Once in court (after such a long time), Hanna is incapable of cunning or prudence: she talks back to the judge in a what-would-you-do-chummy way, thus seeming callous and impenitent (which, in Schlink's idea of truth, is exactly what she is, in her innocence, poor persecuted child). She thus becomes the self-incriminating patsy at whom the other SS women in the dock can conspire to point the finger. Finally, she admits to being the author of a "report" which declares that some 300 death marchers were locked in a church on a night when allied bombers came over. The church was hit by incendiaries and the guards did not unlock the doors, leaving the prisoners to be roasted alive, by allied bombs, of course. You see: nous sommes tous des assassins.
After the raid, there are only two survivors. They cowered in the organ loft (when "by rights" they should have been cooked) and hence are able to give evidence. The report, of which Hanna has not denied being author, is taken to be conclusive proof that she was leader of the group and deserves exemplary punishment. What irony could be more cruel (so cruel that it makes us forget what she actually did do), since Michael and we know that she is literally incapable of having written anything at all?
Hanna is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. The narrator feels (and plans to have us feel) that injustice has been done. However, he is so sensitive to her shame, should she be publicly declared illiterate, that he neither offers to testify nor even thinks to send a quiet word to Hanna's counsel (or even to the prosecutor) telling him that she is literally incapable of having written the damning report. The film tries to convince us that Michael's silence is plausible, or even honourable, when in fact its makers must know that Hanna could not possibly be convicted in the way that we are shown and that no one who cared for her and who had the adult Michael's savvy would allow her to languish in jail when he has all manner of ways of springing her. The creak of contrivance and false pathos are wince-making.
