Successful author Klaus-Peter Wolf: He finds ZDF thrillers better than the “crime scene”

With his East Frisian thrillers, Klaus-Peter Wolf (71) delights millions of readers. But he also looks back on a long career as a screenwriter for the most popular German TV crime series. The latest film adaptation of one of his crime novels, “East Frisian dead silence”, will be broadcast at Arte on April 25 at 8:15 p.m.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Wolf wrote numerous screenplays for well-known rows such as “Tatort” and “Police Call 110”. A time from which he benefited a lot from: “I learned a lot on television – filmic thinking and watching carefully. I spent half a life on the set and dealt with all the trades that you need for the success of a film,” explains the Gelsenkirchener and Wahl -Ostfriese in an interview with the news agency spot on news. To this day, it is influenced by his writing: “Sometimes people tell me that they like to read my novels because they can make a film in their own head. I am pleased if I succeed in writing so imaginative.”

A special highlight from his time as a screenwriter was working with Ulrike Folkerts. “I particularly liked to write for Lena Odenthal,” Wolf remembers his crime scene books for the public broadcaster.

For the “crime scene” Wolf wrote three episodes: “Rip off” (2004) for the SWR team of the SWR with Ulrike Folkerts as well as “Janus” (2004) and “Revanche” (2006) for the Frankfurt team of the Hessian Radio.

His work for the “police call 110” is even more extensive. Here he was responsible for “Saturdays when war” (1994), “Small Dealer, Great Dreams” (1996) and “Hetzjagd” (1998) with Vera Bilewski (Angelica Domröse) for Süddeutscher Rundfunk. For the Bavarian Radio, he wrote the scripts on “On the Spider” (1997) and “Feuer!” (1997) with Dr. Silvia Jansen (Gaby Dohm) as an investigator.

As one of the greatest challenges of his work as a screenwriter, Wolf found the limited opportunities for figure development: “I found it difficult that I could not develop the people. It wasn’t ‘my’ figures, but the broadcaster only entrusted me with me for one or two episodes.” A clear restriction for the creative process, as he emphasizes: “Of course, people develop in my own novels, as they do in life.”

“Since it was not my characters, my freedom was of course limited,” Wolf recalls the work as a screenwriter for the transmitters. “Stories were created in conversation with the editor and broadcaster, but I always had to move in the television corset.” A corset that is no longer created with his own novel figures.

As a spectator, Wolf has developed clear preferences: “I hope you are not angry with me if I open it very openly: I now like the ZDF thrillers much better than what the ARD has to offer.” Especially for formats such as “Die Die Toten from Lake Constance” with Matthias Koeberlin, “Helen Dorn” with Anna Loos, the Spreewald crime thrillers with Christian Redl and “Beyond the Spree” with Jürgen Vogel is happy to switch on.

The question of whether he himself would write a “crime scene” script with a clear no: “Since I no longer write the screenplays for my novel films to have more time for my novels and reading trips, I am currently missing the motivation to write a ‘crime scene’ script.”

For Wolf, the films of his own novels, such as “East Frisian dead silence”, still mean joy: “The film films are trying to preserve and transport the spirit of my characters. I experience that as great happiness.”

Wolf, who is now the most -touched novelist German language, experienced three first broadcasts of his novel films in April. Already on May 21, his new novel “A murderous couple – the fall” will be released.