Before we get started, let’s clear up a misunderstanding before it even arises. And talk about soup. There is a can that has been available for purchase from large supermarket chains in the East for years. On it you see a fairly blond child with a white shirt and the red neckerchief of the Thälmann pioneers. Spoon in hand, something red around its mouth, like it’s just sucked a class enemy alive. The child, obviously a boy, grins with bared teeth. It looks dangerously happy.
School kitchen solyanka is the name of the can. “With meat
The soup kitchen from Saxony-Anhalt defended itself by pointing out that there is definitely a need for “simple, genuine and tastes like it used to be”. And that no artificial aromas, colorings or flavor enhancers were used for Schulsoljanka and NVA field soup. Of course, there was no mention of irony as an ingredient. Nobody understands irony, especially not in cans.
Which brings us finally to “Kleo”, a new German series that is now starting on Netflix. An eight-part series about the fate of a top spy from the “Reconnaissance Headquarters” (HVA), a gifted assassin in the service of Erich Mielke.
One could certainly blame this felt eighth derivation of the GDR spy thriller theme (it’s not much), which one can always blame GDR spy thriller series for which it – especially abroad, as “Germany 83ff” proved in 180 countries – there is a need. German Stasi dramas are international bestsellers. DDR trivialization is not. Because the story of Kleo Straub, who was betrayed and then took revenge, is packed with artificial aromas, colorings and flavor enhancers. And with irony. And with madness. And because maybe that’s the only way to track down the truth of a trauma and a time. But one after anonther.
Kleo Straub has to be pictured as a happy, almost childlike killer. She happily sings her chekist song (“Forward, Tschershinsky soldiers”). She is a clear case of socialist abuse. Her grandfather, one at the top of the HVA, raised her to be a faithful murder machine of the system, believing in the superiority of socialism. The mother eventually disappeared.
After completing the killing work in the west, Kleo likes to sit in front of the “Sandman” on black-and-white East television and mumbles Wurzener peanut flips. The year is 1987. In Rolf Eden’s legendary West Berlin nightclub, the “Big Eden”, Kleo has just killed a man with poisoned coke. She doesn’t know who the victim was, she never knows, she’s only supposed to kill. That’s it. It’s her last assignment. She is pregnant. Then she is arrested. Because she is said to have sold blueprints for a VEB consumer electronics top product to the class enemy.
Three years later she is released. Nothing is like before. The East is wild. Capitalism is coming. The old cadres weave new networks. And Kleo – a late sister of the Count of Monte Cristo – wants to know. Want to know how it was and who.
Erinnye from the Stasi prison murders her way up the presumed chain of command. Arrived at the top – according to the ancient drama plan pretty much exactly in the middle of this rather bloody tramedy – at the sickbed of comrade Mielke, whom she herself brought there with a touching but poisoned sponge cake (she has a weakness for eggs), she recognizes that everything was different than expected. more complicated. Mainly because of that damned red suitcase, which has been appearing somewhere like a Maltese falcon since the “Big Eden”. And whose content is said to be dangerous for the world.
The creators of 4 Blocks made Kleo’s mess. They didn’t care much for historical truths. For the real pop culture taste of yesteryear. “Kleo” is shrill, fast, weird and dirty. Can’t get it in a can. But it tastes great. Which in turn is due to Jella Haase. Jella Haase is Kleo. She has the complete murder case of the spy drama with her. And she uses everything in it. Can go from brat to grandezza in milliseconds.
If you don’t lie flat on the floor in front of her afterwards, you urgently need soup.