Judgment Day!
Thursday, March 1, 1984: Three Words, a Lifetime Lost.
Third month in pretrial detention. 55 days in jail without a verdict. That’s 1,320 hours or 79,200 minutes of my life gone.
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We are just about to grab our Bakelite plugs when the little sergeant Schäfer looks through the hatch. His smug arrogance is not a good sign.
He shows me an official letter. A summons to appear in court on Monday, March 12. My cellmate is due to appear next Monday, March 5, which he found out last week.
Monday seems to be Judgment Day here. My pulse is racing. My heart is pounding. Violent tremors. Angry rage. Extreme uncertainty. High risk of losing my mind. Endless mental turmoil.
So they really want to lock me up. Because of a piece of paper! No, because of three words on a piece of paper: “Let’s Go West.” In all seriousness, for the red fascists, this is proof of a crime!
My intention to travel two hundred miles west by train is met in this state with weeks of pretrial detention and a summons to a court hearing with all the trimmings—judges, lawyers, witnesses, and who knows who else is sitting in the courtroom.
Fleeing the republic is worse than murder, some bigwig is supposed to have said. “Calm down, Jannot,” I hear myself say. Don’t panic. Keep cool. I wanted it this way. But what if they lock me up forever and throw away the key, my brain races again.
Andi looks shocked when I start singing louder than usual Udo’s
“Willkommen zum Grande Finale (Welcome to the Grande Finale) /
Die Erde geht unter, erfahr’n wir soeben (The world is coming to an end, we’ve just heard) /
Der Eintritt ist ohne Bezahle (Admission is free) /
Sie zahlen hier bloß mit Ihrem Leben (You only pay with your life)...”
Then I sing him “Sympathy for the Devil”:
“Erlauben Sie, dass ich mich vorstell’ (Allow me to introduce myself) /
Ich bin ein Mann von Welt und Stil (I am a man of the world and style) /
Ich geh’ um seit einer Ewigkeit (I’ve been around for an eternity) /
Raube Seelen, kenn kein Gefühl (I steal souls, I know no feelings)...”
Late in the evening, I have to ‘breathe’ Stefan Diestelmann’s “Reichsbahnblues,” which unfortunately has no lyrics. But it calms me down. Let’s see if I can sleep.
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