Deutschsprachige Verbrechens- und Kriminalliteratur der Gegenwart : Ferdinand von Schirachs Darstellung des Verbrechens in „Verbrechen“ und „Tabu“

(eng) In 2009 Ferdinand von Schirach, a famous Berlin lawyer, started his writing career and published his stories “Verbrechen” (Crimes). The book was so successful that the writer published in 2010 and a few months ago (in March 2018) another series of stories under the title “Schuld” (Guilt) and “Strafe”. The enthusiasm for these texts, both nationally and internationally, can surely be explained by the fact that Ferdinand von Schirach was inspired by real legal cases in which he was involved as a lawyer. The author's influence is such that, many authors copy his stories based on real crimes, which also gave the name to this new literary column named “True Crime Fiction”. The aim of this master thesis is to analyse how this contemporary writer, who exerts such an influence on current media and on certain authors, presents and questions crime in literary terms. To do this, a corpus of the author representing two different literary genres, namely his stories “Verbrechen” (Crimes), and his novel “Tabu” (The Girl Who Wasn’t There), were chosen. Firstly, the different literary categories associated with the crime must be explained and differentiated. Thus the first chapter attempts to define the following terms: “Verbrechens-“, “Kriminal-”, “Detektivliteratur” and “Beinahekrimi”. The second chapter describes Ferdinand von Schirach’s position as a “Dichterjurist”, i.e. as a poet (in the broad sense) with a legal background. The third chapter elaborates the analysis of Ferdinand von Schirach's “Verbrechen” stories and thus confirms that they are texts that continue the tradition of the “Verbrechensliteratur” while taking up elements of the “Kriminalliteratur”. This chapter therefore demonstrates that the writer does not focus on the crime itself but strives to describe the reasons for which the protagonists became criminals. Finally, the fourth and last chapter deals with the analysis of von Schirach’s novel “Tabu”. It proves that the novel cannot be described as a “Kriminalroman” but is rather a reflection on moral and legal questions such as the difference between reality and truth, a person's fault (in a moral and legal sense) and the inviolability of human dignity.