12th Koblenz Charity Thriller Shot on WHU Campus

It’s Saturday morning, and class is in session. Except, whatever it is that’s going on inside the Albach Auditorium at WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management, it has nothing to do with business and nothing to do with economics: “Lethal Force – Shooters and Witnesses through the Lens of Criminal Psychology.” As cameramen bustle about the lecture hall, all eyes are focused on Catrin Nickenig, alias Petra Kern, psychologist and crime analyst.

Nothing about this scene mirrors your average day on campus. But why? Because it’s all pretend.

Portions of the upcoming twelfth Koblenz charity thriller, author Bernd Schneider’s Soko Karmelenberg, were filmed on WHU’s campus in Vallendar, over two weekends in March. Apart from in the lecture hall (which, in the film, is located at a police academy), the film crew also shot scenes in the office of Professor Arnd Huchzermeier (Chair of Production Management) in the C-building, in the school’s Goethezimmer, and the school lobby.

The story chiefly takes place in the real town of Bassenheim, a quiet village near Koblenz where, up on the Karmelenberg, a hotelier has been found dead of a supposed heart attack. But his close friend, television repairman Horst Hofer (played by Ralf Hoffmeyer) isn’t buying any of it. He tells police that his friend had been in good spirits before his death, as he had recently begun seeing a waitress named Denise, a much younger woman 25 years his junior. After agreeing to go undercover, Kern, wearing a wire and spy camera, checks into the hotel, and it isn’t long before she starts pursuing several suspects and putting the pieces together. But as she traces the deceased’s footsteps on the night he died, she discovers she’s not alone on the Karmelenberg—and a showdown commences.

Production on the film is scheduled to end by the fall season, with a premiere in Bassenheim to follow. As has been the case since the project’s inception over 25 years ago, all proceeds are to go toward charitable causes. To date, the revenue generated by past films as part of this project has been donated to everything from children’s aid organizations to the Vallendar-based Lichtzeichen e.V., which offers assistance to pregnant women and girls in need. And Schneider, the mastermind behind the project, is not alone. Alongside assistant director Claudia Huchzermeier and the rest of their film crew, he has worked on these films with several prominent actors over the years, including Hannelore Elsner, Veronica Ferres, Claus Theo Gärtner, and hitmaker Thomas Anders.

Until the film makes its public debut, the crew will be shooting weekends all around the region.