NOVEMBER 30, 2009

At 7:00 a.m. the city is quiet, the sky still dark, but the plaza in the Nymphenburger Straße teems with TV and radio trucks, their generators humming. Hundreds of journalists and spectators stand waiting outside the courthouse, bundled against the cold. A rumor circulates that press accreditations have been issued far in excess of what the courtroom can accommodate, and the jostling begins. A policeman shouts unintelligible instructions as reporters grouse about the staggering absence of organization. Instead of cordons and an orderly queue, the police inexplicably have created a crude funnel, its mouth leading to a…