unexplained to this day.

Frankfurt 1987: Deutsche Bank boss Alfred Herrhausen (Oliver Masucci) is the rising star of the financial world: charismatic, eloquent – and impatient. In order to push through his visions, Herrhausen reaches for the sole leadership of the traditional bank and wants to outdo his rival Van Hooven (Thomas Loibl). Herrhausen’s assistant Wasner (David Schütter) and the first female board member Ellen Schneider-Lenné (Bettina Stucky) help to drive forward the modernization of the bank. In Traudl (Julia Koschitz), he has a clever wife at his side.

As a supporter of Gorbachev’s reforms, the banker enters the mined terrain of world politics. When the Iron Curtain crumbles in 1989 and German reunification seems possible, Herrhausen also thinks of the advantages for the bank. US strategist Kissinger (Dov Glickman) warns. Chancellor Kohl (Sascha Nathan) is also cautious – but at the same time uses Herrhausen’s financial power.

In Lebanon, Al Fahoum (Yousef Sweid) prepares an RAF terror cell for attacks under the watchful eyes of the Stasi and the US secret service. The target is soon Herrhausen.