Kessler, a zealous school superintendent, begins to look into the incident. Fritz Lange, the minister for national education in the GDR, arrives at the school and classifies the incident as counter-revolutionary and asks the class to point to the instigator. The entire class stays silent, and as punishment they are all prohibited from graduating. Under pressure, Erik confesses the entire story about Edgar and listening to RIAS. Edgar is then arrested, with Paul witnessing the arrest. Theo's father tries to reason with Lange, but he is not taken seriously due to his involvement with the East German uprising of 1953.