Kairos

Katharina spots Jens on the platform to West Germany and approaches him. Jens refuses to acknowledge her. Traveling to Cologne to meet her relatives, Katharina gets her first glimpses of the West’s commercialism.

Katharina’s aunt, Annie, had entered West Germany in 1961 to spend one night with her fiancé, Manfred. The following day, the construction of the Berlin Wall left her stranded. Katharina’s grandmother, Emmi, now lives in a basement apartment, which she moved into five years earlier to live closer to Annie. She has replicated the interior of her East Berlin apartment in the new one. Despite their distance, Katharina has maintained correspondence with Annie’s daughter, her cousin Katrin.

While touring Cologne with her relatives, Katharina spots several street beggars. Although she has nothing to give, she is moved by the sight of them. She is later disturbed that her relatives do not feel the same way. Manfred goes so far as to chide the beggars for being lazy.

Katrin introduces Katharina to her boyfriend, Christian, at a McDonald’s, where Katrin explains how she passed her bank job interview by performing reverence for Adenauer. Katharina repeats what Hans told her about Adenauer’s role in the failure to reunify Germany.