Original subtitles

- Now? - No, not now.

Nice and easy. Just relax.

Just don't fall asleep. It'll make your eyes look too small.

Hold on. Let me find a good position.

- May I smoke? - If you wish.

It's all important, you know?

It all tells me something.

Germany, 1977.

In a second-class train compartment, a young author looks into the eyes

of one of the best-known writers in Germany and the entire world.

"The smoke, sibyl.

Chaos of the woods.

Smoke rises from deep within the woods.

When you see the sea in Italy, you are silent.

When the forests grow, you remain silent.

When they sell the forests for nothing, you remain silent.

When the sibyl looks at you,

the sibyl, too, is silent.

Everything the sibyl says to you, you must say to yourself.

Everything the sibyl says to you, you know.

But the sibyl's eyes are following you

to see if you act as well."

The "sibyl" is Heinrich Böll..

Nobel laureate for literature,

engaged citizen and controversial author,

devout Christian, chain-smoker,

and, as he admits with a hint of melancholy,

"Jealous only of those who move freely in the world,"

as he has never been able to.

This is how our meeting with Heinrich Böll began,

which we continued on our visit to his hometown of Cologne

and his apartment at No. 7 Hülchratherstrasse.

Böll once said, "I believe I am by nature an introverted writer

who sits in his study and writes poems, short stories or novels,

but my biography has politicized me

almost by necessity, and sometimes against my will."

Böll particularly stressed the importance of the student movement,

the United States' dirty war in Vietnam,

and the realization

that the so-called "real socialism" of the Soviet-bloc countries

was just as authoritarian and essentially undemocratic

as the system in the Federal Republic of Germany.

While social democracy still spoke of correcting all imperfections,

students were seeking new forms of political participation and struggle.

But the "wind" Bob Dylan sang about did not last for long.

On June 2, 1967,

during a demonstration against the Shah of Iran and his political regime,

the student Benno Ohnesorg was shot dead by police.

The murder of Rudi Dutschke followed several months later.

He was one of the student movement leaders

against whom the Springer-owned press had long stirred up public animosity.

In spite of these events, and in contrast to other intellectuals,

Böll did not back down.

Although he accused the students of arrogant language

and warned them against using violence,

he sided with them.

In doing so, he clearly stepped outside the bounds

of what was considered civilized by the conservative powers and the government.

When the emergency laws were voted on in 1968,

placing limits on constitutional and individual freedoms,

Böll spoke out publicly against them,

knowing well that he was a standard-bearer of freedom

for many whose concept of freedom did not extend as far as his.

To most citizens of this state,

this law seems like a type of traffic regulation for natural catastrophes,

while in reality...

while in reality, it includes almost every power for a virtual coup.

The whole inflammatory campaign against you

began around 1968,

when you spoke out publicly

in support of the left-wing movement and...

It was primarily a matter of the emergency laws

that were cooked up at that time and publicly discussed,

and against which many people protested,

very many people of different political persuasions,

both conservative and liberal,

all of whom sounded the alarm.

That was actually the beginning.

In terms of the student movement itself, independent of the emergency laws,

I'd like to say that the hypocrisy

of the public reaction made me sick.

For years, for decades,

German students were criticized for doing nothing.

They only cared about the cafeteria food,

streetcar fares, and their grants.

But when a movement that went beyond all of that suddenly appeared,

that went beyond the material and the materialistic,

it was immediately denounced from all sides,

although it was actually a sign of life in the student body.

That was the first time when this fear of change came to light so clearly.

You can argue about certain details of the student movement to this day.

That's not the issue. But there was a movement,

and it was a movement toward change

which had roots in solidarity.

The students wanted to give up their privileges

with respect to those who could not even study.

Basically, this movement

gave rise to nearly all the changes in our education system:

continuing education as well as other educational opportunities

for those without a high school diploma,

for those already in the work force, or for housewives.

All of that is negated today.

Had that movement not come about,

our education system would still be medieval

or as it was in 1925, if you see what I mean.

Most important was that the young people wanted change.

That was a taboo here.

Don't change a thing!

And the student movement started as an anti-Springer movement.

Most of the demonstrations were anti-Springer demonstrations,

because, from the outset, it was the Springer press in particular

that denounced anything associated with the student movement.

The conflict between Heinrich Böll and the Springer corporate group

intensified in 1972

when Böll demanded "clemency or safe conduct" for Ulrike Meinhof.

The former journalist,

wife of a leftist publisher and mother of two children,

decided after the student movement died down

to follow a path of terrorism and armed combat,

which even the left-wing opposition regarded as political suicide

and as inconsistent with the interests of the working class and the students.

As terrorist attacks increased, political freedom diminished

and the press began to call for criminalization

of all forms of political radicalism.

The conflict was triggered by a headline in the tabloid Bild,

"Baader-Meinhof Gang Continues to Murder.

Bank Robbery.. Policeman Shot."

In Böll's opinion,

this headline disregarded the fact that investigations were still ongoing,

and thus the headline was an incitement to lynch-law

that would further the downward spiral of violence and murder

that had begun with the conflict between terrorism and the state.

In contrast, Böll appealed to the Christian concept of mercy

as a way of pausing and refiecting on what was occurring.

"There was reprieve for the Nazis who sent millions to death.

At the least, a public trial should be possible for Ulrike Meinhof".

She received neither.

After her arrest,

she was held in solitary confinement for a long time at Stammheim prison,

where she was found dead on May 9, 1976.

Thousands of young people attended her funeral.

The rabble-rousing propaganda against Böll continued.

His home was searched by the police.

During a debate over domestic security in Parliament,

Böll's name was raised,

along with those of writers such as Grass and Walser.

In this "climate of intimidation," said Böll,

he was no longer able to work and live.

But he refused to give up.

In the autumn of 1972,

Böll supported Willy Brandt in his electoral campaign,

even though he didn't always agree with Brandt's positions,

such as his support of the policies on political radicals.

Despite the arrests of Andreas Baader, Jan Raspe, Gudrun Ensslin,

and other RAF members,

the fear of terrorism and its sympathizers was so great

that the passage of laws limiting civil liberties

encountered no serious objections.

In January 1972, the "radical policy" was passed,

which restricted the employment of radicals in public service.

In the following years, thousands of young people would be affected

and thereby confronted with severe hardship.

There were protests and demonstrations against this policy.

Böll said, "There is no doubt

that hundreds and thousands of young people

who've been deemed undesirable in files gathered by the intelligence service,

will be driven into the underground."

END THE EMPLOYMENT BAN

"There is no doubt that curtailing freedom

will promote, rather than prevent, terrorism and extremism,

which will, in turn, require the passage of even more reactionary laws,

because the employment ban doesn't affect prominent radical and extreme figures,

who can be certain of sympathetic headlines,

but only anonymous teachers and students,

apprentices, judges and doctors."

Please understand.

I am very tired.

And I'm concerned for my family. I will have to make a call...

"In their relation to politics,

poets and writers have seldom engaged in dialogue with leaders

who are able to understand them and will consider their words, "said Böll.

"Because their language is literature,

it tends to disregard national and political boundaries."

When Böll became president of the PEN Club,

he supported hundreds of intellectuals and writers

who were behind bars in both East and West.

When he welcomed Solzhenitsyn,

Böll responded to the attack

that branded him on the one hand as an instrument of anti-socialist propaganda

and on the other as a henchman for the East Germans

with the following statement..

"Perhaps many Germans do not read The Gulag Archipelago

to experience the suffering of those to whom this monument is dedicated,

but rather to forget the horror of their own history."

September 5, 1977.

It was a day like any other in Cologne

when the news was reported that RAF terrorists

had abducted Hanns-Martin Schleyer and murdered his escorts.

Despite his Nazi past, Hanns-Martin Schleyer

was head of the German industrial Association

and thus a key figure in German commerce and industry.

For the young German democracy, it was the start of days plagued by fear,

days when its inconsistencies surfaced and became visible.

With the increasing fear and tanks in the streets,

the number of death penalty supporters also increased,

as well as the temptation to exorcise terrorism

by dividing the population into two camps..

Those who opposed terrorism,

and those who sympathized with it.

The sympathizers included critics of the government's security measures,

or those who saw in the focus on national interest

a conflict with realizing the broader democracy that had been promised,

as author Max Frisch noted.

Throughout the Federal Republic of Germany,

thousands of legally questionable house searches were conducted,

as was the case with Heinrich Böll,

when 40 police officers forced their way into his home

based on an anonymous phone call

that intimated contact between one of Böll's sons and the abductors.

The suspicion later turned out to be unfounded.

At the same time, the Christian Democrats drew up a blacklist

of supposed terrorist sympathizers,

including the names of politicians such as Brandt,

journalists and critical intellectuals such as Brückner, Grass,

Gollwitzer and even Böll himself.

I don't know if the people who begin such things know what they are doing.

It creates a mood,

an all-pervasive mood,

that I consider actually dangerous.

It surprises me that myself and some of my friends, of all people,

were seen as the principal enemies,

and advocates of terrorism.

That is utterly absurd.

I feel that it unconsciously,

and perhaps to some extent consciously,

counters what could be considered Europe's humanistic heritage.

That is apparently considered far more dangerous

than the so-called leftist powers.

They are scarcely involved in this campaign.

It is most surprising, and in my opinion

any Christian intellectual or conservative

would have to consider at least for a moment

what this course of events means.

This generates horrendous tension, which...

as far as I am concerned,

prevents me from working.

Because I cannot work in the midst of this tension,

I cannot write or express myself,

simply because I do not see any reason for it.

If I know that so-and-so is following me, has something against me,

and is inveighing against me for such-and-such a reason,

I can analyze that calmly.

The difficulty with the current situation

and the ongoing provocation with the blacklist and all the rest

is that it actually affects only middle-class, humanistic individuals,

and maybe some liberals.

That's what is so unsettling.

And I have been feuding with the Springer press for years.

All I can say is that the weaker party must not give in,

and I am the weaker party here.

Consider my resources:

I have a typewriter, a telephone, and a desk with a phone and typewriter,

and that's my entire setup.

Armed with this equipment, I have to take on

50 or 70 percent of the German press.

This is a fairly odd,

shall we say, strategic, tactical situation.

I cannot give in. I also cannot say,

"Now I'm going to let everything slide."

I am going to persevere and prove to Mr. Springer

that his press collaborated with the police

on a case that in fact was of great consequence to my family.

In such a situation the matter becomes sinister,

if you see what I mean.

If one has to suspect

that this, let's say, campaign,

which is led by a newspaper-publishing group,

of which one can admittedly have a general overview,

spreads to other institutions,

then I become very frightened.

On February 7, 1974

the BZ, Berlin's most widely circulated Springer-newspaper reported..

"Home of Son of Nobel Laureate Heinrich Böll's Searched."

Security officials had forced their way into the apartment of the 26-year-old son

of Heinrich Böll.

However, his home had not yet been searched

when the newspaper was circulated.

What the Springer press reported in the early morning,

as our research has revealed, and Heinrich Böll confirmed,

actually took place between 2..00 and 4..00 p.m. on the same day.

Could one perhaps say that you,

as a writer of literature,

almost feel forced to take up

these experiences published by the press

in a literary manner, such as with Katharina Blum?

Yes, that was an instance where I tried to create

a fictional setting and explain

the horrific effect the press can have,

in that it actually incites violence.

The press compels people to physical violence.

In a different context, I've called this "the violence of the headline."

These people are not murderers, nor are they terrorists,

yet they terrorize

a vast number of people.

It would take a very long time to analyze it.

I attempted to portray that in this story.

That also stimulated me with Katharina Blum.

Such an utterly harmless household servant,

who earns her living, is industrious,

and is actually very much a conformist,

becomes entangled by chance in a political hunt,

and thus turns up in the headlines.

She is politicized by what she experiences

not by what she theoretically comprehends.

One must understand that the political

is imposed on her from the outside, and does not arise from within.

From the novel The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum:

Or How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead,

as its full title reads,

director Volker Schlöndorff has made a film.

The following clips are from this film.

Attention! Attention!

- This is an official police operation. - Who are you?

- Against the wall! - Don't put up any resistance.

This is an official police operation. Don't put up any resistance.

Where is he?

There's no one here, boss.

Where is he?

He's gone.

When The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum was released and I first read it,

I thought, "This was already dealt with five or six years ago."

That was the 1967 anti-Springer campaign,

and ten years later Böll is catching up with it all again,

and he's doing it on his own.

That's why we tried to include in the film

some new details that have come to light since then.

For example, the police methods

and the total cooperation between the press, the police and the DA.

That's why the courthouse

and the prison have such a big role,

whereas one rarely sees the newspaper.

But, of course, the newspaper is always there

as a sort of collaborating agent.

But today, it's not always the case that the newspaper,

the Springer press, first and foremost, leads the campaign

and the state catches up only because it is forced to.

That was still the case in Berlin in 1967.

Today it is just the opposite.

The state takes the initiative with the police and the justice system,

and the press arrives only as a third element.

So that is the shift,

and because of that, the film has taken on a greater timeliness,

even though it's already two years old now.

Today, it would have to be made differently, of course.

But that's always the case with films that deal with the present.

Today, Katharina Blum would be locked up and that would be the end of it.

She would get no lawyer, no contact with the outside world, nothing.

That is precisely what those people went through

who were in contact with a suspect

accused of having ties to anarchist groups.

Today, that in itself would be sufficient.

So today an even harsher film would have to be made.

You're not blaming me for that coverage in The Paper?

They treated you a little roughly.

You're not mad at me?

I'll survive this and so will you. I often get furious with the editors.

I deliver first-rate copy and they turn it into crap.

I have a lot of respect for you.

Really.

Hats off for what you've done.

It's politically naive, of course.

We should get to know each other better.

This interview is just the beginning.

How about a fuck now?

Bertolt Brecht once wrote:

"Violence helps where violence rules."

He probably had more of a didactic purpose in mind

to inform people

that the violence in capitalism stems from the ruling class.

Now you, too, are accused

of inciting violence and terror,

and, not insignificantly, through the characters in your novels.

What type of violence is embodied in your characters,

and what is your intention when you use metaphors of violence?

I have never used metaphors of violence,

nor has my aim ever been to manifest violence in my characters,

because all of these novels take place in Germany,

and I find it presumptuous

and highly dangerous

when Germans speak of revolution,

given our history.

Perhaps it will be possible to discuss it a hundred years from now.

In what sense is it "presumptuous" to discuss revolution in Germany?

Because there is absolutely no chance and no basis for it,

not even rudimentarily,

especially not after our history of the past 60 years.

If one even considers the word,

one must be prepared to acknowledge

that two, three generations

have been carefully preparing a possible putsch,

not necessarily technically and strategically, but psychologically,

and by means of information and the shaping of political ideas.

Therefore, I find that inviting a virtually unconscious nation

to violence...

is presumptuous.

Of course, there is a violence of the word.

And how this violence works its effect

is something I have naturally attempted to represent in novels.

But, essentially, if we look just at your choice of words,

it was the exact opposite of violence.

This violence, though clearly manifest, is not a revolutionary one.

- Then what is it? - It is not only a psychological violence

but also an existential one,

a reaction to provocation.

In most cases where this violence appears,

let's say, in my novels,

there is no political consciousness behind it.

One must acknowledge that, at least in my opinion.

It is psychological and existential eruptions and developments

that lead to the violence.

To what extent are authors responsible

for the violence caused by their books?

In the entirety of world literature,

there are people who murder others.

One need only think of Dostoyevsky,

Raskolnikov,

whose motive for murder is very abstract.

After all, he does not want the woman's money.

He wants to kill her as a principle,

and he murders her.

This is a tremendously important theme

in 19th-century Russian nihilistic literature.

One would then have to, I've already said this umpteen times,

remove the Old Testament from circulation,

in which horrendous amounts of violence are preached and employed

against enemies and foreign peoples.

Ultimately, you are right. One must ban all art,

because I find violence even in painting.

Even in abstract art.

The way I see it, when I experience

certain constructive and also constructivist art,

so-called abstract art,

I find violence as well as tension.

Tension can indeed generate violence, and so on.

If one thinks this through logically, for example,

canceling Camus' play The Just

because people are afraid that associations could develop,

as terrorists, abductions, revolutionary violence.

I see absolutely no end to it.

In that case, we would really have to buy knitting needles

and wool for everyone,

and the whole country would just knit sweaters, or so.

It's utterly absurd!

We have to be prepared for a tremendous amount of absurdity.

I hope, and this is also something I would like to emphasize,

that other European citizens and nations

are carefully observing the crazy developments here.

If one thinks this through to its end,

it is truly the end of art.

"But then is it the end only of art?

No, also life, in whose place violence develops."

With these words containing a sense of absurdity,

Heinrich Böll says good-bye to us.

Yet this autumn,

which has already been called a "German autumn",

even absurdity seems to make sense,

as if it were a metaphor for the distance

that is neither secret nor cold,

from which one observes the ritual surrounding mourning and death.

We refiect upon the tragic course of events of those days in October,

the hijacking after Schleyer's abduction,

the Mogadishu operation,

the shooting of the pilot and hijackers,

the release of the hostages,

the unexplained suicides of Andreas Baader,

Karl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin in Stammheim prison,

Irmgard Möller's injuries,

the murder of Hanns-Martin Schleyer,

the funeral in Stuttgart,

Pastor Ensslin being reported to the police,

who doubted the official version of his daughter's death,

the fear of the liberal and democratic press

that the fight against terrorism

could lead to the abolition of the state under the rule of law.

We wondered whether Heinrich Böll was indeed right when he says,

"In the face of violence, it is insufficient

to express one's repulsion.

Rather, it's more important to counter the violence

with the memory of sympathetic understanding

that has its origin in words,

since only words can take away the inexpressible aspect of horror."

Words that we encounter again in this poem of Heinrich Böll

with which we end our film.

"Sound the Alarm"

Sound the alarm

Gather your friends

Not when the hyenas are howling

Not when the jackal is circling

Not when the dogs yap at your feet

Not when the ox lurches under its yoke

Nor when the mule stumbles at the grinding wheel

Sound the alarm

Gather your friends

When rabbits bare their teeth

And declare their thirst for blood

When sparrows practice nosedives

And strike

Sound the alarm