Ulrich Zaum

A large, sparsely furnished room with high ceilings. Here lives an old woman, who tells her life story in a grand monologue. It gradually becomes clear that the woman who is nostalgically remembering the “great” times in her life is the widow of Reinhard Heydrich. Through her, the terrible figures of the Third Reich – Himmler, Göring, Hitler – are brought to life again, along with the horrors that they wrought. She describes it all without any sense of reflection, she has nothing to regret, she does not feel guilty, she can’t assume any responsibility because she was and still is content with her life by the side of the “blonde beast”.
The peculiar quality of Ulrich Zaum’s language prevents this monologue from slipping into sentimentality or getting dangerously close to glorifying the past. This woman represents the many real German people who feel neither regret nor shame because they not only fail to question their past, they stand by it unwaveringly.