Expulsion from Verdun

Heiner Müller's last visit on the battle fields of World War I

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Alexander Kluge and Mark Lammert talk about Heiner Müller's last visit in Verdun, late in his life. He visited the battle fields of World War I, the museum, the memorial "Dead Man" and Fort Douaumont, which was relevant to his play "Germania 3 – Ghosts at Dead Man” (1995). Lammert, who accompanied Müller on his trip, talks about Müller's fragile health at the time, and the toll the trip took on his body. In an interview, he referred to the charnel-houses for the dead as "death kitsch" in a side remark, because they cannot render the horrors of the war present, or as Kluge formulates it: "With the firm intention to part with it, to somehow get rid of them this way and to continue in Paris." Those comments, which later caused considerable media reaction, were the reason for Müller being disinvited by the mayor of Verdun.