Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei

Alarm für Cobra 11 –; Die Autobahnpolizei
Genre	Action, Crime drama
Starring	Johannes Brandrup (1995); Rainer Strecker (1995); Erdogan Atalay (1995-); Mark Keller (1996–1998); René Steinke (1999–2001, 2004–2006); Christian Oliver (2002–2003); Gedeon Burkhard (2006-2007); Tom Beck (2008-)
Country of origin	Germany
No. of seasons	30
No. of episodes	232
Production
Running time	ca. 45 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	RTL Television
Original run	March 12, 1996 – present

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Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei (German pronunciation: [ˈalaʁm fyːɐ ˈkobʁa ˌɛlf di ˈaʊ̯tobaːnpɔlɪˌʦaɪ]; English title: Alarm for Cobra 11 – The Motorway Police) is a long-running, popular German television series about a two-man team of highway police, originally set in Berlin and later in North Rhine-Westphalia. The series has been broadcast in countries worldwide.

[edit] Cast

The original cast featured Johannes Brandrup as Frank Stolte and Rainer Strecker as Ingo Fischer. Fischer left the series just two episodes later and his replacement became Erdoğan Atalay as Semir Gerkhan.

Brandrup quit the series at the end of Season 1. The television netwok RTL, which carries the series, contracted Mark Keller as André Fux in his place. Keller left the series at the end of Season 6 and was replaced by René Steinke as Tom Kranich. He played the role between the seasons 7–14, then decided to quit to try other roles.

Atalay's new partner became Christian Oliver as Jan Richter in Seasons 14–16. When he left the series to build his career in the US, RTL turned to Steinke, who agreed to return at the beginning of Season 17. However, Steinke decided not to renew his contract, and left the series again at the end of Season 20. His replacement is actor Gedeon Burkhard as Chris Ritter. Burkhard is best known as Alexander Brandtner in another Austrian-German police show, Inspector Rex.

In 2008 Burkhard is replaced by Tom Beck as Ben Jäger.

The opening titles of the first 158 episodes had the following preamble:

Ihr Revier ist die Autobahn (Their turf is the highway)
Ihr Tempo ist mörderisch (Their speed is lethal)
Ihre Gegner: Autoschieber, Mörder und Erpresser (Their opponents: car smugglers, murderers and blackmailers)
Einsatz rund um die Uhr für die Männer von Cobra 11 (The Cobra 11 team is on duty around the clock)
Unsere Sicherheit ist ihr Job (Our safety is their job).

Since episode 159 the preamble says:

Ihr Revier ist die Autobahn (Their turf is the highway)
Ihr Einsatz heißt: volles Tempo (Their mission: full speed)
Ihre Gegner von heute: extrem schnell und gefährlich (Their opponents today: extremely fast and dangerous)
Verbrechen ohne Limit – Jeder Einsatz volles Risiko (Crimes without limit – every job full risk)
für die Männer von Cobra 11 (for the men of Cobra 11).

Character	Role	Seasons	Actor
Kriminalhauptkommissar Frank Stolte	detective	s.1	Johannes Brandrup
Kriminalhauptkommissar Ingo Fischer	detective	s.1 (ep.1–2)	Rainer Strecker
Kriminalkommissar/Kriminaloberkommissar/Kriminalhauptkommissar Semir Gerkhan	detective	s.1+ (ep.3+)	Erdoğan Atalay
Kriminaloberkommissar/Kriminalhauptkommissar André Fux	detective	s.2–3	Mark Keller
Kriminaloberkommissar/Kriminalhauptkommissar Tom Kranich	detective	s.4–6, 9–11 (ep.1)	René Steinke
Kriminalkommissar Jan Richter	detective	s.7–8	Christian Oliver
Kriminalhauptkommissar Chris Ritter	detective	s.11–12	Gedeon Burkhard
Kriminalhauptkommissar Ben Jäger	detective	s.13-	Tom Beck
Detective Chief Katharina Lamprecht	boss	s.1–2 (ep.1–6)	Almut Eggert
Erste Kriminalhauptkommissarin/Kriminaloberrätin Anna Engelhardt	boss	s.2 (ep.7+)-13 (ep.7)	Charlotte Schwab
Kriminaloberrätin Kim Krüger	boss	s.14+	Katja Woywood
Regina Christmann	secretary	s.2 (ep.1–6)	Nina Weniger
Andrea Gerkhan	secretary	s.2 (ep.7+)-10 (ep.1–3)	Carina Wiese
Petra Schubert	secretary	s.10 (ep.3+)-11 (ep.1)	Martina Hill
Susanne König	secretary	s.11+ (ep.2+)	Daniela Wutte
Polizeihauptmeister/Polizeikommissar Horst Herzberger	policeman in uniform	s.2-16 (ep.1)	Dietmar Huhn
Polizeiobermeister/Polizeihauptmeister/Polizeikommissar Dieter Bonrath	policeman in uniform	s.2+ (ep.7+)	Gottfried Vollmer
Hartmut Freund	technical department	s.8+	Niels Kurvin

[edit] Characters

In two first episodes the main characters were Frank and Ingo. Frank drove an Audi 100 (C3), later a BMW E36 and Ingo drove a Ford Sierra. Ingo was killed in the second episode.

Semir is the main character and one of the cops who stayed on the force from the beginning to the end. He became Frank's second partner. He is best known for driving his silver BMW 3 series undercover cars (E36, E46 and E90) throughout his career. He also owns numerous exotic cars outside of work but had terrible things happen to them. (BMW crashed, Ferrari 355 Spyder stolen). He is serious and will do whatever it takes to get the job done.

In series 2 Semir's new partner became Andre. He had driven a BMW E36, a Mercedes-Benz W202 and later a Mercedes-Benz W208 CLK 320 coupe. He was killed in Mallorca after being shot in the chest with a harpoon gun.

Tom is one of the more outgoing guys on the force, while Semir is serious. He also has a forgiving personality due to the fact that he forgave a female driver despite that she wrecked his mountain bike on his first day commute to work. He also owns the Mercedes-Benz CLK 320, the same car that Andre used, which is wrecked a dozen times.

Jan was Semir's partner before he left the force, he was introduced in the episode "Feuertaufe" shortly after Tom's emotional withdraw. Jan was the young equivalent to Semir's experience. He used Tom's Mercedes-Benz and later a W209 CLK. He left the force shortly after and Semir was forced to look for Tom again. Tom agreed to go back and he used Jan's car. He was killed in action shortly after.

Chris, who was originally a police officer working undercover, became Semir's partner after Tom died in the episode "Auf Leben Und Tod". With the new partner the adventure continues, Chris drives a blue Mercedes-Benz W209 CLK 320 which is the same one as Jan and Tom had used and in season 23 he started driving a gray Mercedes-Benz C350. His off-work car is unknown. Chris dies at the end of the episode "Unter Feinden".

Ben Jäger succeeded Chris and was introduced in the following episode. He is characterised as being an ambitious, often rebellic young officer and the counterpart to Semir's behaviour. He uses the same car that Chris used.

Dieter Bonrath serves as the cobra team's backup officer throughout his career; his partner is an obese, bearded officer named Horst "Hotte" Herzberger. In the episode "72 Stunden Agst"(72 Hours of Fear) Hotte wanted to retire from the force, having served 43 years,but wanted to solve one last case.During this case Hotte, in an attempt to save Ben pushes him out of the sights of a drug dealer's assault rifle,only to be shot in the chest himself. He dies a few minutes later with Bonrath,Ben,Semir and Kim Krüger(their boss) at his side. They used to drive a green and white "Polizei" Porsche 911 turbo highway patrol car but later swapped it for a silver green police version of the recent Porsche Cayenne.

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei episodes

[edit] Stunts

The series is known for its extremely well performed stuntwork, which features the destruction of various vehicles in every episode. Almost every episode has a distinct structure, with at least one daring action sequence and the pre-title sequence usually consisting of the main event (i.e. a devastating crash on the Autobahn). The stuntwork is often so spectacular that it would not look out of place in a full-fledged movie, with cars commonly reaching implausible heights as they vault through the air.

[edit] Production locations

From 1996 to 1998, the series was produced jointly by Polyphon Film- und Fernsehgesellschaft mbH (responsible for all other production aspects such as filming/postproduction/location scouting etc.) and ActionConcept (stunts). Those episodes were shot in Berlin, notably in the site of the former Checkpoint Bravo and in the surrounding state of Brandenburg.^[1]^[2] In 1998, Action Concept took over as the sole production company and shifted all filming/production work to its headquarters in Hürth just south of Cologne. Since then, episodes have been shot in and around Cologne and Düsseldorf as well as on several major Autobahnen (A540/A44 and now mainly on the Filmautobahn Aldenhoven by Düren – [1]) between Cologne and Düsseldorf in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).

[edit] Game adaptions

The series has also spawned numerous game releases in Germany, primarily for PC, but they have generally met with mixed receptions. The latest title is Alarm für Cobra 11: The Syndicate, released on 23 December 2010. Crash Time was also dubbed into English and sold in many other markets worldwide.

[edit] Parodies

Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei was regularly parodied as "Alarm für Kebap 11 – Die Dönerpölizei" by Freitag Nacht News, a German comedy sketch program.

Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei was also parodied in the Latvian comedy show Savādi gan.