A beautiful young woman is pulled dead from the water in the port of Hamburg. Katja, 28, worked as a showgirl on a cruise ship moored in Hamburg for a night on its way from St. Petersburg to Lisbon.
Captain Venske (Marek Erhardt) cannot possibly detain the crew and passengers on the ship until the case is solved. So the three commissioners have no choice but to embark and sail along. Apart from the captain, only the first officer Barlog (Nikolai Kinski) knows about the investigation. While Jenny Berlin and Hans Wolfer make up the well-heeled couple and share a splendid outside cabin, Brehm, as a new member of the cleaning crew, has to go below deck to the four-man bunks.
Completely unexpectedly, Jenny falls for the charm of a South African machinist (Robert Seeliger). Too late she learns that he was the dead woman’s lover. Is Lawrence perhaps trying to use Jenny to distract her from his terrible deed?
Meanwhile, Wolfer befriends the entrepreneur Hagen (Friedrich von Thun). This outwardly jovial, sophisticated bon vivant is actually guarding a terrible secret in which Anna (Franziska Knuppe), the dead woman’s closest friend, plays an important role. Even before Jenny, Wolfer and Brehm can put their findings together, Anna is also dead – the second murder on board! The detectives have only one night left to solve the case, because tomorrow morning in Lisbon, everyone disembarks – including the murderer.
The screenplay was written by Berno Kürten. The director is Carlo Rola. In addition to Aglaia Szyszkowitz, Hannes Hellmann and Rainer Strecker, many well-known actors are in front of the camera: Marek Erhardt, Nikolai Kinski, Friedrich von Thun, Robert Seeliger, Franziska Knuppe, Barnaby Metschurat and others. Einsatz in Hamburg” is produced by Network Movie Hamburg, Jutta Lieck-Klenke and Dietrich Kluge. Daniel Blum is the editor at ZDF.