Tatort S2013E02 - Ritter - 34 - Machtlos

Nine-year-old Benjamin Steiner (Mika Seidel) has been kidnapped from his music teacher's apartment. The two commissioners Till Ritter (Dominic Raacke) and Felix Stark (Boris Aljinovic) are used by operations manager Baumann (Rainer Sellien) as contact persons for the parents. Linda and Hermann Steiner (Lena Stolze and Horst Günter Marx) spend anxious hours full of fear until the kidnapper finally reports: A DVD shows the kidnapped child in good health. The ransom is to be handed over in two parts. Linda Steiner hands over the first 500,000 euros under strict police surveillance at Alexanderplatz. After that, the kidnapper makes no move to leave the place. Instead, he starts giving away the money to passers-by and eventually allows himself to be arrested without any problems.
He would like to tell his parents personally about his second ransom demand – but he stubbornly keeps quiet about Benjamin's whereabouts. As it turns out, the kidnapper is Uwe Braun (Edgar Selge) - a man without a permanent address, without a bank account, without contact with his family and therefore without any significant leads for the officials. When the parents finally meet their son's kidnapper in the interrogation room, it turns out that bank manager Hermann Steiner knows the man. He just can't immediately remember from what specific context. Uwe Braun, on the other hand, obviously knows that very well - and makes his second ransom demand: ten million euros, he wants to receive the money in the presidium.
It becomes clear to Ritter and Stark that Braun sees himself as morally right - what drives the persistent, silent man to commit this insane act? Time is running out for the inspectors, and Benjamin's drinking water is running out. Ritter and Stark get in touch with Braun's son Michael (Jakob Walser) - will he be able to talk sense into his father?