Pfarrer Braun

Guido Braun, a hedonistic reverend from Bavaria, is once more transferred by his irate bishop for repeated venturing in 'criminalizing' (sleuthing), in this case worsened by toying with the seal of confession to get his headstrong housekeeper's knavish son Armin out of prison. This time he's posted as curate in the mainly Lutheran northern isle Nordersand, a poor parish, unappealing to him or his company. Barely settling in, Braun suspects the sudden death of rich wheelchair widow Helene Groenewold to be a murder, seeking a motive in her local ornithology foundation's rich endowment.

It will soon be October 31st again and Halloween is approaching on Nordersand. Markus, Chief Inspector Geiger's son, literally stumbles upon a skeleton in the dunes as he sneaks around the house of the beautiful Jovanka, who he is madly in love with. What should he do with the spooky find? Markus and his friends Heiko, Timo and Uwe come up with the idea for a prank: They create digital photo montages of Jovanka and other islanders "in the company" of the skeleton and spread them all over the island. While Inspector Geiger is not particularly interested in the photos, Pastor Braun immediately suspects murder. And his research seems to prove him right, because another skeleton soon turns up. In the meantime, forensic pathologist Dr. Schwenke, who was actually on holiday on Nordersand, has examined the first skeleton - and the result sets off all the alarm bells for our amateur criminologist. The bells also ring for his housekeeper Margot Roßhauptner, who already sees the next punitive transfer from her employer coming.

It had to happen: Because the gifted detective pastor Braun simply cannot stay out of the police investigations, he is once again transferred by Bishop Hemmelrath as a punishment. His new place of work is the small town of Bangerode in the Harz Mountains. But before Braun sets off there, he has to make a holy vow never to get involved in criminal cases again, no matter how harmless or serious they may be. What pastor Braun does not suspect: Hemmelrath's scheming aide Mühlich has ensured that the tradition-conscious Braun is assigned to an ecumenical congregation. When he arrives in Bangerode, the amateur detective can hardly believe his eyes when the young, casually dressed Protestant pastor Happe welcomes him. Braun's resolute housekeeper Margot Roßhauptner, known as the Roßhauptnerin, is also amazed when Happe's funky, esoteric-minded deacon Valeska immediately addresses her informally and introduces her to the kitchen of the shared rectory: raw and frozen food replace traditional cooking skills, and a microwave is the most important kitchen appliance. But it doesn't take long for the Roßhauptnerin to become friends with this "emancipated" form of cooking. As if that wasn't enough trouble, Pastor Braun's loyalty to his vows is soon put to the test. In Bangerode, new information emerges in a case that had already been filed as solved: it concerns the murder of the teacher Rinke. After confessing, the pretty, deaf-mute student Antonia is in custody as the perpetrator, although her friend Winfried claims to be the real perpetrator. Such strange contradictions naturally make Pastor Braun curious. With the support of the slightly awkward Inspector Geiger, he conducts his own investigations - of course in the greatest secrecy, because neither the bishop nor the strict Roßhauptner woman must find out anything about Braun's "relapse". In fact, it doesn't take long before the clever priest, with his unusual investigative methods, comes across a hot lead.

Grudgingly, father Braun's gang takes up his now post, a parish in the predominantly Protestant Harz region. He's fascinated by the archaeological dig in the Bangeroder Stiftskirche and befriends charismatic Restaurator Manuel Castelnuovo, who helps him dodge a diet, but dies from mysterious poison. Braun duly mistrusts Geiger's ability to work it if it has anything to do with the dug-up provost's tomb curse, or with Egyptian artifacts and a virus, so he digs into various parishioners past and present.

Bishop Hemmelrath has sent the portly amateur detective Father Braun to Marienfels Monastery, where he is to lose weight according to the old Benedictine rule "ora et labora" (pray and work!). The medieval abbey, which demonizes everything technical in accordance with the strict rules of its abbot Nicodemus, is famous for its library, which employs renowned translators. Hemmelrath also visits the monastery to have a valuable manuscript from the 15th century, which was recently bequeathed to the church, translated into German by a competent hand. When the bishop hears the monks' confession on this occasion, an anonymous monk confesses that he has killed "on God's orders" - and will do it again. To Hemmelrath's horror, Father Bonifazius, who has recently gone missing, is actually found dead. Concerned about his appointment as cardinal, Hemmelrath is forced to ask Father Braun to solve the case as discreetly as possible. Braun does not let his joy show and sets culinary conditions, which the bishop grudgingly grants. Together with Inspector Geiger, who is smuggled in as a Franciscan on a pilgrimage, Father Braun begins secret investigations. But the amateur criminologist cannot prevent Father Pankraz, another well-known translator, from passing away under strange circumstances. Pankraz's mysterious last words "Nag Hammadi" then put Father Braun on the right track: Bonifazius and Pankraz have translated newly discovered writings from Qumran and Nag Hammadi, which have some explosive power in church politics: According to them, it is not Peter but John who founded the church, which would call the papacy into question. And the murderer wants to prevent this knowledge from leaving the monastery at all costs. Father Braun is in great danger.

Grateful bishop Hemmelrath posts father Braun in an idyllic rose-growing Rhine town. His maid and her son seem to find love there. Braun smells murder when the local Baron Falkenberg and his sons seem to be suffering the fatal results of a course which would see their family extinct and the castle fall to another. Braun wins his bet with police commissioner Geiger to finds the motives for recent and older events to come up with a surprising key suspect.

Shortly after father Braun arrives in his new parish Pfaffenberg, a Catholic stronghold in the former Saxon GDR part, the grand rectory, alas object of several tours a day, becomes a crime scene as Spanish guide Rosa is murdered and suspicion falls on her lover, Czech colleague Matje, whom Braun grants church asylum. Local police, ex-GDR, refuses so examine other angles and cocky but clumsy commissioner Geiger can't handle them, so Braun takes the case, assisted by devout acolyte Johannes Kurig. They find alternative motives, establish opportunity and set a trap. .

The moving boxes have not yet been unpacked when the young Czech Leni takes refuge from a ring of girl traffickers in Pastor Braun's church. The heavily pregnant woman gives birth to her child in the pastor's bed of all places - which leads Bishop Hemmelrath to make assumptions that drive him to the brink of despair. When Leni suddenly disappears and leaves her child behind, Braun and his housekeeper have to step in as surrogate parents. "Father Braun" is very pleased with the new role, but unfortunately has little time for the child. He is too preoccupied with the case of the beautiful Elbe river owner Susanna Vogelsang. Rumor has it that the "black widow" has already put two of her husbands to death. When her third husband Karl also dies under mysterious circumstances, two widow comforters are on hand: the pathologist Dr. Storz and the undertaker Florian Graf. Pastor Braun can't help it - he simply has to "criminalize" again. Of all people, Inspector Geiger, who is investigating a ring of girl traffickers, puts the priest on the right track this time: there is a connection between Leni's disappearance and Karl Vogelsang's death. The priest, who has been through all the holy waters, is investigating a particularly complicated murder case this time. Audience favorite Ottfried Fischer once again takes on the role of the amateur investigator who is perfectly tailored to him with great enthusiasm. Alongside Hansi Jochmann, Peter Heinrich Brix, Hans-Michael Rehberg and Gilbert von Sohlern, Fischer is supported by Leonard Lansink and Peter Sattmann, among others. Wolfgang F. Henschel directed the film against the picturesque backdrop of Saxon Switzerland.

To cash a huge legacy from a late millionaire whoa admired Braun as a detective, the bishop grudgingly posts him in the ailing Catholic parish of her Saxon birth town in the former GDR, dominated by hostile Lutherans. She also left a secret letter requesting he investigates the suspicious death of her late husband, founder of the hotel that made their family fortune. A new murder follows.

Bishop Hemmelrath transfers Pfarrer Braun to Franken, for a 'real Bavarian' like him a renegade region as it left the 'free state'. The parish town, Kurdorf, boast a miraculous bleeding and weeping Jesus-image carved in a cliff, which becomes a pilgrimage site. Braun stumbles onto the corpse of local reporter Manuel Kullmann, which has stigmata. Shortly after, the Vatican fact finder's corpse is also found. Braun mistrusts the votive exploitation and preacher, proves the miracle fake and discovers more local secrets.

Father Braun must rush to the death bed of countess Marietta of Junkersdorf in Frankenland, diverted from his housekeeper Margot's modest farmer inheritance, shared with a country stepsister. But the aristocrat expects to be betrothed to butler and recently re-found youth love Max, mainly to spite her gold-digging kin. Braun finds himself in a wasps nest including the majordomo Butzke, who falls to his death, and shortly after the suspiciously dying groom, while the countess offers forensic help. Braun digs into older secrets.

Father Braun had his doubts about the honor to supervise as celebrant the professing of novices in a posh female Benedictine nunnery, feeling lady abbots are never to be trusted, even before crime strikes. Lurking around the abbey, private detective Hermann Rammstet photographed Braun's naughty 'altar boy' Armin's romantic meetings with novice Anna, but spying one such night on Armin, Braun discovers Rammstet's knife-pierced corpse at the monastery wall. Braun is declared sole prime suspect, costing 50.000 Euro bail while the ambitious state attorney and his assistant seem after the priest's scalp, so bishop Hemmelrath, who assumes the gardener must be the killer, tails Braun, who easily shakes him off and teams up with commissioner Geiger, who even helps him 'borrow' evidence. They seek links between the PI and any secret hidden by the abbess Johanna, novices mistress Maria and novice Anna, while his housekeeper, Armin's mother Roßhauptnerin, goes undercover as 'prospective nun' . Braun finds the gardener knows about a secret passage and the key link to a much older crime.

Father Braun is transferred as curate in Potsdam's St. Cassian parish. Local rabbi Chaijm Seelig is absurdly the prime suspect of the blunt murder of a gentile gardener whose corpse is found in the synagogue. The victim's firm Kruschke bitterly rivals Jewish colleague Adam Grün's but secretly worked on re-breeding a priceless extinct black tulip, which ties to a Dutch murder. Discovering heirs from the rival families, both after the monumental Sansouci royal palace garden contract, have secretly fallen in love, priest and rabbi support such reconciliation key, yet bicker about their religion's incompatible claims to marriage and offspring.

Curate Braun to a protestant stronghold in Havelland. In The his Lutheran counterpart, pastor Lehmkuhl, dies from eating a poisoned pear past-out to the faithful in traditional honor of the town's legendary, alas missing ancient pear tree, crucial to a local developer's hotel project. Braun finds out about the Lehmkuhl family's dark secrets and the tree, thus crossing the monsignor's mission to negotiate about the potentially lucrative old church.

Braun is transferred to Saarland wine village St. Florian, which is dominated since long by semi-secret society of seven hereditary winery 'queens'. Fishing, he discovers the corpse of drowned old wine grower Konz. The villagers' prime suspect is millionaire Rose Assmann, who left to marry a GDR citizen and presumably stole part of its missing state funds. Geiger and Brauns also dig into her claim to the town's by far most prestigious winery, which belonged to her family until her communist 'treason'.

Bishop Hemmelrath transfers father Braun to St. Florian, a poor parish in the Saarland's derelict mining region. The local 'Palomas' men choir is linked with the keeping of pigeons, who also deliver quite some love - (to Braun's maid Margot) and other notes. Shortly after, chorister Adolf Zwickel and a local Casanova suspiciously fall to their deaths. Meanwhile the bishop's ambitious deputy, monsignor Mühlich, traced to the parish the pigeon which delivered a ransom note for a huge, precious, obviously stolen church treasure, so he's sent to pay it discretely. Only Braun can make sense of all the confusing sets of pigeon messages.

Bishop Hemmelrath hopes to pose as a missionary to the Protestant north by having a late curate on an Ostee island canonized. He sends Braun there as new parish priest. Alas, he soon finds there was a murder committed in the sleepy town, which now gets a scandal press. It all relates to a lost son returning to his father after a dark GDR episode.

Luxurious bishop Hemmelrath urgently needs more income, but the new electronic donation system isn't yielding serious money. The only exception is a female donor in father Braun's new parish, a fashionable spa near the Polish border. Vicar Mühlich identifies her as an industry heiress using a fake name and is dispatched to help Braun get half a million Euros out of her. In the spa, petty ex-con Klaas Wittek is killed during a nightly motorbike ride by a hidden cable. Commissioner Geiger has to handle the case jointly with his Polish colleague Stanislaw Kowalsky, as the bike was stolen in Poland. Later, Lithuanian aristocratic playboy Wiktor Radziwill is murdered in Leo Meschkat's luxury spa hotel, by trowing one of Dr. Valentin's lethal Australian jellyfishes in his bath, just after his infidelity was overheard.

Bishop Hemmelrath's sycophantic deputy Mühlich's seminary friend died of a cardiac arrest in his parish, a castle outside Passau. It's only the first of several, each corresponding to an original Grimm brothers rhyme about the seven dwarfs. Mühlich arranges for Braun to be named to that parish and enlists his retainer Armin to train him in martial arts, supposedly as episcopal bodyguard. The victims include banker Zapf and a museum director, both involved in a grim intrigue about the priceless original Grimm manuscripts, which ruthless thieves are after while rivaling academics dispute research prominence. Braun finds the common factors and solves both cases.

Bishop Hemmelrath lost a fortune, like many private persons, in bad investments trough Bernie Blumenfeld, alas donations of the faithful. So he and monsignor Mühlich send delighted Braun as new curate to Bernie's Bavarian home town. The prelates soon check in the town's hotel after hearing Blumenfeld was found dead in the historical torture room, part of the luxury rest home, where some near-ruined investors tried to extract the whereabouts of the money. Braun sends his housemaid in, posing as a new pensioner guest. Home nurse Margarete Halfinger is murdered too.

Bishop Hemmelrath hastily sends father Braun to the Bavarian home village of concert violinist Bridget Murrag after the Stradivarius, part of the cathedral treasure, she has on loan, was stolen from her artist's lodge. Police commissioner Geiger enjoys the ride, counting on Braun to crack the case. Bridget, a career bitch who planned to move to England, drag her boy along and dump him i a boarding school instead of letting devoted father and grandfather apprentice him as string instrument maker, is murdered shortly after, strangled with a harp string.