The Downcast Hergesells

Karl and Trudel Hergesell take their first walk since her miscarriage, past Grunheide along Frankenweg to the Flakensee and the lock at Woltersdorf. Trudel cannot stop grieving for their dead 'Klaus' and insists the loss was punishment for abandoning their old cell, Grigoleit and 'Babyface', and doing nothing since. She wants to hide a Jewish woman and pushes Karl to sabotage his chemical factory; he refuses, and they quarrel bitterly walking home through Erkner. At their flat, Gestapo Detective Inspector Laub is waiting with Fabian. He catches Karl lying about a suitcase left at Alexanderplatz for an 'acquaintance', reveals the couple have long been watched, and opens the case to find a small printing press. Laub also wrings from Trudel her admission that she once dropped a postcard for Otto Quangel. When he strikes her, Karl breaks free and is beaten unconscious by Fabian. They are driven off to the city: 'They had done nothing. But they were doomed…'

Fallada widens the postcard plot's blast radius, showing how far the Quangels' resistance reaches into innocent lives. Laub's interrogation technique, feigning omniscience to draw out confessions before he turns violent, previews Feisler's courtroom cruelty. Trudel's earlier defiance at the balustrade in Chapter 3 now costs her everything.