Mattinger

Mattinger is Leinen’s experienced courtroom opponent, a lawyer whose skill in questioning can shape what the court thinks it has heard. After Leinen exposes the limitation rule behind the termination of proceedings against Hans Meyer, Mattinger acknowledges the defeat without surrendering their deeper disagreement: whether judges should follow the law as it stood or answer to society’s changed moral judgment.

Identity and Courtroom Method

During Dr Schwan’s testimony, Leinen confronts the impression that investigations into Hans Meyer had been discontinued for one reason when the actual reason was different. Schwan says Mattinger’s skilful questions may have led the court to that impression; the proceedings had been discontinued because the statute of limitations had come into force. The exchange establishes Mattinger as an effective advocate whose questioning can direct an audience toward an inference even when it does not state the underlying explanation outright.

The distinction at stake is specific: Hans Meyer had been in command, and the investigation did not continue to determine his guilt or innocence. Schwan identifies a law that came into force on 1 October 1968 as the reason the alleged crime had become subject to the statute of limitations. Mattinger’s courtroom skill helps make the path to that answer consequential: Leinen must draw out the difference between the fact that proceedings stopped and the reason they stopped.

Defeat and Disagreement

After the courtroom proceedings, Mattinger waits outside with a cigar and smiles at Leinen. He congratulates him, saying, “Well done, Leinen, it’s quite a while since I was defeated like that. Straight down the line. Congratulations.” The handshake and praise are direct, but the concession is not agreement with Leinen’s case about law and justice.

Mattinger asks how Leinen knew he would call the archive director as an expert witness. Leinen explains that he and Dr Schwan had found common ground in Ludwigsburg, and that she had called him after Mattinger contacted her, giving him time to prepare. Mattinger approves of the preparation as a way to win cases, then insists that Leinen is still wrong. In Mattinger’s view, judges cannot decide according to what seems politically correct: if Meyer acted correctly by the standards of his time, Mattinger argues, he cannot be blamed for it today.

Leinen counters that what Meyer did was always objectively cruel, and that the possibility that judges in the 1950s or 1960s might have ruled in his favour does not alter that. The exchange condenses their conflict into competing grounds for judgment. Mattinger says he believes in the laws while Leinen believes in society; he names the historical shift in moral standards as the zeitgeist, and leaves open which of them will prove right.

Withdrawal and Offer

As they walk down the steps and through the main entrance, Mattinger says he is going on holiday and does not want to take any further part in the trial. His withdrawal follows his acknowledgment of defeat, but it does not end his professional engagement with Leinen. Before getting into his car, he tells Leinen that Johanna Meyer fired the company lawyer, Holger Baumann, after learning that Baumann had tried to bribe him, and that she had been outraged by the attempt.

Mattinger’s final gesture is an invitation: if Leinen still wants to be a defence lawyer after the trial, he should come to see him, because Mattinger would be glad to take him into partnership. The offer turns the courtroom defeat into a possible professional beginning for Leinen, without resolving their disagreement over the meaning of justice. Mattinger drives away, and Leinen watches the car disappear into the traffic.

Narrative Role

Mattinger is more than a skilled adversary: he articulates the legal certainty that Leinen’s moral argument unsettles. His position distinguishes obedience to the law applicable at the time from condemnation informed by later social standards. The two men can recognize each other’s ability and speak candidly without reaching a shared conclusion; the partnership offer makes their rivalry a form of professional respect, while his final challenge keeps their central dispute unresolved.