VERGELTUNG

In the organizer's words:

It all begins at an altitude of 4,000 meters: a 600-meter-wide and 30-kilometer-long stream of US bombers moves towards a city. Below them, bombs falling shortly afterwards, the parachutes of a bomber crew, low-flying aircraft and flak towers. At the bottom, houses and streets on which staggering people are "grilled" in boiling tar. Air raid shelters, cellars, confusion, an unbelievable horror scenario.

Gert Ledig's novel VERGELTUNG takes a cold and unsentimental look at the destructive violence of an Allied air raid in July 1944. The city referred to here remains nameless - but could be called Kiev, Tehran or Cologne. Here too, after the night of May 30-31, 1942, only the cathedral remained standing in a vast landscape of ruins.

To this day, the trauma of the air raids remains largely unresolved, while the jumbled post-war architecture of the city centers continues to silently bear witness to the horrors of that time. Director Sebastian Baumgarten is staging Ledig's declaration of war against war-mongering phrases of "fatherland, heroism, tradition, faith and honor" as a world premiere for Schauspiel Köln.

VERGELTUNG describes a city in a state of war. Violence as well as physical and mental suffering are sometimes described very explicitly. Loud noises and strobe lighting are used.