Terror - Ihr Urteil
Terror - Ihr Urteil (engl. Terror - Your Judgement) is a german stageplay written by Ferdinand von Schirach. It is noteworthy for its Multiple Endings, with the audience deciding if the defendant is guilty or not. The play was addapted as a Live Action Film and aired on October 17. 2016 simultaneously on Das Erste (Germany), ORF 2 (Austria) and SRF (Switzerland).
A terrorist took over an airplane on its flight from Berlin to Munich. He directs the plane to Munich's Allianz-Arena, which hosted 70.000 people watching an international football game. The Luftwaffe Major tasked with intercepting and escorting the flight Lars Koch, decides to take the initiative and shoot the plane down before it can ram the Arena - all against his superiors' strict orders.
Now Koch stands in front of a Berlin criminal court, charged with 164 counts of homicide. During the trial, Kochs commanding officer is present as witness and informs the court of various failures on the side of the state, most importantly, not having the stadium evacuated the moment the plane moved into its direction. Also present at court is the widow of a passenger, who got a SMS from her husband, informing her moments before the downing that the passengers were trying to storm into the cockpit to stop the terrorist - and could have done so, had Kocy not shot them down.
After the witnesses have been questioned and the prosecuting attorney and the defending attorney have held their final argument, the judge informs the audience that it is now up to them to decide whether Koch is guilty of murder or not. He also urges them to focus on the facts and not on sympathy for any side. Now the audience has the chance to vote.
After the break, the judge delivers his judgement, based on the majority of votes.
Terror - Ihr Urteil contains examples of:
- I Did What I Had to Do: Koch justifies his actions as this.
- Multiple Endings: the audience can choose between two endings, based on which they think is the better.
- To Be Lawful or Good: The two endings boil down to this. Is it right to kill the passengers on the plane to save the people in the stadium, or is it not? This, of course, only applies if one thinks that the passengers or the pilots wouldn't have been able to take out the terrorist, and even then the supposely good decision still involves the killing of innocents.
