Revisiting Francis Durbridge: West German Television, European Reconciliation and the Representation of Morality During the Late 1950s and 1960s

Abstract

Few authors in early West German television history could match the dizzying popularity of British crime writer Francis Durbridge. Almost every year between 1959 and 1970, the Cologne-based station Westdeutscher Rundfunk broadcast a new adaptation of one of his famous Krimis, or criminal thrillers. Viewership numbers for these multi-part cliffhangers were staggering. Unlike later Krimis such as Tatort, however, the Durbridge productions have not attracted significant scholarly analysis. I argue that these broadcasts spoke to two major political and social issues of the era. First, the adaptations consciously cultivated a sense of European identity. Second, the programmes played an important – and now largely forgotten – role in confronting and overcoming the perceived moral vacuum left behind by the Third Reich. While German viewers may have responded to the thrillers primarily as entertainment, the programmes did, nonetheless, contain educational and moral components that merit renewed attention from television historians.