The Trial: The Witness Ulrich Heffke

Ulrich Heffke, Anna Quangel's hunchbacked brother, takes the stand months after Inspector Laub tortured false confessions out of him over postcards near Nollendorfplatz and factory secrets, then had to disprove each one himself. Remanded with the Quangels for no real cause, Heffke hanged himself in custody and was cut down; a summons to testify drove him to a second attempt, foiled by his wife, who delivers him to the court with the warning 'You'd better keep an eye on him! He's gone crazy!' Judge Feisler lets him off lightly, but after watching Prosecutor Pinscher savage his sister and the riot that follows Anna's outburst, Heffke is called to testify to her character. Standing on the bench, he sings a hymn instead, cries 'I'm coming!', spreads his arms and 'flies', tumbling among the witnesses below. Feisler has him removed and declares the family 'criminals and madmen'. Heffke is later pronounced unfit for life and killed by injection in an asylum.

Fallada inserts a grotesque comic turn just before the verdict, but the humour curdles fast: Heffke's manufactured guilt and his final 'flight' show how easily the regime invents crime and destroys the innocent. His hymn disrupts the court's order more completely than any argument could.