On March 6, 1981, Marianne Bachmeier snuck a gun into the courtroom and killed Klaus Grabowski - the man who molested and strangled her 7-year-old daughter. She pointed a gun at his back and fired eight-times - and her daughter’s killer died on his way to the hospital.
Four decades later, the case is still remembered, it is described as “the most spectacular case of vigilante justice in German post-war history.”
What happened to Marianne Bachmeier’s daughter Anna?
Before Marianne was celebrated as then West Germany’s ‘Revenge Mother’. In the 1970s, she was a struggling single mother who ran a pub, she lived with her third child, Anna.
Marianne Bachmeier was born on 3 June 1950, her father was an alcoholic, and she was moved to a children’s home. Marianne became a mother at an early age, 16, and had her second child at 18, she gave both of her children up for adoption. Anna Bachmeier was Marianne’s third child, she was born in 1973.
Anna was described as “a happy, open-minded child.” She had skipped school on May 5, 1980, after an argument with her. On that fateful day, Anna was going to visit her friend but was kidnapped by her 35-year-old neighbor Klaus Grabowski. Klaus Grabowski was a local butcher, who already had a criminal record involving child molestation
Investigators later found out that Klaus had held Anna captive in his house for several hours before strangling her with tights. After strangling Anna, he put her body in a box and left her on the shore of a nearby canal. However, whether or not she was sexually abused remains unclear.
Klaus was arrested the same evening after his fiancée alerted the police. He confessed to the murder but denied sexually abusing Anna. He claimed that the girl had wanted to tell her mother that he had touched her inappropriately in order to extort money from him.
Marianne was furious with his version of the story and retaliated a year later, in the courtroom as Klaus Grabowski headed for his trial.
Marianne Bachmeier’s Revenge: ‘I did it for you Anna’
The trial of her daughter’s killer was not easy for Marianne. Klaus’s defense lawyer claimed that Klaus acted out of a hormonal imbalance caused by hormone therapy, which he received years later after his voluntary castration.
At the time of the case, sex offenders were neutered in West Germany in order to prevent recidivism, which wasn’t the case with Kalus Grabowski.
On March 6, 1981, the third day of the trial, Marianne Bachmeier managed to sneak a.22-caliber Beretta M1934 pistol in her purse into the courtroom of the Lübeck District Court. She aimed the pistol at Klaus’s back and fired eight times - seven of the shots hit 35-year-old Klaus Grabowski, and he died on his way to the hospital.
Marianne Bachmeier’s Revenge and Trial
Marianne Bachmeier took revenge but was soon on trial for murder. During her trial, she was asked for a handwriting sample; she wrote: “I did it for you, Anna.”
Marianne was enraged after his statement about his daughter that she was blackmailing him. She testified that she had taken the loaded weapon into the courtroom during the trial of Klaus Grabowski, but had no intention of killing until she heard that he wanted to slander her dead daughter in court. She said that she saw visions of Anna and fired ‘as if in a dream” at Kalus’s back.
On 2 November 1982, Marianne Bachmeier was initially charged with murder, but after taking evidence into account, the prosecution changed the charge from murder to manslaughter, and Marianne was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Marianne was hailed after her ruthless act of vigilance, but after her conviction, she found herself at the center of a public whirlwind and her trial received international attention for her revenge on her daughter’s killer.
Marianne’s trial divided people into two groups, one who believed that she did nothing wrong after killing her daughter’s killer, and another group who believed that she shouldn’t have done it. While many were on her side, some believed that she shouldn’t have
Marianne Bachmeier after prison
After getting out of prison in 1985, she married in the same year and moved to Nigeria with her husband in 1988. She and her husband lived there in a German camp where her husband taught at a German school. The couple divorced in 1990, and she moved to Sicily. She was diagnosed with cancer there, and she returned to Germany after that.
In 1994, 13 years after her act of revenge, she gave an interview on German radio: “I think it makes a huge difference whether I kill a little girl because I am afraid that I will have to go to prison for life and then also the” how, “so that I stand behind the girl and strangle her, which is literally his statement.”
A year later, she appeared on the talk show Fliege, where she admitted shooting her daughter’s alleged killer after careful consideration, to enforce the law against him, and prevent him from spreading lies about her daughter.
Marianne Bachmeier died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 46 in a hospital in Lübeck. Before her death, she asked the NDR reporter to film her last weeks alive. She died on 17 September 1996, she was buried next to her daughter Anna.
Now that you’ve read about the story of Marianne Bachmeier, you might also like reading about Akku Yadav, who was killed by his victims during his hearing.
