Stettin

Stettin is not presented as an extensively described city so much as a turning point in Otto Bornemann’s story of flight and exposure. He passes through it under another name, and later the city becomes the setting of a police inquiry and his renewed custody. Its significance lies in that reversal: Stettin first serves his effort to leave his old identity behind, then becomes a point from which that identity is recovered and challenged.

Place in the Narrative

Stettin connects two strands of Bornemann’s story. In the account of his escape, he reaches the city after finding a corpse in the Spree and deciding to use the dead man’s identity papers. Later, detectives in Stettin question the man living as Otto Finke, while information from his stepdaughter helps establish who he is. The narrative returns to the city when Bornemann is again in police custody. These appearances make Stettin a practical setting for movement, investigation, and arrest rather than the subject of a sustained portrait of urban life.

Flight and Assumed Identity

After discovering a fresh corpse in the Spree, Bornemann takes the dead man’s identification papers and ties the body to a tree so that it will not drift away. He travels to Stettin and buys a ticket to Berlin. Before leaving, he telephones his wife and asks her to come with money and clothes. He tells her what has happened and leaves her behind to identify the body, promising to send money when he can. His use of the corpse’s papers turns the journey through Stettin into part of an attempted change of identity: the man departs, while the evidence of the identity he is borrowing remains behind in the river.

The later account identifies the assumed name as Otto Finke. Bornemann has settled in Anklam as a fishmonger, and his former stepdaughter, now grown, recognizes him there. He denies that he is her father and presents the Finke household—his wife and five children—as confirmation of that identity. The stepdaughter is not persuaded. She writes to the criminal police in Berlin, describing her recognition of him and the family he has formed under the name Finke. The narrative thus links Stettin to a longer chain of concealment and recognition: the city is one stage of the escape, while the discovery that unravels the assumed identity begins elsewhere.

Police Inquiry and Return to Custody

The police investigation brings Stettin back into focus. Detective superintendent Blum asks the stepdaughter how she knows the man and what enabled her to recognize him. On the strength of her identification, he proposes going to Gorke and arresting the man if her account proves true. The inquiry then turns directly to Finke: the superintendent asks about his identity papers, rejects his suggestion that the registry office should settle the matter, and takes his documents for examination. An officer from Neugard is also brought in because he knew a man named Bornemann from that district.

These exchanges expose the limits of the identity Bornemann has constructed. His family and his public name may attest that he is Otto Finke, but the stepdaughter’s recognition and the officers’ connections to his earlier life bring another account into the room. Stettin is where the police test those competing identities against documents, personal recognition, and the testimony of someone who knew him before the change of name. The episode does not make the registry office or papers decisive on their own; instead, the inquiry draws together records and witnesses.

Arrest and Significance

The account later places Bornemann in police custody in Stettin, where his real wife is brought in. He asks the commissioner to leave her alone, insists that what she swore to was true, and accepts that he will receive two more years. His plea distinguishes her testimony from his own evasion: he does not ask the authorities to spare him, but to spare her from blame. The consequence is a return to custody after the attempted escape and the years spent under the Finke identity.

Stettin’s narrative role is therefore defined by a sequence of reversals rather than by descriptive detail. Bornemann passes through it while trying to travel as another man; later, the city’s detectives investigate that assumed identity; finally, he is held there and accepts the added punishment. The movement from ticket-buying to interrogation and custody gives the place its particular force in the episode: a transit point in the escape becomes a point of accountability.