How would I behave in hard times? How would you? And I mean really hard times: when doing the right thing could harm me or my family, could cast me out of society, could make me a pariah or even cost me my life. I suspect that almost everyone teases themselves with this question from time to time.
In 1911, Rudolf Ditzen and his friend Hanns Dietrich von Necker went into the woods near their homes to kill themselves. They were eighteen. They planned a sort of duel in reverse. They would count down and shoot one another. Rudolf Ditzen’s shot killed his friend, but Necker’s shot missed. Rudolf then shot himself in the chest. But instead of dying, he was arrested, tried, and convicted of murder...