ARD mini-series - Agent war on the magic mountain: "Davos 1917"
It is a deceptive peace, high up here in the Swiss mountains. While hundreds of thousands of young men are bleeding to death on the battlefields of Belgium and France in the First World War, champagne is being drunk in Davos. Switzerland skillfully kept out of the first mass deaths of the 20th century and, as a neutral country, agreed to take in and nurse back to health the wounded of all warring parties.
This little-known chapter forms the backdrop for the spy thriller series "Davos 1917", which will be broadcast linearly by the German TV channel Erste this Wednesday (20.12.) from 20:15. The six-part series will be available in the ARD media library on the same day.
The focus is on the Swiss-American actress Dominique Devenport, who many viewers know from the RTL series "Sisi". She plays the Swiss nurse Johanna Gabathuler, who returns home to Davos from the Western Front. However, she is not alone: Johanna is heavily pregnant by a German soldier with whom she has had a romance. Her family sees this as a disgrace and lures Johanna into a trap - seconds after the birth, the baby is taken away from her and put into care. The young woman is devastated. Her parents, who run a spa hotel, arrange an engagement for her with a boring man.
But then Johanna's life takes a turn. The German secret service approaches her in order to get close to a British diplomat. The nurse can move freely around the luxury hotel, where both wealthy consumptives (on comfortable sun loungers) and traumatized front-line soldiers (in dark mass quarters) cure themselves. Johanna also has access to all the keys because the hotel, called "Curhaus Cronwald", is owned by her family.
The Germans put the young nurse under pressure. One of their agents knows the secret of where Johanna's young daughter has been kept. The Swiss woman reluctantly agrees to cooperate with the Kaiser's spies and gets caught between the fronts of the war. Her liaison agent Countess Ilse von Hausner (Jeanette Hain) entangles her ever more deeply in the war of agents.
As screenwriter Adrian Illien explains, Johanna's mentor Ilse von Hausner "has a mysterious German master spy as her historical role model: the commanding officer of Mata Hari, the most famous female spy of the time. While developing the material, we realized that in the espionage genre there is often an older mentor who trains a younger man or woman - but there are hardly any stories about female mentors. This gave rise to the idea of telling a mentoring story about two women in "Davos 1917"."
The production for Erste and SRF brings together a number of top-class actors: in addition to Dominique Devenport, the cast of the glossy production includes Jeanette Hain ("Luden"), David Kross ("Der Pfau") and Sunnyi Melles ("Triangle of Sadness").
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- Despite the ongoing First World War in Belgium and France, lavish celebrations were taking place in Davos, Switzerland, which managed to maintain a neutral stance during the conflict.
- The German TV channel Erste will broadcast the mini-series "Davos 1917" on December 20 at 20:15, with the six-episode show also available on the ARD media library the same day.
- The story revolves around Swiss-American actress Dominique Devenport's character, Johanna Gabathuler, who returns home to Davos after serving as a nurse during the First World War and discovers a secret about her daughter.
- Johanna is soon approached by the German secret service to gain access to a British diplomat, resulting in her getting caught between the two warring nations and struggling to protect her family's honor.
- This unique espionage tale is special because it focuses on a female mentor, played by Jeanette Hain, who trains another woman, highlighting an underrepresented narrative in this genre.
- The series boasts an impressive cast, including David Kross, Sunnyi Melles, and Dominique Devenport, best known for her role in the RTL series "Sisi."
- The First World War era setting serves as the backdrop for various other television programs, including the fictional series "Davos 1917" and the documentary "23 - The mysterious death of a hacker" on Sky.
- Germany and Switzerland collaborate on the production of "Davos 1917," demonstrating the strong connections between European media markets, as evidenced by the involvement of RTL in Devenport's previous work.
Source: www.stern.de
