The Trial: A Reunion

In the closed courtroom of the People's Court, with retired Judge Fromm unrecognised in the gallery, Otto and Anna Quangel are led in separately, but a guards' error lets Anna sit beside her husband before proceedings begin. In their stolen minutes, Otto insists they must plead guilty and tell the truth so the trial ends; Anna agrees. He tells her Trudel and Karl Hergesell are both dead, Karl from a blow taken at his arrest, Trudel by jumping from a fifth-floor railing during a prison riot. Shaken, Anna suggests they might do the same; Otto refuses, unwilling to cheat the court of its verdict or 'sneak away like criminals caught red-handed'. He hides that he has been shackled since leaving remand. She asks if they will at least die together; he says he believes so, though privately he is sure each will die alone. Anna's attorney notices the mistake, and guards separate them before Judge Feisler can learn of it.

The seating error gives the Quangels a scene the novel has withheld: an ordinary marital conversation, in whispers, under guard. Otto's insistence on truth-telling as strategy, and his silence about his own chains, shows the man who wrote the postcards now managing his wife's last weeks.