- Lüding, Verleger: The shots that killed Werner Tötges didn't hit him alone. They were aimed at Freedom of the Press, one of the most precious values of our young Democracy. And these shots - for us who stand here in grief and horror - they strike us. Just as they struck him. Who doesn't feel the wound? Who doesn't feel the sorrow above and beyond one's personal concerns? Who doesn't feel the breath of terror, the savage of anarchy, the violence which is undermining the foundations of our liberal-democratic order which we are so devoted to. Here, allegedly private motives have led to a political assassination, and we can say once more: stop it before it grows! Look out, for Freedom of the Press is the core of everything: well-being, social progress, democracy, pluralism, diversity of opinions. And whoever attacks The Paper attacks us all.
- Prosecutor Hach: How do you explain - you who are so proper that your friends call you "the nun"- that you throw yourself into the arms of a stranger and take him to your room to have intercourse with him? What is it? Love at first sight? Tenderness? Advances? Or just a quick lay?
- Prosecutor Hach: I've seen you somewhere before.
- Katharina Blum: Yes. I work for the Blornas.
- Prosecutor Hach: Please get dressed. It looks bad when you're parading half naked in front of your employees.
- Katharina Blum: I'm not parading. I'm at home.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: "I am a bad, conscienceless, godless man, but gold is revered, and so is its owner. The divine strength of gold lies in its being the estranged, alienated and self-alienating essence of Man. It is the alienated property of Men." Sit down here. Did Goetten write that?
- Katharina Blum: No, it has nothing to do with Ludwig.
- Prosecutor Hach: Gold is revered, and so is its owner! Written by a bank robber, it makes sense.
- Katharina Blum: It's by Karl Marx!
- Moeding: Probably the early writings.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: So you've read Marx?
- Katharina Blum: No.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: Is that your handwriting?
- Katharina Blum: Father Urbanus, a Dominican, wrote it down for me. You can check. Hohenblumenburg Convent.
- Prosecutor Hach: You mean you know Marx through the Dominicans? You chose the wrong order.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: Goetten's advances didn't bother you?
- Katharina Blum: Ludwig didn't make advances. He was tender.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: Same thing.
- Katharina Blum: It is not! Advances are a one-sided action, and tenderness is quite different. It comes from both parties.
- Moeding: Four batteries, an alarm clock, two reels of wire and various tools. A short blond wig. Books: two romances, three crime stories, a biography of Napoleon, and biography of Queen Christina of Sweden, all from a book club. Typically bourgeois literature.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: You think she's innocent, Moeding?
- Moeding: I see it the other way around. I'd have taken her to my place.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: And?
- Moeding: The morning after, she'd tell me the police were after her.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: You'd turn her in.
- Moeding: I probably would. But I suppose an average man would not. Not everyone works for the police.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: Anyone who thinks like that doesn't belong in the force, Moeding.
- Werner Tötges: And Katharina Blum - was she a whore?
- Man at a bar: Her? No. Stiff as a board. You couldn't even pinch her ass. Too square and too shy.
- Werner Tötges: Mothers are giving - even sick ones.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: How did you get to the mother?
- Werner Tötges: I'm an old pro.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: "'It had to come to this,' she whispered in a dying voice." Did she really say that?
- Werner Tötges: We must help simple people express themselves.
- Ludwig Götten: Your name is Katharina?
- Katharina Blum: And yours?
- Ludwig Götten: Ludwig.
- Katharina Blum: I haven't called a man by his first name in ages.
- Ludwig Götten: How long?
- Katharina Blum: Four years. No, five.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: What kind of man is her employer, this Blorna? Did you dig up anything?
- Werner Tötges: Yes. another "coincidence": the moment the young man appeared, Blorna happened to go on vacation. His wife, an architect.
- [shows the Kommissar a photo]
- Werner Tötges: In student days she was known as "Trudy the Red." Not for her opinions, but for the color of her hair.
- [looks down and points at his crotch]
- Katharina Blum: These people are murderers. All of them. It's their very business to rob innocent people of their honor, often too take their lives. Otherwise nobody would buy their papers.
- Alois Sträubleder: There are other papers besides 'The Paper'. Toetges can sell his articles through patsies. I have nothing against making headlines, except in connection with anarchists.
- Dr. Hubert Blorna: What's Alois got to do with it?
- Trude Blorna: Didn't it occur to you that he's the gentleman friend? I think he's irresistible. I know that from experience.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: It should come to 104,000. But in fact it shows 162,000.
- Moeding: Now and then she visits her mother in Gemmelsbroich.
- Kommissar Beizmenne: 50,000 still remain unaccounted for. We have the gas bills. Where did you drive to so often? What were you spying on? Whom did you meet and where?
- Katharina Blum: That's right. I just added it up in my mind. I never gave a thought about those expenses. After work, I often go for a drive. Mostly when it rains and when I'm alone. Sometimes I'm home at 5:00 with nothing to do. I know so many women who get drunk alone in front of their TV. That scares me.
- Else's Boyfriend: You've been interrogated. So have we all. 'The Paper' smeared the usual crap on us. They only spared me, perhaps just because I'm an old Nazi.
- Werner Tötges: You're not blaming me for that 'Paper' coverage? They treated you a little rough. You're not mad at me? I'll get through it and so will you. I often get furious with the editors. I deliver first-rate copy and they turn it into crap.
- Werner Tötges: I have a lot of respect for you. What you've done - - I take my hat off! Politically naive, of course. We should get to know each other better. This interview is just the beginning. How about fucking for a start?
- Werner Tötges: You can make a lot of money on your name. The story is still hot news, but we must keep plugging it or people will forget about you. First an exclusive interview for a weekly magazine. You're news. You have to exploit that.
- Assistant District Attorney: Freedom of the press cannot be dealt with lightly.
- Else Woltersheim: But freedom and honor of a man can be.
- Assistant District Attorney: If you avoid bad company, you don't give the press the wrong opportunities.
- Else Woltersheim: I won't take that kind of lecture, especially from a young man.