Schwanenwerder Island is the setting of Josef Bühler’s killing, a fact that connects the island to Xavier March’s reconstruction of Martin Luther’s last movements and the wider investigation surrounding the deaths of senior figures. In the passage, March considers whether Luther had returned to Berlin from Zürich and recalls that Luther may have called Bühler’s villa the previous morning. The island becomes a point in March’s effort to establish what happened and when.

Setting and Investigation

Schwanenwerder Island enters the narrative through March’s account of the timing of Bühler’s death. He reasons that, if August Eisler’s estimate of the time of death is accurate, Bühler had already been surprised by his killers when Luther’s call reached the villa. The passage does not describe the island itself; its significance here comes from the villa and the unanswered question of what happened there.

Connection to Martin Luther

March’s thoughts turn repeatedly to Martin Luther as he considers the call and Luther’s disappearance. He imagines the telephone ringing unanswered in Wilhelm Stuckart’s apartment, where Stuckart had been killed, and asks whether anyone at Bühler’s villa answered Luther’s call while Bühler was being held. These possibilities remain unresolved, but they make the villa a crucial location in March’s attempt to place Luther in Berlin and understand why he fled.

Narrative Significance

The island is presented not as a fully described landscape but as a location reconstructed through uncertain timings, a remembered telephone call, and the possibility of a missed response. By linking Bühler’s death to Luther’s sudden disappearance, the passage makes Schwanenwerder Island part of the investigation’s central problem: what Luther knew, what prompted his flight, and whether the people he might have contacted were already in danger.