"Perhaps we must finally learn to truly understand that the fabric of our civilization itself is woven from fire and smoke." (WG Sebald) It all begins at an altitude of 4,000 meters: A stream of US bombers, 600 meters wide and 30 kilometers long, moves toward a German city. Below, bombs fall, along with the parachutes of a bomber crew, low-flying aircraft, and flak towers. Far below, houses and streets where staggering people are "grilled" in boiling tar. Air-raid shelters, cellars, chaos—an unimaginable horror scenario. A mother searches for her son, who has already met his death as an anti-aircraft gunner; a young woman is buried alive with a stranger and raped by him beneath the rubble. Gert Ledig's novel REVENGE takes a cold and unsentimental look at the destructive violence of an Allied air raid in July 1944. The city in question remains nameless—but could well be Cologne. Here, too, after the night of May 30-31, 1942, only the cathedral stood amidst a vast landscape of rubble. The book was published in 1956, long after Heinrich Böll and Günter Grass had begun depicting the postwar reality of West Germany. It was soon forgotten. To this day, the trauma of the air raids remains largely unaddressed, while the haphazard postwar architecture of city centers continues to silently bear witness to the horrors of that time. Director Sebastian Baumgarten stages Ledig's defiant challenge to warmongering rhetoric of "fatherland, heroism, tradition, faith, and honor" as a world premiere for the Schauspiel Köln (Cologne Theatre).

Tabea Braun

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Apr 24 - May 27, 2026

retribution · Bühnen Köln

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