In November 1986, a young man arrives in Winden with a gunshot wound in his chest and weapon tucked in the waistband of his pants. He is on the run. When he witnesses a teenage couple threatening a girl, he drives the assailants away with the gun.
Shortly thereafter, he does away with his past, burying the gun and a passport with the name Boris Niewald in a plastic bag in the forest. He later marries the girl he rescued and takes her surname. The man now has a completely new identity: Aleksander Tiedemann.
Hannah Kahnwald recovers the bag in the forest and keeps the contents hidden in a metal box for more than 33 years.