A Frankfurt criminal case. The true Gretchen. Frankfurt in 1771: Susann, a maid, is accused by her own sister of killing her newborn child. A few days later, the fugitive allows herself to be arrested at the city gate without resistance. The trial against her begins in the Römer. The case arouses tempers. And when Susann is finally beheaded on the Rossmarkt, a burgher's son named Johann Wolfgang Goethe is among the spectators. The fate of the child murderess never let go of the young jurist; he set up a monument to her with Gretchen. Ruth Berger frees the historical figure from the literary shadow and shows us a woman's life: exciting, up close and deeply moving. "Ruth Berger paints a vivid and detailed picture of Frankfurt and its inhabitants." Frankfurter Rundschau
