Narrative
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum
Heinrich Böll · 1974
Synopsis
Katharina Blum, a twenty-seven-year-old housekeeper with an irreproachable life, meets Ludwig Götten at a carnival party in February 1974 and spends the night with him. In the morning, the police break down her door: Götten, suspected of robbery and murder, was under surveillance, and he has disappeared. Katharina is arrested and interrogated. A sensationalist newspaper, which the narrative calls only “the Paper”, seizes on the affair, distorts the statements of those around her and makes her the accomplice and mistress of a terrorist.
Context
Since an article on Ulrike Meinhof published in 1972 in Der Spiegel, Böll had been the target of a press campaign that made him out to be a terrorist sympathiser; the story responds to the practices of the daily Bild, on which the newspaper in the book is modelled. It appeared as a serial in Der Spiegel from 28 July 1974, with illustrations against which the Springer group went to court, then in volume form. The narrator presents the affair there as a report drawn up from its sources. Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta made a film from it in 1975.
Who it is for
A short narrative, conducted like a report that cites and arranges its sources, in a detached, sometimes ironic tone.
Prizes and reception
Böll's best-selling book: two million seven hundred thousand copies worldwide in 2017.