Marianne Bachmeier became famous in Germany after she shot the alleged murderer of her daughter Anna Bachmeier in an act of vigilantism in the hall of the District Court of Lübeck in 1981.
Youth and family
Marianne Bachmeier grew up in Sarstedt, where her parents fled to from East Prussia. Her father had been a member of the Waffen-SS. Her parents separated, and her mother remarried. In 1966, at the age of 16, Marianne Bachmeier had her first child. She became pregnant again at the age of 18 by her then-boyfriend. Shortly before the birth of her second daughter, she was raped. Both of her children were given up for adoption shortly after their birth. In 1973, her third daughter Anna, was born. She raised Anna alone. After Anna's birth, Marianne Bachmeier was sterilized.
Murder of her daughter
On 5 May 1980, Anna Bachmeier did not go to school to spite her mother. When trying to visit a friend her own age, Anna was abducted by Klaus Grabowski, a 35-year-old butcher. He is said to have held Anna for several hours at home and then strangled her with a pair of tights. According to the Prosecutor he had tied the girl tight, packed her into a box, which he then buried on the canal bank in a shallow grave. Klaus Grabowski was a convicted sex offender and had previously been sentenced for the sexual abuse of two girls. During his detention, he was castrated in 1976 and, two years later, underwent hormone treatment. Once arrested, Grabowski stated that he did not intend to sexually abuse Anna. He said the girl had wanted to tell her mother that he had touched her inappropriately, with the aim of extorting money from him.
Vigilante justice in the courtroom
On 6 March 1981, the third day of the trial, Marianne Bachmeier smuggled a Beretta M1934 into the courtroom of Lübeck District Court and shot the alleged killer of her daughter Anna, Klaus Grabowski, in the back. She aimed the gun at Grabowski's back and pulled the trigger eight times. Seven of the shots hit, and the 35-year-old defendant was killed instantly. This is probably the most well-known case of vigilante justice in the Federal Republic of Germany. It sparked extensive media coverage, and television crews from all over the world traveled to Lübeck to report on this case. A large part of the population showed understanding for her actions. She sold her life story for about 250,000 Deutsche Mark in an exclusive to the news magazineStern.
Sentence for manslaughter
On 2 November 1982, Marianne Bachmeier was initially charged in court with murder. Later the prosecution dropped the murder charge. After 28 days of negotiations, the Board agreed on the verdict. Four months after the opening of proceedings she was convicted on 2 March 1983 by the Circuit Court Chamber of the District Court Lübeck for manslaughter and sentenced for unlawful possession of a firearm to six years in prison but was later released after serving three years.
Moving abroad
Marianne Bachmeier married in 1985 and moved in 1988 to Lagos, Nigeria with her husband, a teacher. They lived there in a German camp where her husband taught at a German school. They divorced in 1990 and she moved to Sicily. She was diagnosed with cancer there, whereupon she returned to Germany.
Interviews
In 1994, 13 years after her act, she gave an interview on Germany radio: "I think there is a very big difference if I kill a little girl because I'm afraid that I then have to go to prison for my life. And then also the 'how', so that I stand behind the girl and, strangle her which is taken literally from his statement: 'I heard something come out of her nose, I was fixated, then I could not stand the sight of her body any longer '. " On 21 September 1995, she appeared on the talk showFliege on the Das ErsteTV channel. She admitted that she had shot the alleged killer of her daughter after careful consideration, to enforce the law on him, and to prevent him from further spreading lies about Anna.
Death
On 17 September 1996, she died at the age of 46 years from pancreatic cancer in a hospital in Lübeck. It had actually been her desire to die in her adopted home of Palermo. Before her death, she asked the NDR reporter Lukas Maria Böhmer, to accompany her with movie camera in the last stages of her life. She is buried in the same grave as her daughter Anna in a graveyard in Lübeck.
