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Chapter 18
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Ethics in Journalism
Truth, Lies, and Narrative
Class, Hierarchy, and Exploitation
Dignity and Compassion
Summary
Analysis
The police also question people in Katharina’s apartment building. Most have little to say about her other than that she was kind and always appeared put-together. Two neighbors confirm that a man would visit Katharina every few weeks or so. Hach, during Katharina’s interrogation, delicately tries to ask Katharina details about the man. Beizmenne’s style of interrogation is more blunt. When he accuses Katharina of knowing Götten for four years, Katharina insists she only met him last night. Eventually she gets frustrated and demands to be taken home. Beizmenne arranges for an officer to escort Katharina home, but he vows to get to the bottom of Katharina’s history with Götten.
The evidence continues to suggest that the police are wrong about Katharina: her neighbors report her as being rather unremarkable. Outward appearances can be deceiving, of course, but the neighbors’ descriptions of Katharina don’t seem to support the image of the immoral criminal the detectives and the press are determined to attach to Katharina. The only detail that sullies Katharina’s spotless reputation is that she apparently had a boyfriend visit her regularly—this alone, of course, doesn’t make Katharina a criminal, though it’s still possible that the man is indeed Götten, which would mean Katharina is lying about only meeting him at the party the other night.
Active
Themes
