Damper device and method for controlling the damping of a relative movement of two connecting units which can move relative to one another. A controllable damper with a damping valve with a magneto-rheological fluid is provided between the two units for damping relative movements. The damping valve is assigned a magnetic field-generating device for generating and controlling a magnetic field. Measurement data sets relating to a relative movement of the connecting units with respect to one another are acquired and pre-processed with a filter device. A data set derived from an acquired measurement data set is stored in the memory device. A filter parameter set is determined from the stored data set as a function of the analysis. A control data set is derived from the measurement data set with the filter parameter set. The damper device is controlled with the control data set.