On March 6, 1981, Marianne Bachmeier shot the suspected murderer of her daughter Anna in a Lübeck courtroom. The act of vigilantism writes legal history. Bachmeier died seriously ill 25 years ago in Lübeck.
by Irene Altenmüller
Lübeck, March 6, 1981, shortly before 10 a.m. It is the third day of the trial in the murder of seven-year-old Anna, who was strangled on May 5, 1980. The alleged perpetrator, Klaus Grabowski, is a previously convicted sex offender and has already confessed to the murder. He is sitting in room 157 of the Lübeck district court when Marianne Bachmeier, Anna's mother, approaches from behind. She pulls a .22-gauge Beretta out of her baggy coat pocket, aims at Grabowski's back, and pulls the trigger eight times. Hit six shots. The 35-year-old butcher dies in the courtroom. "I wanted to shoot him in the face. Unfortunately, I hit him in the back. I hope he's dead," says Marianne Bachmeier shortly after the crime. The 31-year-old can be arrested without resistance.
Almost two years later, she herself is on trial in Lübeck. The judges must decide:Was Marianne Bachmeier's act of revenge murder or manslaughter? On March 2, 1983, the court sentenced Marianne Bachmeier to six years in prison for manslaughter and illegal possession of a weapon.
Marianne Bachmeier's act divides public opinion
The verdict puts the legal end to a criminal case that has stirred people for a long time. Marianne Bachmeier's act of revenge is still perhaps the most spectacular case of vigilantism in post-war German history. At the time, many people openly expressed their understanding of the crime and saw it primarily as the act of desperation of a grieving mother. Others consider severe punishment to be appropriate to protect the rule of law and its monopoly on the use of force from acts of vigilante justice.
A life story as a "Stern" series
After her act, Marianne Bachmeier suddenly became the focus of public interest. The 30-year-old sold her life story to the magazine "Stern" for 250,000 marks. With the fee, she covers her legal costs, because the trial against her begins in November 1982.
In 13 episodes, readers learn details of Marianne's unhappy childhood and youth in a strictly religious family with an authoritarian father, a former member of the Waffen SS. Marianne is pregnant for the first time at the age of 16 and is expecting another child at the age of 18. She gave up both daughters for adoption. Shortly before the birth of the second daughter, she is raped. When her third daughter Anna was born in 1973, the then 23-year-old kept the child with her.
5. May 1980:Anna is murdered
Anna's grave in the Lübeck cemetery. Her mother has also been buried there since 1996.Little Anna is a happy, open-minded child, friends later remember. She grew up with her mother, who ran a pub in Lübeck. On the fateful May 5, 1980, the seven-year-old skipped school after a fight with her mother and fell into the hands of Klaus Grabowski. The 35-year-old has a criminal record for sexual abuse of children, was in psychiatry and voluntarily had himself castrated. He later underwent - with court approval - hormone treatment that restored his sex drive. Grabowski keeps Anna captive in his apartment for hours and strangles her with pantyhose. Whether or not he previously abused the girl is never clarified.
The alleged perpetrator is arrested
He buries Anna's body in a box on the bank of a canal. That same evening he was arrested after a tip from his fiancé. He confesses to the murder but denies molesting the girl. Instead, he tells police that Anna tried to blackmail him:she threatened to tell her mother he had molested her if he didn't give her any money. He finally strangled her for fear of going back to prison.
Possibly it is precisely these allegations that later bring about Grabowski's death. Because Marianne Bachmeier feels very offended by his words. She will later justify her actions by saying, among other things, that she wanted to prevent Grabowski from damaging her daughter's reputation:"I heard he wanted to make a statement, I thought, now comes the next lie about this victim, who was my child ", she explains later in an interview.
Marianne Bachmeier in the limelight
The trial against Bachmeier in 1982 caused a nationwide sensation. She herself is the focus of the media presentation.The trial against Marianne Bachmeier begins on November 2, 1982. The charge is initially murder, later manslaughter. The process is attracting immense public attention. Many blame the judiciary for allowing a man who has already molested two girls to use hormones to restore his sex drive. Others accuse Marianne Bachmeier of having neglected Anna and doubt the credibility of her grief. Still others openly express their sympathy for the act of revenge.
Insidious murder or manslaughter in the mood?
Marianne Bachmeier in 1995, one year before she died of cancer. In 1985 she was released early from prison.In this heated mood, the court must decide whether Marianne Bachmeier committed murder or manslaughter. Did she shoot out of malice or in passion? Did she actually have the gun with her in the courtroom because she felt threatened? Or rather because she wanted revenge - on the man who killed her child?
With its conviction for manslaughter and illegal possession of a weapon on March 2, 1983, the court largely followed the defense's argument that the act was not planned. In June 1985 she was released early and left Germany. She lives in Nigeria until 1990, later in Sicily, where she works as a euthanasia assistant in a hospice in Palermo.
A public death
In 1996, Marianne Bachmeier became terminally ill with pancreatic cancer and returned to Germany. She died on September 17, 1996 at the age of 46. She is buried next to her daughter Anna in Lübeck's Burgtor Cemetery. She herself had wished for a burial in Palermo.
Dying as a film:Marianne Bachmeier had a documentary filmmaker capture the last few weeks of her life.At her own request, Marianne Bachmeier had NDR reporter Lukas Maria Böhmer document the last few weeks of her life on film. The fact that she made her death public shows the uncompromising consistency with which Marianne Bachmeier has sought public attention and sympathy for her fate since her crime. This need for media attention persisted until her death - even when public interest in her person had long since ebbed away.
Review:Was the act planned?
Years after the crime, there is much to suggest that Marianne Bachmeier, contrary to what was claimed in the trial, had planned her revenge for a long time. In 1995 she herself explained on the ARD talk show "Fliege" that after careful consideration she had shot her daughter's alleged murderer - in order to judge him and to prevent him from further spreading untruths about Anna. In an ARD documentary from 2006, a former friend also said that Marianne Bachmeier practiced shooting in the basement under her pub after Anna's murder. Marianne Bachmeier has never publicly regretted her act of revenge.