Back in the early 70's, when his name wasn't yet a synonym for insufferably crappy hand-held camera horror stuff, Ulli Lommel actually was quite the promising and visionary young (barely 29 years old) director in his home country Germany. The powerful impact of "The Tenderness of Wolves" alone is already more than enough evidence to back up this statement. This is a thoroughly unsettling and disturbing drama/horror hybrid based on the true facts in the case of one of the most notorious European criminal figures of the previous century. Fritz Haarmann was a German pedophile and serial killer of young adolescent males during the Interbellum period and made nearly 30 victims in only five years of time. Haarmann makes his money by trades food and goods on the black market that he himself falsely confiscated by pretending to be a policeman. This is also how he picks up young lads in the train station and lures them to his apartment loft. Uncle Fritz probes for homeless boys and eventually murders them by biting their throats; which gave him the nickname "The Vampire of Hanover". The atrocities became even more inhuman when Fritz, together with his lover/partner-in-crime Hans Grans, sold the hacked up flesh of the victims on the black market. "The Tenderness of Wolves" is definitely not an overly graphical or tasteless film, but the subject matter is sickening and the whole portrayal of pedophilia is beyond disturbing. Haarmann pretty openly declares his affection for young boys and his entire surrounding either deliberately ignores this or even considers it to be the most common thing in the world. Only his neighbor from the apartment below suspects his psychopathic tendencies and attempts to alert the authorities, but that fails as Haarmann actually had connections with the police where he worked as a "rat".
The sequences in which Haarmann is intimate with his victims are extremely discomforting, but at the same time they make the film all the more powerful and hauntingly realistic. It seems unthinkable in this modern day and age, but it was so easy for twisted perverts to pick up unsuspecting and youthful victims. Especially in times of poverty and despair, like the case in Germany between the two World Wars. Every time Haarmann comes near a boy, you can already assume the poor kid's fate is sealed, like the runaway drifter at the railway station or the boy at the carnival. Whenever he approaches a kid, your skin is guaranteed to crawl, because his voice is so stern and despicable. "The Tenderness of Wolves" also benefices from a more than decent re-creation of the depressing era and – of course – the incredibly brilliant and courageous performance of lead actor/writer Kurt Raab. He truly depicts Fritz Haarmann exactly like an emotionless and depraved monster ought to be depicted. This certainly isn't a film that is suitable for all tastes (and even the most hardened cult fanatics need to feel in a certain state of mind to watch it), but it's undeniably a unique experience and easily one of the top five most unpleasant yet fascinating things I ever watched. Moreover, after witnessing the unforgettable tour-de-force accomplishment that is "The Tenderness of Wolves", it's all the more difficult to accept that Ulli Lommel is nowadays directing junk entitled "Zombie Nation", "Diary of a Cannibal" or "BTK Killer".
