Jens Kramer

Jens Kramer is a fictional character on the German soap opera Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love). The character was portrayed on recurring basis from September 24, 2008 to March 3, 2009 by actor Antonius Hermlin.^[1] The actor returned afterwards as a hallucination,^[2] before seen again in September 2010,^[3] when Jens is released from a psychiatric clinic, to the character's death in October 2010.^[4]

Character's background

Jens is an old friend of Sebastian von Lahnstein (then played by Joscha Kiefer) and also knows his younger sister Rebecca (Jasmin Lord) from their childhood. He works as a photographer, what is the reason that brought him to Düsseldorf. Short after his arrival, Jens decides to stay and moves in with Gregor Mann (Andreas Jancke). In the Internet, he meets Lydia Brandner (Theresa Underberg), without knowing that she is Sebastian's ex-girlfriend. As soon as that come to be known, Jens finds out that Sebastian cheated on Lydia with her own mother Katja (Diana Frank). He ends his friendship with Sebastian and can not understand how somebody can do something like that, after he had his own story in his past, where his brother slept with his ex-girlfriend.

After he ended the friendship with Sebastian, he got closer with Lydia and already fall for the young woman. He finds out about the blog she is writing and tries to use it to get close to her - over the Internet and in person. Jens' plan works and Lydia begins to fall for him too. When they kiss, Lydia first thinks it's too soon, after she was hurt so badly by Sebastian. But eventually, Jens and she become a couple. Sebastian is not happy about it, but he wants Lydia to find happiness again and tries to finally give up on her. Meanwhile, Jens sees Sebastian still as a threat and tells him several times to stay away from Lydia. His relationship with Lydia still in development, Jens tries to bring her to close her blog for good and no longer write about her feelings. Lydia finds that reasonable, because she has Jens now. But as soon as she decides to close the blog, she regrets her decision and wants to go on with it - to the displeasure of Jens. He feels threaten by the blog and does not want other people to know about Lydia's feeling. So, he begins to sabotage her blog, which goes so far, that he finds somebody that sues Lydia because of the name for the blog - which is already copyrighted.

But Lydia would not give up and wants to fight for her work and the people who read the blog. Shocked that it's Sebastian that wants to help Lydia with her legal problem, Jens sees only one chance to bind Lydia on their relationship. He proposes to her. But Lydia finally opens her eyes and sees that her relationship with Jens got to soon to fast and turns him down. When he presses too hard, Lydia decides to take a break and asks Jens to go. He keeps hoping for a reunion with her, but when he tries to take advantage of her after Lydia's mother died, she ends things with him completely. In that difficult time for Lydia, it is Sebastian who can give her the consolation she needs. Jens quickly gets jealous and sees a reunion coming for them as a couple. But there could be one thing that finally can break the special connection between them: The question if or if not Sebastian could be the father of Lydia's newborn sister Christina. Jens places a bug in the Brandner house and sends an anonymous message to Lydia. She guesses that Jens is behind it and wants to talk to him. But the situation gets out of control, when Lydia tells him again that it's over between them, he threatens to kill himself right in front of her. When Sebastian comes into the situation, when he takes Lydia hostage and threatens now her life. Sebastian appeals to Jens' love for Lydia and he does let her go. But with the next exhalation, Jens threatens them that he would not stop making their lives a living hell. Sebastian wants to go to the police, but Lydia does not want that and they also would have no proof. But soon Sebastian needs to realizes that Jens is capable of everything in his delusion. He tries to get him out of town by offering him a job as photographer in Namibia. Jens refuses and tells Sebastian that he would not get rid of him. Sebastian appeals on their old friendship and wants Jens to see that he needs help. Jens goes completely crazy and knows Sebastian down. Jens is shocked of his own doing, when he thinks that he killed Sebastian.

He tries to get rid of his body, when he discovers that Sebastian is still alive. Jens decides to take him to an empty warehouse in an industrial area, where nobody would find him. Sebastian realizes that he is surrendered by Jens, who tries to make up his mind how to go from here. He soon needs to hear that Lydia is worried over Sebastian and asks questions where he might have been. She even gets a bad feeling that something happened to him, when she gets a text message from Sebastian's mobile phone. The message says that he is in Munich to speak with Jens' brother over the condition that Jens is in. Lydia is relieved for a few days. But when Sebastian does not shows up to an important meeting, she is questioning his whereabouts. Jens hears from the worry over the bug and pays a visit to Sebastian, who is in a really bad shape. With a knife he gets threaten by Jens to write a letter, which, after Jens' thinking, will stop the questions and the search for Sebastian. Lydia and the Lahnstein family find out eventually that Sebastian is kidnapped and he is rescued by Lydia, after she gets alarmed when Jens tries to get close to her again. Jens gets committed to a psychiatric hospital, where he tells Lydia that he will always be with her.

Sebastian has to suffer serious nightmares after his kidnapping, resulting dreaming and hallucinating about Jens. He tries to keep his condition a secret to Lydia, but she eventually gets behind what Sebastian still has to deal with and begs him to get professional help. After an argument Sebastian finally agrees and gets rid of Jens' daily present in his life.

Over a year goes by, Sebastian (now played by Sebastian Schlemmer) and Lydia got married, but are not a happy couple anymore. Sebastian seems to live for his work and this results with Lydia starting an affair with Sebastian's cousin Ansgar von Lahnstein (Wolfram Grandezka). After Lydia has another encounter with Ansgar, she drives away and literally bumps into Jens. He finds out about her affair with Ansgar and in his twisted way, sees that as a chance to be together with her again, because for him it finally proves that Lydia's love for Sebastian is not that strong. Jens threatens Lydia to tell Sebastian about the affair and even gives him photos that prove him right. But Sebastian trusts his wife and believes Jens manipulated them in order to destroy his marriage. Meanwhile, Ansgar knows about Lydia's fear of Jens and tries to scare him off. Anyway, Jens does not stop and discovers the secret place where Ansgar and Lydia meet. He overpowers Ansgar and captivates him before getting Lydia in his grip. Jens even tries to rape Lydia, before Ansgar can free himself and tries to protect Lydia. It comes to a fight between the men. As Jens seems to get stronger, Lydia pushes him away from Ansgar, which leads for Jens to break his neck on the door frame. He's immediately dead to the shock of Lydia, who has to overcome that she killed somebody. Ansgar realizes that Jens' death could expose their affair after all and wants to protect Lydia by taking the fault and covering the tracks of their affair. As Ansgar could be prosecuted for murder, Lydia comes clean and opens up about her affair to Ansgar and tells in front of the press, Sebastian and the Lahnstein family that she killed Jens.

Crimes committed

• Bugged the Brandner house to persecutes private conversations.
• Threatened to kill Lydia Brandner in front of Sebastian von Lahnstein.
• Physical injury to Sebastian von Lahnstein.
• Kidnapped Sebastian von Lahnstein.
• Blackmailed Lydia von Lahnstein with her affair.
• Took Ansgar and Lydia von Lahnstein hostage.

Notes