Wannsee

Wannsee is the lakeside setting of Richard Mattinger’s home and a place where domestic memory, conspicuous wealth, and legal pressure meet. Its significance lies not only in the house overlooking the water but in the movement between house, terraces, lawn, and landing stage: Mattinger’s birthday turns the grounds into a spectacle, while the quieter water’s edge becomes the setting for Baumann’s attempt to draw Leinen away from the case.

The House and Its History

Nearly twenty years before the events at the party, Mattinger’s wife found the house on Wannsee. At the time, eight years before reunification, properties by the lake were described as ridiculously cheap, and new families were moving into old houses. Her judgment proved prescient: real-estate values had risen greatly over the following decade. The place therefore carries a history of changing value, from an affordable home in a period of transition to a property associated with Mattinger’s established fortune.

The house also preserves a private history that its rising value cannot measure. Mattinger’s wife died soon after furnishing it, and he refused to change anything in the house afterward. The rooms remain bound to the brief period in which she had made them her home. That refusal gives the property a double character: it is a valuable asset in a sought-after lakeside setting, but also an interior kept fixed by bereavement. The novel introduces Wannsee through this tension between the changing value of the surrounding property and Mattinger’s resistance to change within his own home.

The Birthday Party on the Lake

On the day before the trial was due to continue, Mattinger celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday at Wannsee. More than eight hundred guests had been invited. A large marquee stood on the lawn descending toward the lake; jazz played, and coloured-glass lanterns held countless candles across the two terraces, the grass, and the landing stage. A large boat periodically docked to carry guests out onto the water. The arrangements make the grounds an extension of the party itself, with the lake incorporated into Mattinger’s display of hospitality and resources.

Leinen arrived late after working in his chambers until the last moment to prepare for court the following day. His old car was parked some distance away, beyond a line of expensive vehicles; at the gate, a security man checked his invitation. Inside, Leinen recognised actors, a television presenter, footballers, a well-known hairdresser, and a bank chairman released from remand prison two days earlier. He had eaten almost nothing for two days and helped himself to the buffet. This route into the party places the young lawyer among Mattinger’s distinguished guests while keeping the demands of the trial close: Leinen has come directly from preparation, not from leisure.

The Landing Stage and the Trial

After listening to the band, Leinen went looking for Mattinger. Unable to find him, he went out alone onto the landing stage, where wicker seats with white cushions stood beside the tied boats. Mist hung above Wannsee; the air was cool for the time of year, boats drifted slowly, and the brightly lit house on the slope was reflected in the lake. Leinen turned up his dinner jacket’s collar and lit a cigarette with his father’s silver case. The scene narrows from the crowded grounds to one person at the water’s edge, with the illuminated house still visible above him.

That quiet position makes Leinen easy for Baumann to find. Baumann greets him there, explaining that Mattinger had predicted this was where Leinen would probably be. The remark indicates that Mattinger knows Leinen well enough to anticipate where he would withdraw from the party. Baumann sits beside Leinen as the large boat approaches through the mist; its passengers can be heard, and its navigation lights reflect in Baumann’s glasses. The lake remains part of the party’s movement and spectacle, but it also supplies the secluded setting for a conversation about the case.

Baumann, the company lawyer for Meyer Engineering Works, uses the landing stage to urge Leinen to relinquish the defense. He presents the offer as friendly advice: the company would pay for another mandated defense counsel, whom it already had in mind, and Leinen would then be released from the case. Baumann emphasizes Leinen’s connection to the Meyer family and his future career, then places a hand on Leinen’s arm and warns him not to spoil that future. Leinen refuses to treat the birthday party as the place for such a discussion. Against the bright house and the sounds of the celebration, the lakeside encounter exposes the pressure concealed beneath Baumann’s cordial manner.

Narrative Significance

Wannsee holds together distinct forms of value. The house’s history recalls Mattinger’s wife and his preservation of the rooms she furnished; the party displays the wealth and social reach gathered around him; the landing stage becomes a place where professional pressure can be applied away from the courtroom. The water and mist do not alter the action, but they shape its contrast: the crowded, brightly lit celebration gives way to Leinen alone beside the boats, then to Baumann’s discreet approach.

The setting also links Mattinger’s knowledge of Leinen to the effort to remove him from the trial. Mattinger’s prediction directs Baumann to the landing stage, where Leinen’s temporary solitude becomes the occasion for the proposal. Wannsee is therefore more than a backdrop for an extravagant birthday. Its carefully layered spaces—from the preserved house to the public party and the dimmer edge of the lake—give the scene its movement from personal history to social display and, finally, to an attempt at interference.