On October 3, 1990, the GDR is history. Two years later, Erich Honecker and Erich Mielke are in custody. The psychiatrist Werner Platz is supposed to get an idea of what were once the most powerful men in the defunct state – and he comes as close to them as few did at that time.
When Werner Platz met Erich Mielke and Erich Honecker in 1992, both of them had fallen as low as you can only fall if you were very high up beforehand. Honecker had headed the GDR for almost two decades, while Mielke commanded the almost 300,000 Stasi spies. Now both were remand prisoners in the prison Berlin-Moabit; old, sick men who should answer for the fatal shots on the inner-German border. The habilitated psychiatrist and court expert Werner Platz had to assess whether they were fit to stand trial. He met her again and again to get an idea, with Mielke there were 22 appointments over the course of a good four months.