Nina Kaufmann is a one-shot villainess in the episode “Notwehr” (‘Self-Defense’) of the German crime series Wolffs Revier (literally: ‘The wolf’s hunting ground’, but the title is ambiguous since “Wolff” is also the name of the male lead and “Revier” means ‘police station’ or ‘district’ also). She is portrayed by the well-known German actress Hannelore Elsner.
Nina is an (apparently) rich widow who murdered her father-in-law (and her lover, Gorzik) in order to get full access to the finances of her defunct husband’s family. Her greatest problem, as it is revealed at the end of the episode, is that she came from a poor family and inherited almost nothing from her husband. She depended completely on her father-in-law’s good will since all the money belonged to him, not to his son. To explain Nina’s situation, another character tells us she was like “a bird in a golden cage.”
In order to get rid of this obstacle (i.e., her father-in-law), Nina designs an ingenious plan: first, she entices Gorzik, a former burglar, to make him her henchman. She tells him to break into the family villa when nobody would be there (by night). He is more than willing to do this for Nina since he is convinced that all the money he could possibly steal already belongs rightfully to his mistress. Yet Nina has another outcome in mind: she shoots her father-in-law and later kills the burglar, claiming self-defense during the upcoming investigation. However, Wolff, the title hero, becomes suspicious. He does not buy Nina’s story that the burglar shot her father-in-law and wanted to kill her afterwards. Although being antagonists (police detective [“Kommissar”] vs. double murderess), an erotic undercurrent between Nina and Wolff is notable during the whole episode and culminates in the end: confronted by Wolff with all the devastating evidence he holds against her, Nina sees no other way to escape but throwing herself into the detective’s arms. She starts kissing him passionately, yet desperately, begging him to come with her to start a new life with all the money. At first, Wolff seems not unhappy about what Nina is doing, but after she made a confession of her crimes, he does not hesitate to slap the cuffs on her.