On June 1st, 2019, around 11:30pm, the shoot which represents a turning point in the federal republic falls. In the hessian small town Wolfhagen-Istha, the district president of Kassel, Walter Lübcke, is murdered during this night, while, just a few meters away, the annual carnival is putting the locals into a festive mood. It is DNA-evidence on the clothes of Walter Lübcke which leads the investigators on June 15th, 2019, to his presumptive murderer: Stephan Ernst. The previously convicted right-wing extremist Ernst gets arrested by a SEK unit in Kassel. A first background check reveals: Stephan Ernst was known to the security authorities, but they did not have him on their radar for six years. Now he is back. And a person is dead. The docu-drama “Schuss in der Nacht” („Shoot in the dark“) tells emotionally, and simultaneously factually, how the deadly attack on Lübcke came to be. It tells about the first far-right motivated murder of a politician since the era of national socialism.
While World War One is coming to an end, the Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert is trying to maintain political stability in Berlin. In the haughty Prince Max of Baden he finds an ally who offers him government participation under his chancellorship. In the meantime, discontent with the monarchy is steadily increasing in the last days of the war, but Emperor Wilhelm II remains steadfast in his throne.
