On a cold December morning in 2011, a woman's body is found in a forest near Berlin, hidden between tall trees under dry leaves and moss. She has been strangled in cold blood. The victim's husband, Heinrich Scholl, is devastated. He is well respected in the community, a former mayor, and had been happily married-or so it seemed-for almost fifty years. Three weeks later he is arrested, and after an eighteen-month trial is sentenced to life. To this day he pleads not guilty. Can this charming, courteous man possibly be a killer? Journalist Anja Reich-Osang followed the case from its beginning and talked to family, friends and Heinrich Scholl himself. She tells an utterly gripping story of marriage, sex and politics, in which nothing is as it seems.
A rather dry, but very readable account of a marriage gone bad. Heinrich and Brigitte married for convenience, it came to a bloody end in December, 2011 after 50 years of marriage. Heinrich, a successful retired Mayor of a small East German city murdered his wife and her dog.
What makes the book interesting is that this marriage began at the same time the Berlin Wall fell, Heinrich took a small East German village and made it a show place. The author gives us an idea of how life was in Germany around that time, but as to really delving into the true character of the Scholl's the story is a bit weak.
