Hana tells Stahl she is pregnant

Hana’s announcement that she is pregnant forces Werner Stahl to confront the consequences of their relationship. She confirms that a pregnancy test is positive, tells him the child is his, and later insists that she intends to keep it. The revelation does not secure an uncomplicated response: Stahl questions her account and hesitates over responsibility, while Hana explains that she and her husband have no money because his bank accounts have been frozen. Her disclosure is thus both a statement of fact and a demand that Stahl recognize the future at stake.

The Disclosure and Its Confirmation

When Stahl urges Hana to leave, she remains and says there is something else he needs to know. She tells him that she is pregnant. He asks her to repeat herself, and she explains that she has had a test—the rabbit test—and received a positive result the previous day. The exchange makes the announcement concrete: Hana is not merely raising a possibility but reporting a result she has checked.

Hana then identifies Stahl as the father. When he objects by invoking her Jewish husband, she answers that the child is not her husband’s and points to the difference in their relationship, including the considerable difference in their ages. The scene establishes the pregnancy as the consequence of Hana and Stahl’s relationship, while showing Stahl’s immediate attempt to distance himself from that consequence.

Keeping the Child and Asking for Help

Later, when Stahl drives Hana through the occupied old city, she says she wants to keep the baby. His response is guarded: he entertains the possibility that she is pretending in order to obtain money, tells her the decision is hers, and questions whether there is a baby or whether he is the father. Hana answers that she does not lie. Her insistence is not presented as a settled practical plan; she immediately adds that she will need help.

The need is material as well as personal. Hana reminds Stahl that she and her husband have no money and that her husband is Jewish, so his bank accounts have been frozen. The persecution directed at her husband has therefore narrowed the family’s options just as Hana faces pregnancy. Stahl’s words leave responsibility ambiguously acknowledged, but Hana’s request makes clear that his decision has consequences beyond the private history between them.

The Letter and Hana’s Future

A letter from Hana later reaches Liesel as the Landauers prepare to leave. Reading it repeatedly, Liesel connects Hana’s news with her own remembered pregnancy and with Hana’s attentiveness during that time. She recalls their earlier closeness and the occasion when they had used a pendulum to guess Ottilie’s sex, an intimate memory that sharpens the contrast with the present letter.

In the letter, Hana writes that she had believed herself unable to have children because a doctor had called her barren. The pregnancy has overturned that belief, but the change brings no simple relief: she says she wants the baby and identifies the child—whether a boy or a girl—as the future she wants. Her words make the disclosure an assertion of desire and possibility, even as the circumstances around her remain precarious.

Significance

The announcement changes the meaning of Hana and Stahl’s relationship by bringing its consequences into the open. The test and Hana’s declaration establish the pregnancy; her explanation of paternity confronts Stahl with his involvement; and her request for help puts money and responsibility alongside the question of whether the child will be kept. His suspicion and hesitation contrast with Hana’s resolve.

The episode also links private vulnerability to political oppression. Hana’s husband’s Jewish identity and the freezing of his accounts are not incidental background: they help explain why she turns to Stahl for practical support. The later letter carries the scene’s significance into Liesel’s experience, joining Hana’s new claim to a future with memories of their earlier intimacy. Hana’s disclosure therefore marks both a rupture in secrecy and an uncertain beginning, without suggesting that the support she needs has been secured.