If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be?
Just watched the ARD Series Harter Brocken …
Goethe worked in Geology and Mining for the Duke of Weimar.
The Jena Set and Caroline Schlegel and Novalis and the Humboldt Brothers.
Here’s a full picture of the German media reception, primarily based on tittelbach.tv (Germany’s leading TV criticism platform) and Quotenmeter:
The Episodes
Harter Brocken: Die Erpressung (Episode 9), which premiered Christmas Day 2025 and was repeated on July 14, 2026 on Das Erste. It’s set in the Harz around Sankt Andreasberg , Goslar is the broader regional context, and the Brockenbahn (steam railway) plays a starring role throughout.
Critical Reception — tittelbach.tv (Tilmann P. Gangloff)
Strongly positive. Gangloff praised it as “ein großes Vergnügen” — a real pleasure — highlighting the series’ signature mix of black humor, genuinely menacing villains, Western allusions, and Aljoscha Stadelmann’s quietly brilliant underdog-cop Frank Koops. The cold open (pensioner on a ladder, wife yells “Hans-Peter, mach’ keinen Quatsch!”, steam train whistle) was singled out as exemplary series writing. The verdict: even with some complexity trimmed, fans won’t be disappointed.
One Notable Subplot: The Creator Drama Series creator Holger Karsten Schmidt, who wrote the first five scripts, quietly withdrew his name from Erpressung, using the pseudonym “Klaus Burck.” Reader comments on tittelbach.tv clarify this wasn’t a protest against this episode specifically, but against the two preceding ones, where he felt too much had been changed without his consent. A small but telling sign of creative tension behind the scenes.
The Heiner Problem The biggest controversy in viewer circles: Moritz Führmann (Heiner, Frank’s postman best friend) left the series after episode 8, replaced by Jakob Benkhofer. Fan reactions are clearly divided, many feel the role is too iconic to simply recast. As one commenter put it bluntly: “Bis zum Austausch der Figur Heiner eine kultige Krimiserie.” Quotenmeter ran an interview with Benkhofer pre-broadcast where he spoke thoughtfully about stepping into a beloved role, but it hasn’t fully won over the loyalists.
Ratings The Christmas 2025 premiere drew 4.81 million viewers (20.6% market share), solid, but the series has done better. The repeat on July 14, 2026 also underperformed according to Quotenmeter’s headline: “Das Erste war am Dienstag kein ‘Harter Brocken’, a neat pun meaning the channel didn’t land well that night. Competition from the FIFA World Cup reshuffled ARD’s entire summer schedule, which didn’t help.
Bottom Line from German Media
Harter Brocken remains one of ARD’s most beloved and distinctive crime series, a rare thing in German TV: a Kriminalkomödie with genuine wit, a strong sense of place, and a lead who doesn’t play a tortured genius. Critics consistently call it a “besonderes Kleinod” (special gem) in the ARD lineup. Die Erpressung doesn’t reinvent the formula, but it delivers on it, which is exactly what the audience wants on a Tuesday evening.
Sources:
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