Karl the tinsmith—Reinhold

Karl the tinsmith and Reinhold are linked by criminal work, coercive recruitment, and a friendship that breaks into reciprocal suspicion and betrayal. Their relationship is not a simple contest between an honest man and a criminal: Karl has worked with Reinhold’s circle, helped conceal a death, and initially accuses Reinhold of a crime he did not commit. Only when Karl later speaks more fully does the history of their alliance emerge, along with the reasons he finally turns against Reinhold.

Criminal Association and Recruitment

Reinhold approaches Karl in a pub on Prenzlauer Street because his group needs a tinsmith and has been unable to find a suitable replacement. He insists that Karl join them, arguing that Karl has already made money with the group and cannot simply leave after profiting from their work. Karl refuses to be bullied and says that whatever else he may be doing is none of Reinhold’s concern. Their exchange makes clear that this is not a voluntary invitation between equals: Reinhold threatens to break Karl’s bones and leave him destitute if he will not cooperate. Karl resists the threat, but Reinhold ends the conversation by telling him to consider the demand, leaving the pressure unresolved.

Reinhold then discusses Karl’s refusal with the others. They regard themselves as helpless without a tinsmith and decide that Karl should be squeezed; they also characterize him as a cheat and consider excluding him from the club. The conflict is therefore about more than a single job. Reinhold treats Karl’s prior participation and earnings as grounds for continued service, while Karl asserts his right to refuse further involvement. The group’s response turns that disagreement into a campaign of coercion.

Franz Biberkopf as an Intermediary

Knowing that the gang is after him, Karl spends considerable time at Franz Biberkopf’s flat, apparently hoping that Franz will reveal something or defend him. Franz does neither. He blames Karl for having let the others down at Stralauer Street and then walking away, and warns him that his circumstances are worsening. When Karl says that Reinhold is a swine and that Franz does not understand what is happening, Franz rejects the attempt to change his view of Reinhold and tells Karl not to fill his head with more of what he considers nonsense.

This exchange exposes a fracture within the wider criminal association. Karl regards Reinhold as a serious threat, but Franz still considers him all right and dismisses Karl’s warning. Karl answers with defiance, insisting that he is strong enough to face Reinhold and will not give in to him. Franz tells him to leave and warns him again to watch himself. The scene leaves Karl without the support he sought and shows how Reinhold’s standing with Franz isolates Karl further.

Arrest and a False Accusation

Two days later, Karl and two companions commit a burglary on Friedenstrasse, and the police arrest him and the wheelwright; the lookout escapes. At the station, the investigation connects Karl to an earlier break-in at the outfitters on Elsasser Strasse through fingerprints left on cups. Karl concludes that Reinhold must have informed on him out of spite for refusing to join the gang. He persuades the wheelwright to back an accusation that Reinhold had been present at the outfitters’ burglary, then tells the examining magistrate that Reinhold was involved and had already fled.

The accusation brings immediate consequences: Reinhold is arrested that afternoon. He denies taking part and produces an alibi. The examining magistrate hears the conflicting accounts, and two days later Reinhold’s alibi is confirmed; he is a pimp, but he had nothing to do with this burglary. Karl and the wheelwright are reprimanded for implicating him without basis. Reinhold’s release does not restore their relationship. The police now know there is something shady about him and plan to watch him more closely, while Karl remains in custody and the two prisoners fall silent after the magistrate’s warning.

What Karl Knows, and Why the Alliance Ends

In his cell, Karl seeks a lawyer through his brother-in-law. Rather than immediately disclose a full account, he tests the lawyer with a hypothetical question about helping to hide and bury a dead person, stressing that the helper did not kill the victim and had acted for a friend. The lawyer describes the matter as suppression of evidence and asks whether Karl knew the dead person or had an interest in concealing the death. Karl continues to distance himself from the deed, then ends the conversation after learning what he wanted to know.

That night Karl realizes that accusing Reinhold has made his own position precarious: Reinhold is no longer around, and Karl fears that the man has recognized what he knows. Karl’s thoughts connect their present hostility to earlier dealings. He remembers that Reinhold had let him take the blame, and considers how Reinhold had once been his friend. These reflections are resentful and self-reproachful; Karl recognizes that his attempt to expose Reinhold may have alerted him without yet resolving what Karl himself should disclose.

The next day Karl gives the magistrate precise information, prompting the magistrate, two detectives, and Karl—whose hands are tied—to travel to Freienwalde. At the forest site, Karl indicates the hollow where the group buried the girl. In questioning, he says that she was already dead when he arrived and that he helped Reinhold carry her. He also admits that he left afterward using a passport Reinhold had given him, so he would have an alibi if the matter became known. The explanation complicates the earlier image of Karl as merely Reinhold’s victim: he had taken part in concealing the body and accepted money from Reinhold, but he now distinguishes his own part from the killing and cooperates with the investigation.

Karl also tells the magistrate that his friendship with Reinhold had already collapsed because Reinhold informed on him in the night-watchman case. He describes Reinhold as brutal and says that Reinhold wanted to get rid of him, while admitting that he had no further account of a direct attempt against him. Their relationship thus ends not with a clean break between innocence and guilt, but with accumulated criminal dependence, an unfounded accusation, the disclosure of a genuine shared secret, and Karl’s eventual decision to lead the authorities to the burial place.