Question about the ending (HUGE SPOILERS!)

Fasbinder's original ending had Maria driving herself and Hermann off a cliff to their deaths. Yes, she commits murder/suicide, but Fassbinder found the original method too obvious. No clue about the wrist-washing, though!

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And another question: then Maria hears Oscar's will, she tells that she has a headache and retires to bathroom. Then we see her pouring water on her wrist... Here is the question: what does it mean? Is it some headache-calming technique? I had the feeling that she wants to commit suicide!

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My understanding is that Maria realized that she had been essential prostituted out (Hermann agreed to leave until Oswald die in exchange for half of Oswald's money) and felt the need to cleanse herself of the filth.

Kind of contradictory since she uses herself to get so far in life.

Just my thoughts though. :)

SO HERE IS HOW I FEEL:
I think she kills her husband accidentally because I feel that Fassbinder was trying to illustrate that German corruption and capitalism after WWII would destroy German nationalism and cultural identity. Her husband was a Nazi soldier who could represent the cultural nation of Germany. When her husband is gone, lost, missing, whatever you may call it Bill and Karl (her two lovers) could represent foriegn influences and capitalism after the war. She becomes corrupted by the foriegn influences and capitalism and in her blinded distraught after the revelation of sorts she destroys herself and her husband. It think it's rather symbolic.

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My contribution to this question.......

The film is shot through with interweaving symbols that work to awaken an awareness of
the point of view of ordinary Germans during the second world war. This was ground breaking
in it's time, because the shock of the second world war had effectivly placed a taboo on seeing
Germans as human in cultural representation. The play of symbolism is ambiguous, therein which
lies it's intelligence. Rather than being a metaphor for something concrete, the story alludes to
German experience during that historical period with ambiguous but constant presence.

So Maria's series of shocks, of loss of the same man, reflect the birth throws of the German nation,
which for the ordinary person were a series of devestating blows, From the Loss of the First World
War & subsequent humiliation under the Versailles Treaty's - to the rise of Facism & the utter defeat
at the end of the second world war. All these, to someone like Maria, where just a series of kicks in
the stomach.

This is primarily a love story. It's about the extremes people will go for love and it's also about
ordinary people. But through that epic theme Fassbinder constantly raises the spector of history. For
example the 'collaboration' between French & German in the business Maria joins alludes to that issue
in Facist France. That theme of betrayal, so close to the theme of love & war.

Seen from this perspective, the gesture of leaving on the gas makes sense. Inhabit all the
possibilities of why has this happened, as does Maria. It's the culmination of the play of allusion
that's at work throughout the whole film. In fact, it could be said, it's the only moment that Maria
conciously deals with the dispair she lives with, despite the whole film being about this subject.
As soon as that moment is over, she & we fall back into the reality where things just happen and we
accept them because we have no power. The moment is a question for everyone, why did Germany
commit suicide? why do we go on? why is this happening to me? Do i want what is happening ? It's
also a seizing of life. Maria sees in a flash a way of keeping him, of controling him, of controling
destiny and perhaps of punishing him. An ultimate act of love.

one way to look at the film is in a german historical and "what if" context. a professor of mine claims that one level of this film is about the reunification of east and west germany, and that doing so would end in the destruction of germany as a whole... or something, so that's what the whole explosion at the end is about (on one level). the two halves of germany finally unite (maria and hermann are finally about to consumate their marriage), and then boom, it's WWIII. or at least, that's kind of how my professor put it.

If thinking about cutting ones wrist, one may hold the wrist under very cold water for a while then the pain is numbed, after the cut is made one should submerge the wrists in warm water, as that aids the flow of blood. This was a method used by Lee Harvey Oswald when he attempted suicide after defecting to the USSR and learning they were going to send him back to the US.

At the end, when she went upstairs to dress, I was struck that she appeared to wear her wedding dress.
I think it's a significant element that appears to have been missed here.