The film Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, directed by Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta, is a document of the worst excesses and abuses of our society. This adaptation of Heinrich Böll’s novel displays with shocking honestly how such insititutions as the news media and the police can destroy innocent lives by misusing the power they are invested with. In particular, the authority given to the police can easily be twisted into a destructive force when placed in the hands of zealots. The tactics of the police officers in Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum clearly demonstrate this principle.

From the very beginning of the movie, the police engage in conduct that oversteps the bounds of their powers. After trailing Katharina and Ludwig, whom they suspect of "terrorism", to Katharina’s apartment, the police stake out the building overnight. In the morning they engage in a raid, using beyond excessive force--a squad of heavily-armed officers is used to capture one man who isn’t even known to be armed. The officers display a total disregard for Katharina’s property and privacy, barging in and searching without even showing a warrant and then making her change in their full view so that they can take her to the station. This rough treatment is only exacerbated once they arrive at the station, because the interrogation process Katharina is subjected to borders on abuse.

Once at the police station, the officers’ abuses only worsen. Katharina is subjected to an interrogation in which her answers are deliberately taken out of context and in which she is pressured to give answers that fit the assumptions they have already made. They bully and pressure Katharina into giving these answers, and when she refuses to give the results they want, they imprison her. They keep her in custody despite the fact that they have no warrant for her arrest or even a search warrant to enter her apartment, and no evidence that she committed any crimes. Through intimidation and browbeating, they try to get her to betray Ludwig to them. These actions, which are expressly forbidden under United States law, were legal in Germany at that time due to the emergancy laws passed to suppress what were viewed as radical Communist uprisings by the younger generation. The unrestricted power of the police and the abuses it leads to clearly illustrate the danger of employing such far-reaching "emergancy" measures: in the end, it is the innocent victims who suffer, not actual criminals.

Furthermore, the police department carries on an unethical relationship with the press. They leak details and provide information to the journalists in the movie, not so that the case is fairly reported, but to create sensational stories which make the police department look good in the public eye. By putting their public image over the actual deterring of crime, the police have betrayed the trust placed in them by the public, and make it possible for the press to be just as abusive of human rights as the polic themselves. For example, the journalists gain access to the hospital room of Katharina’s mother, and attempt to interview her despite her illness. When she doesn’t respond with anything useful to them, they put words in her mouth. The pattern repeats itself with every person they interview: their words are either fabricated or twisted to make Katharina seem like a career terrorist. The Paper even makes an outright lie or two into major headlines. They claim that Katharina’s apartment is a storing place for terrorist weapons and that she is a major player in terrorist groups, and that her capture is a huge victory for the police--further illustrating the alliance between the Paper and the police department.

The abuses suffered by Katharina Blum in the film may seem at first like incidents of a zealot government pushed too far by social upheaval, but such things happen in our system as well, all too often. Recent incidents, such as Abner Louema, who was brutally attacked by NYPD officer Justin Wolpe while being interrogated, point to the universality of such occurances. These sorts of atrocities should not be tolerated in any form, from the mental abuse suffered by Katharina Blum to the physical abuse inflicted by Officer Wolpe. Although it is perhaps inevitable that a few will happen, as much effort as possible should be dedicated to their prevention.

In the end, Katharina can no longer take this combined attack from police and press and kills the reporter hounding her. She is desperate, driven over the edge by the way her life has been ripped out from under her by her own society. However, this course of action was not necessarily a justifiable one. True, Katharina has very little at her disposal by way of support, but killing a journalists in such a way can have only one result: more violence. As a result of Katharina’s actions, she herself was imprisoned; her only solace was that Ludwig was also in jail. In response to the shooting, the police would most likely react with even more violent and abusive tactics against those they perceive against "extremists" and more innocent people would suffer. In this context, her actions are not justifiable, because countless more will be put through the same thing or worse because of them. However, her only other recourse would have been to commit suicide, which would have resulted in a far more pessimistic ending and wouldn’t have really done any good. Still, it would only be harming herself.

At the very end of the movie, a preacher gives a sermon in which he states Katharina’s bullets were "aimed at freedom of the press." This probably reflects public sentiment about Katharina’s crime: that it was the action of an extremist, bent on taking away such basic freedoms from the people. The irony of this is that Katharina’s basic freedoms were trampled on by the police and the press throughout the story. They are the ultimate destroyers of liberty, she merely lashed out to try and regain her rights. While it is arguable that resorting to murder was unjustified, Katharina should not and could not have allowed things to continue as they were.

1. Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta, 1975
2. Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com