The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum

work by Böll

Also known as: “Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum”, “The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum: or, How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead”

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In full:: The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum; or, How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead

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The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, novel by Heinrich Böll, published in 1974 in the German weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel as Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum. The novel condemned as irresponsible the coverage of the trial of the Baader-Meinhof group, a German terrorist organization, by the German tabloid newspaper Bild-Zeitung and rebuked official German government attacks on individual civil liberties.

Katharina’s ordered life falls into ruins after the News, a sensationalist local tabloid, has falsely accused her lover of a single night of terrorism and then named Katharina as his accomplice. After being hounded by the press and the police, she shoots and kills the journalist who wrote the lies and distortions and has tried to exploit her sexually.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.