''Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst'' ("Case number XY... unsolved") is a German interactive television programme first broadcast on 20 October 1967 on

ZDF ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...

. Created by

Eduard Zimmermann Eduard Zimmermann (4 February 1929 – 19 September 2009) was a German journalist, television presenter and security expert. Life Eduard Zimmermann was born on 4 February 1929 in Alte Heide in the borough of Schwabing-Freimann in Munich, Germ ...

, it aims to combat and solve crimes. The programme is currently presented by

Rudi Cerne Rudi Cerne (born 26 September 1958) is a German TV presenter and former figure skater. He is the 1984 European silver medalist and a two-time West German national champion. He competed at two Winter Olympics, finishing fourth in 1984. Person ...

. It airs monthly, with 12 episodes in a year, on Wednesday at 8:15 PM. From March 1968 until December 2002, it was produced in cooperation with the Austrian public service broadcaster

ORF ORF or Orf may refer to: * Norfolk International Airport, IATA airport code ORF * Observer Research Foundation, an Indian research institute * One Race Films, a film production company founded by Vin Diesel * Open reading frame, a portion of the ...

and

Schweizer Fernsehen Schweizer Fernsehen (SF; "Swiss Television") is the German-language division of SRG SSR, in charge of production and distribution of television programmes in Switzerland for German-speaking Switzerland. It has its head office in Zürich. ...

, a division of the Swiss public broadcaster

SRG SSR The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (german: Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft; french: Société suisse de radiodiffusion et télévision; it, Società svizzera di radiotelevisione; rm, Societad Svizra da Radio e Televisiun; SRG ...

, who joined in January 1969 and left in December 2003. The programme was adapted by the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

as ''

Crimewatch ''Crimewatch'' (formerly ''Crimewatch UK'') is a British television programme produced by the BBC, that reconstructs major unsolved crimes in order to gain information from the public which may assist in solving the case. The programme was or ...

'' and for the US market as ''

America's Most Wanted ''America's Most Wanted'' (often abbreviated as ''AMW'') is an American television program whose first run was produced by 20th Television, and second run is under the Fox Alternative Entertainment division of Fox Corporation. At the time of i ...

''. Other adaptations of the format were aired in a number of countries including Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and Sweden.

Format

The goal of the programme is to cast light on unsolved offences with the aid of viewers. Each episode contains three to five short films, each lasting about ten minutes, in which a real criminal case is reconstructed. The cases are mostly complex ones in which the criminals and chains of events are still unknown. In addition, cases are discussed in the studio in which, for example, the identities of criminals or unknown murder victims are sought with the aid of a photo. Viewers can use the telephone or internet to give information. According to a study by the programme's editorial department, about forty percent of cases shown on the programme are solved.

History

The creator and first presenter of the programme was

. After the programme's 300th episode he passed the presentership onto

Butz Peters Butz Peters (born 22 January 1958 in Hanover) is a German television presenter and jurist who presented '' Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst'' from 1997 to 2001. He is the author of four bestsellers (among others ''Tödlicher Irrtum – Die Geschichte ...

, who fronted the show together with Zimmermann's daughter Sabine. Since 18 January 2002 ''Aktenzeichen XY'' has been presented by

. With ''Aktenzeichen XY'' Eduard Zimmermann and ZDF succeeded in starting a TV format that had not existed worldwide until 1967. Although news reports had often shown

photofit A facial composite is a graphical representation of one or more eyewitnesses' memories of a face, as recorded by a composite artist. Facial composites are used mainly by police in their investigation of (usually serious) crimes. These images a ...

s, an actual independent show of this type was unknown at this time. The idea came to Zimmermann during his work with the programme ' (Eng: ''Beware, Trap!'') first broadcast in 1963, in which he warned the viewers of ''"Nepper, Schlepper und Bauernfänger"'' (Eng: ''

Scammer A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have de ...

s, Hustlers and Conmen''). The viewers frequently sent him information regarding descriptions of the

fraudster In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensa ...

s on the programme. This gave him the idea to use the medium of TV to work with the police on unsolved crimes. In a biographical statement Zimmerman also admitted that his motivation for both programmes was partly a personal one; he himself is a victim of fraud. ''Aktenzeichen XY'' was initially produced in the ZDF studios in

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

, before moving to the FSM studios in

Unterföhring Unterföhring is a municipality in Upper Bavaria. It lies adjacent to the northeast side of Munich, and is one of the nearest suburbs to Munich's central district. History Before the establishment of Munich around 1158, an important crossing exi ...

from 1969. From 15 March 1968, the Austrian public broadcaster ORF became a joint producer of ''Aktenzeichen XY'', with a segment focusing on Austria hosted first by Thaddäus "Teddy" Podgorski ( de) from 1968 until 1971, then by

Peter Nidetzky Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

( de) from 1971 until 2002; which from 24 January 1969 was also joined by Schweizer Fernsehen (SF), with a segment focused on Switzerland hosted firstly by

Werner Vetterli Werner Vetterli (28 July 1929 – 14 June 2008) was a Swiss modern pentathlete. He competed at the 1952 and 1960 Summer Olympics. In 1956, Vetterli began to work for Schweizer Radio DRS, in 1965 for Swiss television as a reporter, presenter a ...

from 1969 until 1976, then by

Konrad Toenz Konrad is a German (with variants ''Kunz'' and ''Kunze'') given name and surname that means "bold counselor" and may refer to: People Given name Surname *Alexander Konrad (1890–1940), Russian explorer *Antoine Konrad (born 1975), birth name o ...

( de) from 1976 until 1998, and finally

Stephan Schifferer Stephan may refer to: * Stephan, South Dakota, United States * Stephan (given name), a masculine given name * Stephan (surname), a Breton-language surname See also * Sankt-Stephan * Stefan (disambiguation) * Stephan-Oterma * Stephani * Step ...

from 1998 until 2002. An attempt to extend ''Aktenzeichen XY'' beyond West Germany first took place on 18 July 1969, when ZDF and the Dutch public broadcaster NOS produced a joint episode featuring Dutch journalist

Johan van Minnen Johan Tjitze van Minnen (31 October 1932 – 18 April 2016) was a Dutch journalist and politician. He was a foreign correspondent in first Luxembourg and later West Germany. Between 1975 and 1978 he was the ombudsman of the television show '. Van ...

from a studio in

Enschede Enschede (; known as in the local Twents dialect) is a municipality and city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Overijssel and in the Twente region. The eastern parts of the urban area reaches the border of the German city of Gronau ...

, with NOS providing simultaneous translations from German to Dutch. That project was however unsuccessful due to

language barrier A language barrier is a figurative phrase used primarily to refer to linguistic barriers to communication, i.e. the difficulties in communication experienced by people or groups originally speaking different languages, or even dialects in some ...

s and was abandoned after said broadcast. A more successful attempt took place on 14 July 1972, when the West German branch of the

American Forces Network The American Forces Network (AFN) is a government television and radio broadcast service the U.S. military provides to those stationed or assigned overseas. Headquartered at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, AFN's broadcast operations, which i ...

(AFN) took part in a broadcast of ''Aktenzeichen XY'', with simultaneous interpretation into English on AFN TV. The first colour episode of ''Aktenzeichen XY'' aired on ZDF on 16 January 1975. On 8 November 2002, the broadcast of the 350th episode was celebrated, after ''Aktenzeichen XY'' had been on the air for 35 years. Eduard Zimmermann was the guest of Rudi Cerne on his own programme, which concerned a several-decades-old crime that had particularly touched him – the

Ursula Herrmann kidnapping The kidnapping of Ursula Herrmann was a notorious child kidnapping which occurred in Germany on 15 September 1981 in which a 10-year-old girl disappeared while riding a bicycle to her home. The child was subsequently found dead in a rectangular ...

, about a young girl who was buried alive in a crate for extortion on 15 September 1981 (a case similar to the case of

Barbara Jane Mackle The 1968 kidnapping of Barbara Jane Mackle was the subject of an autobiographical book which was the basis of two television movies. Background Barbara Jane Mackle, aged 20 at the time of her kidnapping, was the daughter of Robert Mackle, a we ...

. At the time 3,228 cases had been featured on the show, of which 1,182 had been solved. 1,880 people had been sought and 914 of them had been caught. This included 624 murder cases. In April 2012 the program received international public attention of a somewhat amusing nature when one of its case re-enactment performers, German actor , was erroneously arrested in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the ...

following his portrayal of a jewel robber in the episode of 14 March 2012 and a call to the police by one of the program's viewers. This misunderstanding was, however, cleared very swiftly. A 2-hour special episode of ''Aktenzeichen XY'' aired on 16 October 2013, dealing with the case of

Madeleine McCann Madeleine Beth McCann (born 12 May 2003) is a British missing person who disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on the evening of 3 May 2007, at the age of 3. ''The Daily Telegraph'' described the disappeara ...

, who disappeared in Portugal in 2007 at the age of three. McCann's parents and a

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

detective were also featured in the broadcast. A record 24.3% audience share was recorded in that episode alone. On 3 June 2020, the Criminal Police Office presented a new suspect on ''Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst'' and made a public appeal again for information relating to the case. The police stated that they received useful information regarding the new suspect in 2013 after the case was first featured on ''Aktenzeichen XY'', but that it took years to find substantial evidence for prosecution, and that they still need more information. The programme is known for its high viewership across all age groups. In 2014, ''Aktenzeichen XY'' was watched by around six million viewers, with an audience share of 20%.

Similar formats

In Germany

The private broadcaster Sat.1 and the public broadcaster MDR both produced similar programmes, known as ''Fahndungsakte'' (English: ''Manhunt Files'') and ''Kripo live'' respectively. Sat.1 cancelled ''Fahndungsakte'' in 2000 after three years' run due to low audience figures. MDR has had more success with ''

Kripo Live ''Kripo live'' is a German television series. Originally broadcast on DFF2 at irregular intervals and at different stations, it ran for the first time on May 19, 1990. After the shutdown of ''DFF2'', the MDR took over the show on January 5, 1 ...

'' on air since 1990, which concentrates on

Kriminalpolizei ''Kriminalpolizei'' (, "criminal police") is the standard term for the criminal investigation agency within the police forces of Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking cantons of Switzerland. In Nazi Germany, the Kripo was the criminal polic ...

. Sat.1 briefly aired a revival of the format, titled ', in 2016. Others include ' (

ORB Fernsehen RBB Brandenburg (until May 2003 ORB-Fernsehen) was the third television channel for Brandenburg, (Germany) from January 1992 to March 2004. Until May 2003, it was organized by Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg (ORB), then by its successor, Rundfu ...

later RBB Fernsehen, since 1992), ''Crime! – Der Justizreport'' (

HR-Fernsehen hr-fernsehen is the regional television channel of Hessischer Rundfunk for the state of Hesse, Germany. Overview The channel focuses on regional reporting. In addition to the afternoon programme ''hallo hessen'' and the weeknightly tabloid magaz ...

, 2004), ''Ungeklärte Morde – Dem Täter auf der Spur zeigt'' (

RTL II RTL Zwei (stylised as RTLZWEI), formerly spelled RTL 2 and RTL II, is a German-language television channel that is operated by ''RTL2 Television GmbH & Co. KG''. RTL2 is a private television broadcaster with a full program ''(Vollprogramm)'' ...

, 2002–2003 and 2011–2013), ' (

NDR Fernsehen NDR Fernsehen is a German free-to-air regional television channel targeting northern Germany, specifically the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Hamburg and Bremen. It is broadcast by both Norddeutscher Rundfun ...

and

WDR Fernsehen WDR Fernsehen is a German free-to-air television network owned and operated by Westdeutscher Rundfunk and serving North Rhine-Westphalia. It is one of the seven regional "third programmes" television stations that are offered within the federal ...

, 2008–2011;

Das Erste Das Erste (; "The First") is the flagship national television channel of the ARD association of public broadcasting corporations in Germany. ''Das Erste'' is jointly operated by the nine regional public broadcasting corporations that are member ...

, 2018 and its regional versions '' Maintower kriminalreport'' (HR, since 2014) and ''Kriminalreport Südwest'' (

SR Fernsehen SR Fernsehen is a regional public service television channel owned and operated by Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR) and serving Saarland. It is one of the seven regional "third programmes" that are offered within the federal ARD network. The chan ...

, 2018–2019), which was replaced by ''Vorsicht Verbrechen'' (SR, since 2019).

Internationally

The format has been sold to several countries, including

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

where it has been known as ''

'' since 1984 and has spawned a number of spin-offs, one of which is still on air (the daytime version) alongside ''Crime NI'', a regional version broadcast monthly in Northern Ireland. ''Aktenzeichen XY'' is the first German television format to have entered the American market, where it is known as ''

'' and was originally broadcast from 1988 to 2013 before being revived in 2021. Other versions include: * Hong Kong (''

Police Report In legal terminology, a complaint is any formal legal document that sets out the facts and legal reasons (see: cause of action) that the filing party or parties (the plaintiff(s)) believes are sufficient to support a claim against the party ...

'', 1973–2020; ', 1985–1997) * Netherlands (', since 1975; ', 2021) * Israel (''Crime Investigation'', 1986) * Singapore (''

'', since 1986) * Poland (', 1986–2010, since 2017; ''997: Fajbusiewicz na tropie'', 2013–17) * New Zealand (''

'', 1987–1996; ''NZI Crimescene'', 1997–98) * Italy (', since 1989) * United Kingdom (''Crime Monthly'' (later ''Crime Weekly''),

LWT London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 un ...

, 1989–1998; ''Britain's Most Wanted'',

ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...

, 1998–2000; '' Manhunt – Solving Britain's Crimes'', 2006–2007) * Finland (' (originally ''PTV – suunta 931''), 1989–2013) * Brazil (''

Linha Direta ''Linha Direta'' (lit. ''Direct Line'') was a Brazilian television program broadcast by Globo Network. Similar in style and loosely based on the United States program, ''America's Most Wanted'', this program has also helped the Brazilian authoriti ...

'', 1990, 1999–2007) * Norway ('' I søkelyset'', 1990–1991; ', 1992–1997; ''Efterlyst'', 1998–2000, 2007–2008; ', since 2016) * Sweden (''

Efterlyst ''Efterlyst'' ("Wanted") is a Swedish television program, equivalent of ''America's Most Wanted''. The show plays security camera footage, reconstructions of crimes, and then takes calls and tips from the Swedish public. Since it was first aired, ...

'', since 1990) * Hungary (''Az XY Akta Megoldatlan'', since 1992) * Ireland ('' Crimeline'', 1992–2003; ''

Crimecall ''Crimecall'' is a television show broadcast once monthly on RTÉ. It is co-produced in Dublin, Ireland by Green Ink Ltd and 360 Production South Ltd. Since January 2018, the show is presented by Sharon Ní Bheoláin. It is a second RTÉ adapta ...

'', since 2004) * France (', 1993–1996) * India (''

India's Most Wanted ''India's Most Wanted'' (IMW) was a crime busting fugitive hunter television show initially on Zee TV and later on DD1, India's national broadcaster Doordarshan. The show was made famous by its Anchor-Director and Producer, Suhaib Ilyasi w ...

'', 1999–2005) * Denmark (', since 2001) * Belgium (', 2008–2013; ', since 2013) * Austria (''Fahndung Österreich'', since 2021)

References

Literature

* Ummenhofer, Stefan and Thaidigsmann, Michael: ''Aktenzeichen XY... ungelöst – Kriminalität, Kontroverse, Kult''

External links