Into the Circle

November 2014: The covert investigator Iris P. is exposed in the media. Step by step came out: She investigated almost six years undercover under the camouflage name “Iris Schneider” in the left scene and the “Red Flora” in Hamburg. She researched political connections and people, led close friendships and entered into intimate relationships. Not an isolated case. The amazement was great when, in the following months, two more undercover investigators were discovered in Hamburg: Maria B. and Astrid O. They also worked with similar methods to Iris P. and spent many years spying in the left-wing scene. Not only in Hamburg. Even in idyllic Heidelberg, the policeman Simon B. enrolled himself at the university in 2010 to spy out left-wing students who had never dreamed of being caught in the crosshairs of state surveillance. The protagonists of the documentary film INTO THE CIRCLE impressively tell their stories from very different perspectives. Surveilled people from the “Red Flora” environment in Hamburg and young students from Heidelberg, as well as politically and legally responsible people, have their say, such as former Federal Attorney General Kay Nehm, who describes his view of one of the missions.