Die Ursache

The unsuccessful writer Anton Sailer returns to Würzburg, the city of his childhood, as an adult. He believes that he has identified the cause of his psychological breakdown in the humiliation he suffered at the time by his sadistic class teacher, and is obsessed with the thought of facing his tormentor again. But when the time comes, he doesn't allow him to cope - instead he repeats a similar scene with one of his students. Sailer, who relived his trauma, loses his nerve and strangles the teacher. He is sentenced to death in court because the jury does not want a childhood experience to be seen as an attenuating circumstance.