About Crime Scene Cleaner
Crime Scene Cleaner (Der Tatortreiniger) is a German dark comedy that aired on NDR and ARD from 2011 to 2018. It follows Heiko Schotte, known to everyone as Schotty, a blunt and unpretentious Hamburg cleaner whose job is to scrub away the aftermath of a death once the authorities have left. He arrives with his bucket and supplies expecting a routine shift, and almost every time he finds a person already in the room: a grieving relative, a stubborn witness, a stranger with nowhere else to be. What begins as a chore becomes a conversation.
Each episode is built around one of these encounters, usually unfolding in a single apartment in close to real time. Schotty is no philosopher by training, but he is sharp, funny, and disarmingly honest, and the people he meets pull him into debates about grief, class, art, language, loneliness, and what a life is worth once it has ended. The series treats death plainly and without spectacle, keeping the camera on the talk rather than the scene, so the humor and the heartbreak come from two people working out how to understand each other.
Created and written under the pen name Mizzi Meyer and directed throughout by Arne Feldhusen, the show was a critical favorite in Germany, winning the Grimme-Preis and a devoted following for its theatrical, dialogue-driven style. Bjarne Madel's deadpan warmth as Schotty anchors all 31 episodes across seven seasons, and a rotating cast of guest performers gives each installment its own distinct voice. The result is a small, humane comedy that finds tenderness and wit in the least likely of rooms.
