Ernst Bohm (Kaputt AU)

## Ernst Bohm

**Ernst Bohm** is the current Chief of Police of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. He lives in Hamburg Eimsbüttel with his wife, Regina Heidi Bohm.

## Biography

### Childhood Years in Denmark

Ernst is born to Sofia and Henrik Bohm in Snoghøj, a southern suburb of the Danish city Fredericia.

Even though the family had to live in rather humble conditions, Ernst's early years can be described best as rather uneventful, but happy. From an early age on, Ernst is said to be a social butterfly who is capable of getting along with peers and adults alike. On fishing trips with his father as well as his friends, Ernst is always an appreciated guest and treated on eye level by the other grown-ups. Additionally, Ernst has a natural talent to lead: He is outgoing, charismatic and self-confident, which makes him the perfect captain of a local soccer team, a popular class representative and an esteemed head of his clique. Aside from fishing with his father, he enjoys building forts out of spare wood, playing soccer and secretly making fires with his friends by the strait, even if getting caught often resulted in physical punishment from his father.

Nevertheless, Ernst's relationship with his parents can be described as fairly decent. While Henrik tries his best to care for his son by frequently taking him on trips or providing monetary support for his interests despite the family's financial struggles, he is widely incapable of expressing any affection towards him. Hugs are very uncommon on the paternal side of the family, so are words conveying love and affirmation. Sofia, however, treats her son with warmth and compassion. Ernst fondly recalls spending time with her in the family's small garden, planting vegetables, herbs and fruits which they would harvest together in the summer. However, even though he was not capable of making sense of it as a child, he also remembers that his mother seemed oddly apathetic or melancholic from time to time. The whereabouts of her condition remain disclosed to Ernst, even after his mother commits suicide by jumping off the Lillebæltsbroen right in front of his eyes. As Henrik renders this to be a tragic accident to allegedly protect his son from the truth, Ernst's sense of reality is forever changed. On the one hand, Ernst does know that his mother has killed herself and feels betrayed by her for leaving him alone, on the other he firmly wants to believe his father's version of the story. Thus, Ernst is never fully capable of closing this chapter of his life. A lot of his views and actions go back to his father constantly belittling mental illnesses and invalidating memories as well as emotions. Furthermore, Henrik's own inability of making sense of what has happened which eventually results in framing Sofia as a fragile and somewhat sickly person results in a precarious image of women, since it renders them to be drawn to illness, insanity and hysteria.

With its Lillebæltsbroen Bridges, Snoghøj marks the connection point of Jutland and Funen over the Little Belt strait. Ernst's childhood is significantly marked by the panorama of Lillebæltsbroen. He vividly remembers playing with his peers in the shadow of the bridge during summer, the view on it from his bedroom as well as the soothing sounds of the train's wheels on the tracks. For many years, the Lillebæltsbroen gave Ernst a sense of home, until the day his mother died. While he might have conflicting emotions regarding the landscape by now, Ernst feels still very connected with his Danish roots.

### First Years in Germany

After losing his wife, Henrik fully turns to religion to get back up on his feet. He quickly seems to be rejuvenated by his unwavering belief in God, but is still driven by the need of full closure. As he believes that a change of scenery would ensure his son's recovery, Henrik asks his boss to move him to a different branch office. Shortly after, Henrik receives the offer to move to Hamburg. Due to his and his son's hardly existent German skills Henrik hesitates at first, but then complies. A few weeks after Ernst's 12th birthday, the family moves to Hamburg with the help of plenty of church members.

While Henrik gets by speaking English at his job, Ernst struggles making friends in school with his limited German skills. Feeling like an unwanted outsider, he starts skipping school, which his father furiously reprimands. Henrik accuses Ernst of being inherently ungrateful of the sacrifice he has made for him, meaning leaving Denmark behind even though it was his own decision, not his son's. Additionally, Henrik repeatedly tells Ernst to do better than him by being able to provide for his family which can only be achieved is he is successful, unlike his father.

After Ernst joins a Catholic youth group, soccer team and starts to engage with several active political organisations, his German slowly improves. Over time, Ernst learns to call Hamburg his new home and becomes increasingly interested in justice and politics, also due to the heroic stories of his grandfather. Shortly after, Ernst leaves school after finishing his secondary education with distinction. At the same time, Henrik starts to suffer from several health issues. While Ernst wanted to do his A-Levels in order to become a police officer, he decides to to support his father financially, and immediately starts working at the age of sixteen.

### Early Adulthood

As Henrik's condition gradually improves, he returns to his old job which ensures the family's financial stability. At the age of twenty, Ernst returns to school to follow his dreams of studying and becoming a police officer of which his father approves of. In class, he meets sixteen year-old Regina Heidi Meyer and her best friend Eva Wagner. Despite their rather precarious age difference, Ernst quickly falls in love with Regina. Within a few months, they become a couple. Even though Regina's family as well as Eva seem skeptical of their relationship, Regina stays with Ernst. After they finish their A-Levels, they move in together and eventually start to study. Even if their financial circumstances continue to be rough, they can make their ends meet; while Regina works in-between the seminars, Ernst earns money from his dual curriculum at the police academy in Hamburg.

In the beginning of the second semester of her medicine studies, Regina notices that her period is late. A pregnancy test confirms her assumption. Overwhelmed with the overall situation, Regina immediately reaches out to her mother, Sabine Meyer, and asks for her moral guidance. After a heart-to-heart-talk, daughter and mother consider aborting the baby due to Regina's age, as well as financial and career circumstances. However, when Regina shares her standpoint with Ernst and asks him to understand her decision, he urges her to keep their child and harshly criticises aborting in general. From there on out, Regina starts to question her choice, though her feelings have not changed.

In the following days, Regina's pregnancy turns into a family-wide affair, instead of her own choice. While Henrik promises his unlimited support as grandfather, Regina's parents remain skeptical. It turns out that they are generally unhappy with their daughter's relationship with a much older man and accuse Ernst of impregnating their daughter to trap her in the relationship. As Ernst and Henrik become furious, the argument escalates, and Regina's parents issue an ultimatum: Either Regina would leave Ernst and take the baby with her or she would abort her child. Regina is shocked by her parent's suggestion, but also by her partner as well as his father's harsh reaction. Eventually, Regina secretly visits the gynaecologist to receive information about abortions from a neutral standpoint, but learns she is actually pregnant with twins during the examination. She decides to keep the babies after all. As a result, the relationship to her family suffers immensely. Her parents are not even present at their daughter's wedding which takes place a few months before the birth of her children, Jonathan and Henriette.

Being a mother to two children, Regina eventually decides to interrupt her medicine studies. However, as soon as Jonathan and Henriette are able to go to the kindergarten, she trains to become a hospital nurse. In the meantime, Ernst finishes his studies with distinction and starts his first year in patrol duty, followed by two years of working in a mobile squad. Finally, he becomes an investigator in the Criminal Investigation Department Hamburg at the age of 29. Having accumulated enough money in the meantime, the family moves to Hamburg Eimsbüttel.

### Management of Fatherhood and Career

Ernst is an esteemed colleague at the Criminal Investigation Department. He is extremely dutiful, diligent, intelligent, successful and widely respected. His tendency to put work before anything else strains the relationship with his children. Ernst is hardly present at home, but if he is, he pours all of his energy into reprimanding his son. Dutifully, Jonathan tries to live up to his father's expectations and please him, but seems to fail nonetheless. Henriette repeatedly tries to call her father's behaviour out which results in frequent arguments at the dinner table which Jonathan and Regina desperately try to soothe in order to maintain the harmony in the family.

While Henriette is allowed to do whatever she wants, Ernst focuses on Jonathan by trying to shape his personality, behaviour, appearance and career choices in order to turn him into a firm patriarch and successful lawyer one day. Therefore, Henriette feels neglected by her father, while Jonathan feels constantly put under pressure by his father's attention. He feels overwhelmed by his demands which become increasingly more irrational and unachievable. At the same time, becoming more and more estranged from her family due to their cult-like behaviour which surrounds her father, Henriette leaves to attend a boarding school in Denmark. Jonathan, on the other hand, still obsessively trying to please his father, stays with his parents.

Within his almost 11 years at the department, Ernst rapidly climbs up the career ladder and is rumoured to become the next deputy head. However, this plan is contemporarily shelved as Ernst is shot in the face at a crime scene. Against all odds, Ernst survives. However, even after a series of incredibly painful surgeries to mend the right side of his face, the vision in his right eye cannot be repaired. Fearing he might never be able to return to work, Ernst's mental state rapidly deteriorates to a point at which he becomes almost catatonic, openly pondering suicide in front of his son.

After a while, even though his eyesight remains partially lost, Ernst fully recovers. As the position at the vacant position at the Criminal Investigation Department has been already filled and Ernst cannot possibly return to his old job due to his bad eyesight, he is quickly appointed as the new Chief of Police Hamburg. Even though the new position fills him with pride, Ernst cannot shake off the lingering sense of being a fill-in and that his promotion is absolutely unjustified. In particular, because his predecessor was forced to step down due to a series of scandals. Nevertheless, feeling respected and needed, Ernst's mental state slowly starts to improve once again.

## Personality

Whilst Ernst might perceive himself as very progressive, open-minded and leftist, he follows very conservative and sometimes outdated ideologies. For example, he might tolerate non-binary people and treat them with respect in face to face conversations, but behind closed doors his views on gender are very strict. It is not seldom the case that "woke" topics, e.g. LGBTQIA\*, migrants, members of the Green Party or anything alike might end up being the punchline of a distasteful joke. This comes much to his son's dismay who finds it increasingly hard to understand his father's true intentions and views, particularly as Jonathan himself is in fact queer, anti-discrimination and very fond of the Green Party or even climate change activists such as Letzte Generation.

Ernst is a great and charismatic speaker who can be quite intimidating.

## Relationships

### Jonathan Ernst Bohm

Ironically, Jonathan becomes Ernst's vessel for his own unresolved trauma, irrational upbringing and desperate yearning for parental love. Though it might not seem like it, Ernst truly loves his son and firmly believes that he is doing what is best for him by feeding him tough love. However, Ernst is incapable of connecting with Jonathan, as he fails to take his needs into consideration. Ernst also lacks the ability to see his child as a separate person, not an appendix of himself which has been created to serve the entire family's well-being. As time progresses, Ernst realises that Jonathan turns out to be the complete opposite of himself; Jonathan is shy, introverted and shares no interest in masculine-coded activities. In general, he does not fit the common masculine criteria Ernst was taught to fulfil. Thus, Ernst tries to make sense of his son's otherness by rendering it to be something pathological, quickly believing his son might be on the autism spectrum. At the same time, he tries to 'heal' him from his feminine traits and pursues to prepare him for a life as a firm family father who has to earn money in a cruel and unjust world. Even though Jonathan attempts to comply by making compromises, this strains their relationship further.

While Ernst loved going on trips with his father and connected with him doing activities such as fishing and soccer, he finds it hard to get enthusiastic about his own son's hobbies and vice versa. Not knowing how to connect, Ernst suggests gardening -- an activity he ironically associates with his mother -- as a common ground to engage. Once again, Jonathan complies to make his father happy. However, as Ernst uses the time to instruct and criticise his son, Jonathan hardly finds any joy in tending the garden with his father, but deems it to be more tolerable than finishing or other team sports his father might suggest.

Even though Ernst would never admit it, Jonathan and his melancholic-dreamy gaze reminds him of his mother. Ernst sometimes feels as if he is haunted by her ghost through his son, because he could not prevent her from jumping as a child. As Ernst is continuously stuck in a liminal position between definitely knowing his mother committed suicide, but being told it was an accident, he passes his own warped sense of reality on to his son. Also, as he feels extremely guilty for not having saved his mother, Ernst tries to pass on his fixation on justice and morale onto Jonathan. However, as Jonathan cannot make sense of his father's very irrational and subjective perspective on what is just and what is not, Jonathan seems to develop a very conflicted view on morality.