Poison in the Zoo

During production in 1951, the director Wolfgang Staudte was removed and replaced when the West German authorities refused to consider it eligible for state subsidies unless Staudte declare that he would no longer work for the DEFA studios of the Communist East German state. Staudte, who had made several major productions for DEFA, refused and was replaced by Müller.[1]

It was shot at the Wandsbek Studios in Hamburg and on location in the city's Tierpark Hagenbeck. The film's sets were designed by Albrecht Becker and Herbert Kirchhoff.

After a series of mysterious deaths of animals at a zoo the police are called in to investigate.

• Irene von Meyendorff as Vera Pauly
• Carl Raddatz as Dr. Martin Rettberg
• Petra Peters as Jutta Flamm
• Ernst Schröder as Oskar Beck
• Hermann Speelmans as Kriminalrat Walter Glasbrenner
• Nicolas Koline as Wärter Mathias
• Kurt Meister as Oberwärter Kruschke
• Otto Reimer as Wärter Robby
• Helmut Peine as Kriminalkommissar Werner
• Tilla Hohmann as Wirtschafterin Karola
• Hella Attenberger as Gaby Rettberg
• Alwin Pauli as Oberwärter Berger
• Bruno Klockmann as Polizeichef Dr. Wöltje

• Hans-Michael Bock and Tim Bergfelder. The Concise Cinegraph: An Encyclopedia of German Cinema. Berghahn Books, 2009.
• Hanna Schissler. The Miracle Years: A Cultural History of West Germany, 1949–1968. Princeton University Press, 2001.

• Poison in the Zoo at IMDb