MovieChat Forums > The Night of the Generals (1967) Discussion > They had no case on Tanz.

They had no case on Tanz.

posted 13 years ago by mike-848
9 replies | jump to latest

I'm not an attorney but even though they found Hartman in 1967, they had no evidence to convict Tanz much less arrest him.

Hartman was forced to run away after the murder in Paris and changed his name. Also, Hartman's identity disk and finger prints were found in the French prostitute's apartment. If anything, Hartman's testimony as a sole witness that Tanz was the real killer would hold no merit if he was caught in 1944 or as he was later found in 1967.

Tanz knew this in Paris when he set Hartman up. Hartman also knew that the evidence was agaisnt him which is why he never surfaced with the story.

Another thing I found strange about the film is that if Tanz REALLY wanted to get away with murder 100% as in case closed, he should have shot Hartman like he threatened to. Why he let Hartman run away so he wouldn't be arrested was a gesture of some kind of warped kindness I imagine on the General's part. I guess Tanz only really wanted to murder female prostitutes in some sort of psycho-sexual perversion.

Any criminal attorney movie buffs out there have thoughts on this?

[–] AureliaBuendia 11 years ago

I'd heard the name of this film many times over the years but just presumed it was a straightforward war film " Nazi serial-killer" was never mentioned! As to the post above, why would he have killed Hartman, he'd set him up as the chief and only suspect, it meant he-Tanz could go on killing and Hartman would still be on the run, getting the blame.
What I want to know is, did Hartman meet up with Ulrike and had they been together all those years? His phone call before boarding the train gave the impression that was a last desperate attempt, thwarted by the mother.

[–] gabadabadoo 11 years ago

Yes, they did. Consider:
3 cases all with identical MOs, for 2 of which Hartmann would have had verifiable alibis - eg not being in the same location, unlike Tanz, who could be placed near the crime on all 3 occasions, plus an independent witness to the first, who, at great risk to his own safety, identified the perpetrator as wearing general's uniform.
Grau would have had a dossier on Tanz which he would have shared with the French cop. Tanz's grounds for shooting Grau, allegedly on grounds of treason, would have been disprovable because plot survivors could have confirmed Grau was not privy to the Valkyrie plot.

[–] mike-848 11 years ago

Bravo! Good points!

[–] BerlinDancer 11 years ago

Furthermore, the Polish inspector from Warsaw also passed the crime dossier from the 1942 murder onto Inspector Morand of Interpol near the beginning of the movie.

This would have included testimony from the eyewitness who claimed he seen a German general on the stairway just minutes after the murder. Even if the man who witnessed Tanz on the stairs was dead, the police inspector would still have been able to give evidence and read the witness statement to the court.

Then we don't know much about the Hamburg case? Perhaps the prostitutes would have placed Tanz in the Blue Harbour bar on the night of the murder.

For Tanz to have killed Hartmann in the prostitute's apartment back in July 1944 would have been a huge risk and Tanz would have had some explaining to do when the German/French authorities began their invesitgation.

There was risk of other prostitutes from the bar identifying Tanz as the man talking to the murder victim on 2 occasions before her death.

Would Tanz be able to explain how Hartmann managed to steal the car yet somehow followed him to the woman's apartment just in time to find he had killed a woman?

Believe me the German military hierarchy - even the SS - didn't cover-up crimes committed by their own men, even high ranking officers.

For example, SS Colonel Karl-Otto Koch (Commandant of Buchenwald concentration camp) was tried, sentenced to death and executed for corruption, abuse of power and murdering prisoners in order to cover-up his crimes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Otto_Koch

If there was enough evidence against Tanz in 1944, he would have been arrested and tried for murder. Which is probably why he let Hartmann go as it was a risk he just couldn't afford to take.

There is no guarantee that Tanz would have been found guilty if he opted to stand trial in 1965 when confronted by Inspectors Morand and Hauser, but perhaps the 20 years he had already served in prison for war crimes convinced him that it was better to take the easy way out than spend the rest of his life behind bars.

[–] Andrew_S_Hatton 11 years ago

I am certain Tanz could have been convicted in 1965 as has been explained by gabadabadoo above, and that is without us having had a detailed explanation of the circumstances of the 1965 murder.

Plus, the fact that he took his own life was in itself almost as good as an admission of guilt.

The suicide at the end was simply bizarre and completely unbelievable, no level headed person would trust such an ultimately unstable person as Tanz with a gun, in circumstances where he could have harmed numbers of other people whether or not he committed suicide at the end, like so many cornered multiple killers seem to do.

That spoiled an otherwise gripping film that dealt with wider issues of war and peace and murder and wartime combat as well as reminding us that however reprehensible Nazism is to some, that to others it is still an honourable philosophy; that I find truly chilling.

[–] niknat2010 8 years ago

The book's ending is slightly different but he shoots himself in that too, so the film remained faithful to that.

[–] adam-desborough 8 years ago

The suicide at the end was simply bizarre and completely unbelievable, no level headed person would trust such an ultimately unstable person as Tanz with a gun, in circumstances where he could have harmed numbers of other people whether or not he committed suicide at the end, like so many cornered multiple killers seem to do.

I agree. The movie should have ended when Interpol revealed Hartman as the witness and he said "You should have shot me when you had the chance". Then a quick shot of Tanz seeing that the game was up and he had been caught.

[–] BerlinDancer 7 years ago

It wasn't a police officer who gave Tanz the gun, it was one of his own men from the Nibelungen Division, no doubt still loyal to his commanding officer and obeying orders.

Why Inspector Morand stopped Hauser from intervening at this point is anyone's guess though and the other uniformed police officer behind Tanz just stands there like a tailor's dummy whilst this is all going on.

[–] skat1140 8 years ago

> they had no evidence to convict Tanz much less arrest him.

> Hartman was forced to run away after the murder in Paris and changed his name.

> Hartman's testimony as a sole witness that Tanz was the real killer would hold no merit if he was caught in 1944 or as he was later found in 1967.

(Just for the moment forget this is all happening in the middle of WW2, in the middle of the Normandy invasion and the attempted assassination of Hitler. We can do this because the whole unrealistic conceit of the movie is that a German Intelligence officer would be allowed to ever get near to prosecuting a German general for a crime. Or are we theoretically prosecuting Tanz after the war-- then it's much easier.)

It's Tanz's word vs. Hartman. Hartman can establish that he was the escort to Tanz the entire night. Whereever Hartman is, Tanz is there also.

What is Tanz' story? "I was with this woman from the bar, then Hartman came in, and just started raping and killing."

What is Hartmann's story? "I picked up a woman for Tanz. I left her alone with Tanz. Later, called me up to him, I came in and Tanz had killed her."

There's more than enough evidence to arrest and prosecute Tanz. It's just down to whether Tanz can get an OJ-level criminal defense attorney to defend him.