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THE AGE OF FISH (Jugend ohne Gott)

The show is an adaptation of a novel, whose story is set in 1934 in Germany, in a secondary school.

A 34 year old teacher, Lorenz Ludwig - outwardly aligned, internally resigned - turns his students and their parents against him after making a casual comment to student Niederhöfer about negroes being people too.

The students are spending Easter at a military camp. Shortly after his arrival, the teacher witnesses a girl stealing from a blind man in the village. A student, Ziegler meets the girl, Eva. The teacher witnesses their secret meetings but has the feeling he is not the only observer of the couple. Wanting to avoid confrontation, he instead secretly reads Ziegler’s journal. By doing so he sets a landslide in motion that ends with a murder and time in court.

Horváth’s novel depicts the manipulation and conformity that penetrates into apparently normal everyday civilian life from the perspective of the teacher. Embedded in the form of a thriller, the question of the credibility of one’s own actions evolves as the central theme.