Whitey Bulger on German TV: Was die Hölle?
We can’t wait for fugitive mobster James “Whitey” Bulger’s appearance on the German equivalent of America’s Most Wanted to make its way to YouTube. The website for Aktenzeichen XY…ungelöst doesn’t provide streaming clips of its segments, leaving it up to the good people of Germany to hook us up. (Hint, hint.)
In the meantime, we’ve occupied ourselves by reading about Bulger on the show’s website. The only problem is that we don’t speak German.
For those of you who do, here’s the blurb.
Die aktuelle “Aktenzeichen XY…ungelöst”-Sendung bestätigte, was das FBI schon länger vermutete: James. J. Bulger und seine Lebensgefährtin Catherine Greig könnten sich zur Zeit in Südeuropa aufhalten. Kann gut sein, dass eine der zahlreichen Hinweise tatsächlich auf die Spur von James J. Bulger führen.
To us, that looks like a list of all the IKEA furniture we own, what with all the umlauts. Being the internet-savvy people we are, we ran the paragraph through Babelfish. Here’s its translation.
… confirmed the current “file references XY to ungeloest” transmission, what already longer assumed the FBI: James. J. Bulger and its life companion Catherine Greig could be at present in south Europe. It can be good that actually on the trace of James J. Bulger lead one of the numerous references.
As the one guy in the office who’s stepped foot in Germany, we passed the original passage to Matthew Reed Baker for his slightly more informed opinion. He says that the passage tells us that the FBI believes that the couple is in southern Europe. Which we already knew.
Oh well. It seems like we’ll have to hope that somebody posts a clip from the show. We’d love to see an America’s Most Wanted-inspired reenactment narrated in German.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I hope the German re-enactors do the Boston accent better than most of Hollywood is capable of.
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:49 am
So much for the seamless, ubiquitous tentacles of Interpol….
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Well. According to the german news, the FBI showed in the Show of the german TV a foto from Taromina, Sicily. Which made a couple call into the show and police, stating it is them. German Police then made it clear to the FBI that the couple on the film and photo is just a german tourist couple and NOT James Bulger. The FBI had the wrong data for years. See biggest german news site on that:
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub475F682E3FC24868A8A5276D4FB916D7/Doc~EC927E6FF4DC7480A86256700113737A8~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
There you go. I am from Germany and follow the stuff. The FBI´s footage was wrong - all the way. And you won´t see a german reenactment. They had a talk with the FBI agent. Thirdly, it wouldn´t have been AMW-inspired. It is correct that AMW is a copy of the German programme, which has been existing since 1967 and was one of the few programmes that were sold to the US (America´s Most Wanted, that it is now).Everything you see at AMW is inspired by German Aktenzeichen. Or sometimes IKEA furniture list.
Best from Germany,
xy