An unskilled worker in the former GDR kills a police inspector and takes over his identity. He is confronted with a series of murders that force him to face his past in order to solve them.

SYNOPSIS:

To avoid his execution during the popular uprising in the GDR Jan Keschke, an unskilled worker, steals police inspector Wolfgang Raabe’s identity. He killed him in self-defense just before, while stepping in to save an innocent woman.

The woman he saved disappears in 1968 in connection with several deaths while trialing a Western drug. In order to solve the case, Keschke has to join the Special Commission of the Ministry for State Security. His initial investigations lead Keschke to his home town, Görlitz. He had not been back due to his switched identity.

With every case he works, he is revealing more about his true identity and risks blowing his cover. At the same time, everyone in this motley special commission seems to be following their own agenda and hiding secrets.

File analyst Hanna Feist, for instance, is rumored to be related to Margot Honecker (née Feist) and only got the job that way. At least that’s what personal assistant, Edith Beyer, claims who infiltrated the group as a Western agent and would do anything for her first important mission to be a success.

The young forensic scientist Linh Nguyen is also vulnerable, since she is in a lesbian relationship with a civil rights activist. Gustav Engelbrecht, the head of the Special Commission, on the other hand is crafting his political career, but Central Committee candidate, Zacharias, is in his way, and in turn becomes more and more the focus of the investigation.