ARD crime scene from Dresden: Who is the new member of the investigative team?

Dresden. A new chapter begins for Lilja van der Zwaag. Since September 2nd, she has been in front of the camera in Saxony, filming the new Dresden Tatort episode. It's her first major role in a crime series—and one with a long tradition. As police trainee Milla Brandis, she joins the team led by Leonie Winkler (Cornelia Gröschel) and Peter Michael Schnabel (Martin Brambach). The two Dresden natives have been fixtures in the MDR "Tatort" series for years.

Patience is required until viewers can experience the new investigator on Das Erste. Filming in Dresden, Leipzig, and the surrounding area will continue until the beginning of October, but the episode "What You Leave Behind" is not scheduled to air until 2026.

Before that, on October 12th, “Siebenschläfer” will be shown – a case about a youth home on the outskirts of the city in which the duo Gröschel and Brambach investigate alone.

Before van der Zwaag switched to television, the 29-year-old was primarily at home on the theater stage. After studying acting in Hamburg, she performed in various theaters in Berlin and also performed in Saxony in 2022: at the Zittau Klosterhof, she portrayed the count's daughter Julie in "Miss Julie" in an open-air production.

In 2024, the Berlin native made the leap to the big screen. In the historical film "Hagen – in the Valley of the Nibelungs," she took on the role of Kriemhild—her first major appearance in a feature film.

At the same time, she's currently in front of the camera for the series "The Game of Keys," an Amazon Prime Video production. The eight-part series revolves around four couples and their love of experimenting with relationships and is scheduled to be released next year.

Her new role also comes about because Karin Hanczewski had retired from the Dresden "Tatort." She had played Detective Karin Gorniak since 2016 and had a decisive influence on the series. In May 2023, she announced her departure. After 18 cases in which her character repeatedly experienced serious personal crises, she said it was time for a fresh start—for the character and for the actress.

The Dresden-based "Tatort" series began in 2016 with Karin Hanczewski and Alwara Höfels as the first all-female detective duo. Following Höfels' departure in 2019, Cornelia Gröschel joined the team, while Martin Brambach has been with the team since the beginning as police station chief Schnabel.

It remains to be seen whether Milla Brandis will suffer the same fate as the first Dresden police officer candidate, Maria Magdalena Mohr, played by Jella Haase. She was eliminated after her first episode in 2016.