Unfinished Business

Shifting Temporalities and Narrative (De-)Escalation in Kathrin Röggla‘s „Laufendes Verfahren“

Von Eckhard Schumacher

The NSU serial murders as well as the NSU trial are perceived in the public discourse as turning points, or, to invoke the relevant term from Aristotle‘s theory of tragedy, as peripeties. At first sight, it may seem inappropriate to describe the NSU serial murders, which lasted over six years, and the NSU trial, which also lasted over six years, as turning points – a stretch of time, a six year-period does not really meet the criteria for a point. But both occupy the functional position of turning points in the discourse on the noughties and tens of the 21st century, and in this narrative they also correspond in various respects to the criteria for peripeteia – an unexpected reversal, occurring contrary to expectation.[1] Despite all the fundamental differences and an incomparability in principle between a series of terrorist murders and a trial dealing with a series of terrorist murders, we observe in both cases that an undertaking spanning many years is perceived in public discourse as an event, as an incisive event. Both terror and trial were, at least according to a widespread view, unpredictable in their course, both radically changed the course of events, the narrative of the “Nachwendezeit”, and both developed what could be described as a logic of escalation, but also a logic of repetition and, as it were, deadlock.

One of the many aspects that made the NSU serial murders a serious event is the fact, still and again hardly comprehensible, that it was only recognized as such in retrospect, years later, only after two perpetrators committed suicide and a third perpetrator turned herself in to the police. The radical right-wing racist motive of the murder series was not seen or even suspected by the responsible investigative institutions over the long period of time. Rather, the acts, not recognized and not made visible as terrorist acts, were attributed to the families involved and their environment on the basis of suspicion – buzzword “döner murders”.[2]

Even more difficult and grave is, moreover, that it is not clear whether it is even appropriate to speak of an “after”, an “afterwards”. Even if two perpetrators have killed themselves and a third perpetrator has meanwhile been legally convicted and imprisoned, it is not certain that the activities of the NSU have ended. And this is true even after the end of the NSU trial, which has left many questions unanswered and raised many new ones. This is shown by the parliamentary investigation committees, whose work continued even after the verdict in the NSU trial or, as in Bavaria, was only taken up afterwards.[3] And it is shown by the ongoing activities of NSU-Watch and many voices from the plaintiff (Nebenklage).[4] Despite a legally binding verdict, the investigations in this case are by no means complete – in this respect, too, it is hardly possible to speak of an “after”.

It is these complications and confusions that undermine the talk of closure and an “after” that Kathrin Röggla addresses when we read in the novel: “’The real question, after all, is’, interrupts a person behind us, ‘is the killing over yet’?”[5] Not only, but also in this sense, the title of the novel is also to be understood as an undermining of the talk of an “after”: Laufendes Verfahren, ongoing proceedings, ongoing process. The jacket blurb begins precisely at this point:

„No clean break!“ That was the demand of many voices from the plaintiffs after the verdict of the biggest post-Wende trial. Too little was clarified in the NSU trial, too many political promises were made. But what exactly happens to a trial whose boundaries are the subject of such sustained debate? (jacket blurb)[6]

Where “we” are – Delimitations in Progress

Röggla takes up this question in the conception of her novel, as well as the question of who observes the „third force“ at work „when it comes to racist terror and the attack on our democracy” (jacket blurb).[7] But, for the novel, she chooses not to reconstruct the trial on the basis of the extensively available transcripts and other documents, even though she nonetheless uses them as important reference texts.[8] She opts for the perspective of a reporting polyphonic „we“, located on the “Empore” (9), the gallery, the elevated platform with the spectators‘ seats. This multiple “we” is only constituted by the procedure, “Verfahren”, during the proceedings and through it, while at the same time being fundamentally questioned, again and again.

Obviously, the „we“ is not an „I,“ and it is also not, even if a critic in the Süddeutsche Zeitung believes this to be true twice in a review, not a „Pluralis Majestatis“;[9] the „we“ is a polyphonic „we“ without it being clear how many and which voices it comprises. What is clear, already on the first page of the novel, is the place, the localization of the „we“: „up on the gallery“, “oben auf der Empore” (9). One page later, we learn that „we will not be complete (…) anyway,“ which is understandable insofar as the „we“ is constituted in the course of the trial, but also changes during the proceedings:

We will not all be there yet, we will only arrive bit by bit, over the years someone will always join us and someone will stay away, some will never come back without having said goodbye, and for the time being we will not notice it either (10).[10]

The „we“ foreseeably doesn‘t get to know everything that happens to it, who joins when or doesn‘t come back, it doesn‘t know „yet what we‘re getting into” (10).[11] This seems to be different, at least from the perspective of the „we,“ „down here on the negotiating level,“ because there, on the negotiating level, the „we“ suspects, „they will already know something.“ But also „up here on the gallery“ there are some who „also know something“:

the media representatives, the journalists and radio people who sit here next to us and take notes, who are allowed to carry their laptops and notebooks into the court (…), while we always remain a little bit outside (10–11).[12]

It quickly becomes clear that the elevated position of the „we“ is not a particularly privileged position: „up on the gallery“ you don‘t get to see much of what is happening below, at the negotiating level. The view is limited, one (or: “we”, respectively) cannot see many of the participants in the trial, such as the representatives of the plaintiffs. The acoustics are poor, so one (or: “we”, respectively) can‘t hear much of what‘s going on. But even „up on the gallery“ the „we“ does not have a privileged place – it is separated from the „media representatives“ who will „sit on the right side“, while „we are assigned the left side“ (11).[13] A clear separation, then, is established between the media representatives and the „we,“ which is initially qualified only diffusely as „curious and apparently uninvolved,“ as those „who are not on any side for the time being,“ who want to observe and who, we learn right at the beginning of the novel, will be the ones „who wonder” (11–13).[14]

And there are further demarcations to the clearly, almost overprecisely localized, but only diffusely determined „we“. As those who have „no idea“, who „simply don‘t understand anything about the matter“, the “we” also distinguishes itself from the „half- and full-lawyers“, „our seat neighbors“, the „first-rate explainers“, “Erklärburschen erster Güte”, who exhibit their „knowledge of the matter“ „up on the gallery“ (17).[15]

Gradually, other characters are identified up on the gallery, typified, schematised characters: the „O-Ton-Jurist“, the „Gerichtsopa“, the „Omagegenrechts“, the „Bloggerklaus“ or the „Vornamenyildiz“, whose attribution is varied several times in the course of the novel (17-18, 31, passim). The „O-Ton-Jurist“ corrects the „we“, the „Bloggerklaus“ informs it, the „Gerichtsopa“ asks it to be quiet, so that, on the one hand, it is underlined that these typified characters are different from the „we“, but, on the other hand, the impression arises that they nevertheless also become part of a „proper court community“ (45)[16] together with the „we“, even if, or perhaps because, it “will never be completed”. It is still (or always only) in the making, in the mode of becoming.

Unfinished Business – Past Present and Imperfect Future

The clear localization and unclear constitution of the „we“ corresponds to the disruption of the time relations: the it experiences, observes, and produdes. From the very beginning, the novel addresses temporal relations, thematizing time, points in time and time spans – ““Over hours …“, begins the first sentence, reflecting complications on the level of temporality but also in the mode of narration, on the level of tense: „Over several hours, their complaints will be heard again. That‘s where it will start, that‘s where it always starts…“ (9).[17] But where exactly the beginning of the ongoing proceedings is to be found is, as it soon becomes clear, anything but obvious, at least for the „we.“ The „O-ton-Juristen“, the explanatory boys, are well aware that the trial began long before the indictment was read. And they inform the „we“ at the same time that the beginning of the trial also presupposes the end of what is being investigated. Thus, as the „we“ is instructed by the first-rate explainers, in the very moment the court begins, „automatically a past tense“ (21) sets in, a form indicating the past: „Something is over, it assures us, and that is precisely the relief. One cannot judge about what is to come, that is logical, the thing must be defined as finished…“ (22).[18]

This supposed self-evidence, which manifests itself in the present indictment, which is no longer open to variations, and which, in the opinion of those sitting next to the “we”, determines the logic of the court, is resisted by the „we“ and, with it, the novel. The first sentences already direct the perspective to the future: „Over hours their complaints will be heard again…“ – „This is how it will begin…“. This is not a sovereign narrative in the past tense, but it is also not a narrative that is open to the future, because what will happen already seems to be certain, „always“, “again”, “wieder” and “immer wieder”, „again and again“ (9-10). The narrating „we“ puts us from the beginning into the mode of a shifted, unrealized, implied future perfect, a future tending to be in the past, which at the same time denies itself by putting the addressed future – with attributions like „always“ and „again and again“ – into a mode of repetition. Thus, again and again, what becomes visible (or no longer visible), what will happen when or will not happen (or will have happened), is permanently in question, causing confusion and discomfort. “Auftritt der Gespenster” (117), enter ghost, so to speak:

Perhaps, however, it will not seem from the beginning as if we had to overcome the two floors up to the gallery, it will rather appear as though we were always already sitting inside in the hall and had already set ourselves up as ghosts, which one accepts within such a procedure.(14)[19]

At the lower level, on the level of negotiation, which focuses on the „here & now“, “Hier & Jetzt”(19), time runs differently than at the top, on the gallery. There, the suggested future perfect and the “always already” of the ghostly „we“ shapes the narrative, and yet is repeatedly disrupted by the presence, and the present tense, of the typified characters, who, as typified characters, at the same time deny their own presentness (and their presence in a “here & now”). “But that‘s already a dream of the future,” the Gerichtsopa comments on a possible end of the trial and the supposedly misguided reflections of the “we”, calling instead to “finally stay in the here & now!” (38)[20] „A moment later, the past begins and the future is suspended” (156),[21] concludes the second part of the novel. This coexistence and reciprocal turnover of future, present, and past (tense), which marks the novel again and again, allows for a halting reflection of the ongoing process, which is nevertheless presented (or re-presented) as an ongoing proceeding, as unfinished business.

The process continues, even when it is completed. The novel thematizes its incompleteness, presenting and performing this incompleteness in the narrative, in the narration by the ghostly „we,“ as an ongoing procedure, as Laufendes Verfahren. The fact that one thereby learns „really nothing at all about the trial“, as one could read in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit,[22] is in a certain sense correct – the novel is not about a reconstruction of the proceedings. But at the same time, this polemical criticism demonstrates a strangely limited view of the text by the literary critic. Through the specific access via the „we,“ the mode of an irritatingly past (and imperfect) future, and the presentation of an ongoing procedure, we do learn a great deal about the trial and the modes through which we encounter it.

„There‘s so much missing here“ – Narrative (De)Escalation

Röggla takes a look at the NSU trial, which escalated over the years, through a consistently de-escalating narrative, avoiding eventfulness and escalation logic, but nevertheless – or precisely because of this – raising questions that bring to light the dramatic and drastic nature of the non-closure and non-closability of the case. The question: „To whom do which ghosts appear?“ („Wem erscheinen welche Gespenster?“, 117), refers in this case not to a harmless ghost story, but to an argument that is engaged in a project that, in a different form, in a different mode, initiatives such as NSU Watch or the many voices of the Nebenklage are also pursuing: „No clean break!“ – “Kein Schlussstrich!” (jacket blurb)

The novel‘s final paragraph begins by noting: „‚There‘s so much missing here,‘ someone says at this moment“. This not only calls up and evokes unfinished business one last time, but also once again poses the question of who the „we“ actually is – or who we are, as readers, as instances of reflection, as recipients, as receivers of signals, “at this moment”, “here & now”: „‚Was that you now?‘ – ‚You really can‘t claim that that was it now.‘ Whose voice was that? Any of you? No. We basically can‘t hear you anymore. Can you hear?“ (202-203)[23]

Anmerkungen

[1] See Aristotle: Poetics, 1452a, 2-3.

[2] Fuchs, Christian: Wie der Begriff „Döner-Morde“ entstand. In: Spiegel Online, 4. Juli 2012. URL: https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/gesellschaft/doener-mord-wie-das-unwort-des-jahres-entstand-a-841734.html [accessed 16.08.2024].

[3] For the report of the Committee of Inquiry of the German Bundestag cf. https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/17/146/1714600.pdf [accessed 16.08.2024]; for the report of the investigative committee of the Bavarian state parliament cf. https://www.bayern.landtag.de/fileadmin/Internet_Dokumente/Sonstiges_A/UA_NSU_Schlussbericht_18_29926_fertige_Drs_Plenum.pdf [accessed 16.08.2024].

[4] https://www.nsu-watch.info [accessed 16.08.2024].

[5] „‘Die eigentliche Frage ist doch‘, so unterbricht uns eine Person hinter uns, ‚ist das Morden schon vorbei?“ – Röggla, Kathrin: Laufendes Verfahren. Frankfurt/M., p. 20, my translation. Further references from the novel are given in brackets in the text, with quotations in English translation, the German original in the footnotes.

[6] „‚Kein Schlussstrich!‘ Das war nach dem Urteil des größten Nachwendeprozesses die Forderung vieler Stimmen aus der Nebenklage.“ Cf. Behrens, Antonia von der (ed.): Kein Schlusswort: Nazi-Terror, Sicherheitsbehörden, Unterstützernetzwerk. Plädoyers im NSU-Prozess. Hamburg 2018.

[7] „Wer beobachtet die dritte Gewalt bei ihrer Arbeit, wenn es um rassistischen Terror und den Angriff auf unsere Demokratie geht.“

[8] Röggla refers to the work of (and thanks) Annette Ramelsberger, Wiebke Ramm, Tanjev Schultz and Rainer Stadler, cf. Ramelsberger, Annette et al: Der NSU-Prozess. Das Protokoll. 2 vls. Bonn 2019.

[9] Steinke, Ronen: Uns kratzt das nicht. Kathrin Rögglas „Laufendes Verfahren“. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung 01.08.2023. URL: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/kathrin-roeggla-nsu-prozess-roman-rezension-1.6086079 [accessed 16.08.2024].

[10] „Wir werden noch nicht alle da sein, wir werden erst so nach und nach eintreffen, über die Jahre hinweg wird immer wieder jemand dazu kommen und jemand wegbleiben, manche werden auch nie wiederkommen, ohne sich recht verabschiedet zu haben, und uns wird es erst einmal auch nicht auffallen.“

[11] „Wir wissen noch nicht, auf was wir uns da einlassen.“#

[12] „D.h. unten auf dem Verhandlungsniveau werden sie schon etwas wissen, hier oben auf der Empore werden sie auch etwas wissen, zumindest die Medienvertreter, die Journalistinnen und Rundfunkmenschen, die hier neben uns sitzen und mitschreiben, die ihre Laptops und Notebooks mit hineintragen dürfen ins Gericht (…), während wir immer ein kleines Stück draußen bleiben.“

[13] „Sie werden sich auf die rechte Seite setzen, von uns aus gesehen, während uns die linke Seite zugewiesen wird.“

[14] „Die Neugierigen und scheinbar Unbeteiligten, die, die erstmal auf keiner Seite stehen… (…). Wir werden die sein, die sich wundern.“

[15] „Wir allerdings haben keine Ahnung, wir verstehen nichts von der Sache (…), wir sitzen immer nur neben den Halb- und Volljuristen, Erklärburschen erster Güte.“

[16] „ …wir sind hier eine regelrechte Gerichtscommunity…“.

[17] „Über Stunden hinweg werden wieder ihre Besetzungsrügen und Anträge zu hören sein. Damit wierd es anfangen, damit fängt es doch immer an…“.

[18] „… wenn das Gericht beginnt, setzt automatisch eine Vergangenheitsform ein. Etwas ist vorbei, garantiert es uns, und das ist ja gerade das Erleichternde. Über Zukünftiges kann man nicht richten, die Sache muss als abgeschlossen definiert sein…“.

[19] „Vielleicht aber wird es bei uns von Anfang an nicht so wirken, als wir die zwei Stockwerke hinauf zur Empore überwinden müssten, es wird vielmehr den Anschein haben, als säßen wir immer schon drinnen im Saal und hätten uns bereits eingerichtet wir Geister, die man in Kauf nimmt bei so einem Verfahren.“

[20] „… ‚aber das ist doch schon wieder Zukunftsmusik‘, macht uns der Gerichtsopa aufmerksam, ‚bleiben wir doch endlich mal im Hier&Jetzt!

[20] „… ‚aber das ist doch schon wieder Zukunftsmusik‘, macht uns der Gerichtsopa aufmerksam, ‚bleiben wir doch endlich mal im Hier&Jetzt!‘“

[21] „Einen kurzen Augenblick später setzt die Vergangenheit ein und die Zukunft aus.“

[22] Beckers, Maja: Am Terror gescheitert. Kathrin Röggla stellt mit ihrem Roman „Laufendes Verfahren“ über den NSU-Prozess das Genre Gerichtsreportage auf den Kopf. In: Die Zeit 34/2023. URL: https://www.zeit.de/2023/34/laufendes-verfahren-kathrin-roeggla-nsu-prozess [accessed 16.08.2024].

[23] “‚Hier fehlt ja so viel‘, sagt in diesem Moment aber jemand. ‚Seid ihr das jetzt gewesen?‘ – ‚Ihr könnt doch jetzt nicht wirklich behaupten, dass es das jetzt war.‘ Wessen Stimme war das? Jemand von euch. Nein. Wir können euch im Grunde nicht mehr hören, hört ihr?“ – Concerning hearing as a basic condition for being-with others cf. Ingvild Folkvord’s text.