# 75: Vigilante Mom Executes Her Child's Murderer: The Case of Marianne Bachmeier

An episode of [Outlore with Eleanor Neale](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1682504024), 16 Jul 2024, 58 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO2264940576.mp3

Ad - Use my code USUAL20 for 20% off your first Wild order: https://www.wearewild.com/?discount=USUAL20 Today's case is on Marianne Bachmeier, who shocked the world in 1981 by shooting her daughter's murderer in a German courtroom. Was she justified in her act of revenge, or was she not the heroic vigilante many believed her to be? This case sparked a national debate on justice and the lengths a mother will go to for her child. Trigger Warning: domestic violence, child-abuse, racism specifically related to the Nazi party, suicide, rape You can find out more about the work of Women's Aid here and Gingerbread here. Further resources are available at: https://linktr.ee/usualdisclaimer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

## Transcript

[0:00] We've all heard that age-old saying an eye for an eye.
[0:04] But what happens when justice turns a blind eye to a vicious
[0:08] criminal? When a mother, overwhelmed by
[0:10] the grief of her daughter's murder, is forced to take
[0:14] justice into her own hands? In 1981, Marianne Bachmeier
[0:19] calmly walked into a courtroom and saw the familiar face of the
[0:23] man who had taken everything from her.
[0:26] He had abducted and murdered her seven-year old child, her
[0:30] daughter Anna, and it seemed that the court was beginning to
[0:34] take pity on her killer. Marianne was enraged that this
[0:37] evil man wasn't getting the punishment that he deserved, and
[0:41] so she reached into her pocket, pulled out a pistol and shot him
[0:46] again and again and again. Staring down at his body, she
[0:50] whispered to her dead child. This is for you, Anna.
[0:54] This is the story of Marianne Bachmeyer, a mother who took
[0:58] justice into her own hands and avenged the horrific murder of
[1:03] her seven-year old daughter. This series is intended for
[1:09] educational purposes, to memorialize victims, and to
[1:12] amplify important conversations. All opinions stated are mine
[1:16] alone. Now, before we get into the
[1:18] episode, I want to warn you we're going to be covering a lot
[1:21] of sensitive topics in this case, including discussions of
[1:24] domestic violence, child abuse, racism specifically related to
[1:29] the Nazi Party, suicide, rape, and murder.
[1:33] So viewer discretion is advised. Now let's discuss the tragic
[1:37] murder of seven-year old Anna Bachmeyer and the DIY justice
[1:41] that her mother sought in order to avenge her.
[1:44] The Bachmeyer family were originally refugees from East
[1:48] Prussia and after World War 2, when the area was taken over,
[1:52] they evacuated to West Germany. So that is where Marianne
[1:55] Bachmeyer's story begins, when she was born in a refugee camp
[1:59] near Hanover on June 3rd, 1950. And immediately she is born into
[2:05] a world of chaos, her household. Was a very.
[2:08] Very strict, very religious one. Her father had actually been a
[2:12] Nazi soldier in the Waffen s s. Waffen s s?
[2:17] I need to brush upon my German accent, but that was basically
[2:19] the combat branch of the Nazi paramilitary.
[2:23] They started off as Hitler's personal bodyguards and then
[2:27] they later went on to run the concentration and extermination
[2:31] camps. Honestly, a truly rotten and
[2:35] evil bunch of people. They were schooled in racial
[2:38] hatred and trained to harden their hearts to human suffering
[2:43] and taught to never surrender no matter what.
[2:46] So imagine the kind of insane environment that Marianne
[2:49] Bachmeier would have grown up in.
[2:51] Not only was her dad a Nazi, he was also a severe alcoholic that
[2:56] would get very aggressive and angry when he was drunk, which
[3:01] was most nights. It did also mean that he was out
[3:04] of the house quite a bit. He was always down at the pub,
[3:07] so there was pockets of peace in the house, but when he would
[3:12] return, all hell would break loose.
[3:14] We're not entirely sure if he was physically abusive to
[3:18] Marianne or Marianne's mother. We couldn't find anything saying
[3:22] that for Deafena. All the sources that we found
[3:24] just used the words. Angry and violent was used a
[3:28] lot, although we don't know where that violence was
[3:30] directed. Still a very, very scary
[3:33] environment for Marianne to be growing up in.
[3:35] Their home was like a battleground and the very early
[3:38] years of Marianne's life were far from happy and loving.
[3:43] Eventually, her parents got a divorce.
[3:45] Her mother married a new man who was actually almost an even
[3:49] bigger nightmare than her biological father.
[3:52] This man was also domineering. He was very erratic and very
[3:57] particular. For example, he was obsessed
[4:00] with keeping his garden pristine and neat and beautiful, so much
[4:05] so that he actually banned Marianne, who was a young kid,
[4:10] from playing in her own garden. But despite this very, very
[4:14] harsh environment that she grew up in, Marianne was always very
[4:17] free spirited and no one could ever change that about her.
[4:21] No matter how much she clashed with her parents and how much
[4:25] they tried to change her, Marianne was Marianne.
[4:27] Marianne would always try to rebel and stand up for herself
[4:31] and what she believed in. So for example, when her mother
[4:35] remarried this new man, she refused to call him Papa.
[4:38] Instead, she would only refer to him as Uncle Paul.
[4:42] It was just a child being sassy and standing up for herself in
[4:46] quite a minor way. But this act of rebellion came
[4:49] at a very high price. Her new stepfather grew enraged
[4:54] and began beating Marianne. Violence became a constant
[4:58] threat in her household. And like I said, we don't know
[5:01] if it was with her first father, but at least right now it was
[5:05] confirmed that violence was common and love was conditional.
[5:10] And that's if it was even offered at all because even her
[5:13] mother would often take the side of the men in her life over her
[5:18] own daughter. Marianne was always searching
[5:21] for love and affection and companionship outside of her
[5:25] family because it was never really offered to her.
[5:27] So at the age of 15, she got into her first ever proper
[5:31] relationship with a boy named Herman.
[5:34] And the thing she liked most about Herman wasn't actually
[5:37] anything about him personally. It was the fact that he owned a
[5:40] moped. He had a vehicle, a means of
[5:43] transportation, a means of freedom.
[5:46] Marianne was incredibly secretive about this new
[5:49] boyfriend, knowing that her parents, especially her
[5:52] stepfather or Uncle Paul, he would be furious if he found out
[5:57] because remember she. Lived in a.
[5:58] Very, very strict household. She had so many rules.
[6:01] Even as a teenager. She had an 8:00 PM curfew.
[6:05] And I'm not entirely sure for what reason.
[6:07] I think part of it was that her parents wanted to control her.
[6:10] So because of this curfew and the fact that she couldn't tell
[6:13] her parents that she was seeing a boy, Marianne began sneaking
[6:17] out of the house in the middle of the night.
[6:19] In fact, she would tuck a teddy bear into her sheets as like a
[6:23] decoy, and then she would sneak out of the window and her and
[6:26] Herman would go riding around on that moped all through the
[6:29] night. Then, at the age of 16, Marianne
[6:33] fell pregnant with Herman's baby, which must have been
[6:37] terrifying for her. She was so, so young, and it
[6:40] wasn't like she had a supportive family that could help her or
[6:45] even be cool about it. They would be furious when they
[6:48] found out, and we're not entirely sure how they did find
[6:52] out. Whether Marianne just straight
[6:53] up told them, I'm not sure, but it led to her being kicked out
[6:57] of the house. And again, we're not entirely
[7:00] sure by who. A lot of sources say that it was
[7:03] the stepdad, but there are some that say that it was the mother.
[7:07] Because like I say, she'd been taking the men's side in her
[7:11] life this whole entire time with her first husband and now with
[7:14] her second husband. And she actually felt like
[7:16] Marianne, her daughter, was getting in the way of her
[7:20] relationship, causing problems, causing arguments.
[7:23] And so a lot of people think it was actually her own mother that
[7:27] kicked her out of the house when she was 16 and pregnant and
[7:31] vulnerable. But no matter who it was,
[7:33] whether it was the mother or the father, neither of them seemed
[7:36] to care that she was 16, pregnant and now homeless,
[7:40] without anyone to support or care for her after she was
[7:44] kicked out. It's not entirely clear where
[7:46] Marianne went, although it's believed that she must have gone
[7:49] to a home for unmarried mothers. These homes existed quite a lot
[7:54] back in the 1900s because it was quite shameful for a woman to
[7:59] have a baby out of wedlock. So these places existed pretty
[8:04] much to hide these women throughout their pregnancy so no
[8:07] one would know. They were usually run by
[8:09] religious groups or charities or possibly even the state, like I
[8:14] said, with the purpose of hiding these women until the baby pops
[8:17] out and then they usually give the baby up for adoption.
[8:21] In these shelters, the conditions were very, very
[8:23] basic. There were very strict routines
[8:26] and rules, and there wasn't much emotional support at all.
[8:30] Like I said, these places weren't so much to support the
[8:33] women, but to hide them. So yeah, there wasn't too much
[8:38] therapy and counselling and just shoulders to cry on.
[8:41] Even in 1967, when Marianne was still 16 years old, she gave
[8:46] birth to a baby girl and put it up for for adoption.
[8:49] And this must have been such a heartbreaking decision for
[8:52] Marianne to make because she did want a child.
[8:55] She knew that she wanted to be a mother one day, but this was way
[8:59] too soon. She was way too young.
[9:01] She had no one and nothing in life.
[9:03] She had recently been made homeless and she knew that it
[9:06] wouldn't be fair to that child to keep it in those
[9:10] circumstances. She knew that some other parents
[9:13] would be able to give it a better life than she could.
[9:16] It was a very, very brave decision, although it was a
[9:18] decision that she probably felt like she didn't have much choice
[9:21] in. She was so alone at that point
[9:24] in her life. And you might be thinking, well,
[9:26] where's the father of the baby? I'm thinking the same thing.
[9:29] Apparently he just kind of abandoned Marianne.
[9:32] He actually stayed with her through the pregnancy, and she
[9:35] was still going to school through the pregnancy.
[9:38] So, I mean, she wasn't being hidden very well, I guess.
[9:41] But not long after, the baby was actually born and given up for
[9:44] adoption. Herman didn't really want to
[9:47] speak to Marianne anymore. And we don't know the details of
[9:49] that. But one thing we do know is that
[9:51] he had actually talked about wanting to marry her.
[9:54] Herman had actually gone to his own father and said that he was
[9:57] thinking of buying an engagement ring.
[10:00] Remember, they were like 16. But when he told his father
[10:03] this, his father turned around and said if you want to drink a
[10:06] pint of milk, you don't need to buy the cow, which is just
[10:10] disgusting. Got to love that old fashioned
[10:13] misogyny. About a year after giving her
[10:15] baby up for adoption, Marianne began dating again and she
[10:19] started seeing this very sweet, kind boy that she met at school.
[10:23] But very quickly, Marianne found herself pregnant again, this
[10:28] time at the age of 18. She had hardly had chance to
[10:32] physically and mentally recover from her first birth, and she
[10:36] felt very similar about it this time around as she did the first
[10:40] time. She was still so young and her
[10:43] future was so uncertain and her circumstances were so
[10:48] unfortunate. She was still homeless.
[10:50] She still didn't have a job, She didn't have a caring, supportive
[10:54] network around her. The father of this second baby
[10:58] was apparently a squatter himself.
[11:00] He was also homeless and didn't have a job, couldn't provide for
[11:04] himself, never mind for a baby as well.
[11:07] When Marianne was heavily pregnant, she found out that her
[11:10] parents, well her mother and her stepfather were going away on
[11:14] holiday and the house was going to be empty.
[11:17] So she and her boyfriend actually went and broke in to
[11:21] her family home that she had grown up in and they squatted
[11:25] there for a while. But when they got there and they
[11:28] broke in, one of the neighbors, a man noticed and he began to
[11:33] watch Marianne. Not in a snitch on you to your
[11:36] parents kind of way. Actually in a much more sinister
[11:40] way. A few nights later, that same
[11:42] neighbor that had been watching the heavily pregnant, very young
[11:46] Marianne for days decided to break into the house when she
[11:50] was home alone one night. When he found her, he pointed a
[11:54] gun at her and raped her at gunpoint.
[11:58] She was heavily pregnant, a teenager, and all alone in what
[12:02] used to be her family home. As he was leaving, the man
[12:06] turned back to her and growled. If you call the police, I'll
[12:10] kill you. But thankfully, Marianne was
[12:12] brave and she called the police anyway.
[12:14] The man was arrested and a trial was set.
[12:17] Unbelievably, he actually had the audacity to try to justify
[12:21] his actions, justify raping her by saying that Marianne was a
[12:26] whore and she was asking for it. Thankfully that didn't work and
[12:29] the court didn't go easy on him. He was sentenced to time in
[12:33] prison, although we don't know exactly how long.
[12:35] We did some research into basic rape sentences in Germany at
[12:40] that time were about two years, so we can assume he did two
[12:44] years in prison. I mean, hopefully it was more
[12:46] than that, given the fact that there were so many all awful
[12:50] elements to this case. He broke into her home, she was
[12:53] young and heavily pregnant. And let's not forget he did it
[12:57] all at gunpoint, threatening to murder her.
[13:00] This traumatic ordeal completely shattered any sense of safety
[13:05] that Marianne Bachmeier had left.
[13:08] She felt even more vulnerable than ever before, and this was
[13:12] made even worse when her new boyfriend left her.
[13:16] The baby wasn't even born yet. Marianne had been and raped and
[13:20] then her partner left her. She felt like she was just being
[13:24] chewed up and spat out by every person she ever came in contact
[13:28] with. She had nowhere left to go, no
[13:31] one left to talk to her and eventually when her second baby
[13:35] was born, she again made the difficult decision to put it up
[13:39] for adoption. Eventually, Marianne left school
[13:42] and it was time for her to start her adult life.
[13:46] In the big world, so she. Went and got a job as a
[13:48] waitress. And she got a flat, like a small
[13:52] flat on her own. In fact, I actually think it
[13:54] could have been the flat above the bar that she worked at.
[13:57] The bar was called Tipasa. And it was like.
[14:01] A bit of a grungy vibe. It was rundown, it was cheap, it
[14:05] attracted students and dropouts and people on the edges of
[14:10] society. Marianne was 22 years old at
[14:12] this point and she was actually really enjoying this chapter of
[14:17] her life. She loved working at the bar, it
[14:19] was very social and for the first time in a long time she
[14:24] had a network of people around her that cared about her and to
[14:27] pass her. This bar was very heavy with
[14:30] hippie culture, something that suited Marianne so well.
[14:34] Like I said, she was always so free spirited.
[14:37] She made friends with the regulars, everyone knew her and
[14:40] liked her, and she finally had a place where she felt like she
[14:45] belonged. She was the kind of woman who
[14:47] turned heads without even trying.
[14:49] She was stunning, very striking. She had dark hair and like
[14:54] greeny blue eyes. She was a hit with the men into
[14:57] pasa. I'll say that soon she began an
[15:00] on again off again relationship with the bar manager, a man
[15:03] named Christian. And he was your typical hippie
[15:07] fella. He had like long unkept hair,
[15:09] big bushy beard. He had like colourful mismatched
[15:13] clothing all the time. Sounds like a cool guy.
[15:16] And not long after starting this relationship with Christian,
[15:19] Marianne found herself pregnant again, now at the age of 22.
[15:24] But everything was different this time, wasn't it?
[15:27] Her circumstances had changed. She was happy, she had a job.
[15:30] She had a means of providing for a baby for the first time.
[15:35] And like I said, she had always wanted to keep these babies, or
[15:39] she'd known that she wanted a baby in the future at some
[15:42] point. And it finally felt like the
[15:45] future had arrived for her and she was ready.
[15:48] And in fact, another factor that went into making that decision
[15:52] is the heartbreak that she had suffered over giving up her last
[15:57] two children. She just couldn't face giving
[16:00] birth to a baby and having to hand it over and never seeing it
[16:03] again. She couldn't do that for 1/3
[16:05] time. So on November 14th, 1972,
[16:09] Marianne gave birth to a beautiful baby girl named Anna.
[16:12] At first, the baby, his father Christian, promised to support
[16:16] Marianne and support the baby, but the truth was that he wasn't
[16:21] ready for this kind of commitment in life.
[16:23] Not long after the birth, he backed out of his fatherly
[16:27] responsibilities and left Marianne a single mother.
[16:30] She was definitely disappointed by this.
[16:33] She had wanted Christian in her daughter's life.
[16:37] But you know what? If that was what he wanted, then
[16:40] Marianne felt confident that she could raise Anna all by her
[16:44] herself now. But now that she finally had a
[16:46] child that she was going to raise, she decided that she
[16:50] couldn't ever face being pregnant and going through all
[16:54] of those decisions and all of those body changes ever again.
[16:58] She didn't even want the possibility of that even
[17:01] happening. So she decided to get herself
[17:04] sterilized in her early 20s. And that's basically where a
[17:08] woman's fallopian tubes are cut, tied or blocked to prevent her
[17:13] eggs from, you know, making it to the uterus and being
[17:16] fertilized. It makes it nearly impossible to
[17:19] get pregnant. And I will emphasize nearly
[17:22] because there are some horror stories of women that have
[17:25] gotten sterilized and they think it's completely foolproof.
[17:28] And then they fall pregnant and they're like, well, shit.
[17:30] But isn't that kind of the same with everything?
[17:33] You know, every kind of contraception, there's horror
[17:35] stories of people falling. I call it horror stories.
[17:38] Sorry, I guess it is horrific though, to fall pregnant when
[17:42] you don't want to be and you don't want to go through that,
[17:45] you know, fair enough. Anyway, at first when Marianne
[17:48] had baby Anna, everything in her life started to revolve around
[17:53] this little baby and it kind of hacked up because Marianne,
[17:57] although she had a job now, she didn't have a lot of money from
[18:00] it and she couldn't afford childcare really, so she would
[18:03] actually bring Anna to work. This little baby was practically
[18:08] raised in a 5 bar but you know, all the regular customers and
[18:12] all the staff at Tappasa loved this baby.
[18:15] They doted on her. It was like everyone's child.
[18:18] So I guess it wasn't all bad. Maybe it's not an ideal
[18:22] environment, far from an ideal environment actually, but she
[18:27] had a lot of people around her that really cared for her and
[18:29] baby Anna grew up to be just like her mum in the way of.
[18:33] She was so free spirited and so positive about life.
[18:38] Honestly, I imagine the hippie culture of Tapasa had a lot to
[18:42] do with that, had a lot to do with Anna's views in life.
[18:46] But as Anna grew up, you know, I guess it's easier to raise a
[18:50] baby in a bar when they are a baby.
[18:53] Because they don't know. What's going on around them?
[18:55] But as Anna became a toddler and then 567 years old, being raised
[19:00] in a pub was, like I said, far from ideal.
[19:04] It was a very rowdy, noisy environment with a lot of drunk
[19:08] people and her mum was very busy because remember, she's on
[19:12] shift. It's not like her mum is just
[19:14] taking her to the pub and talking to her there.
[19:16] She's she's busy, she's off with the customers, she's off pouring
[19:19] pints. And this little girl is what,
[19:22] making friends with 40 year old men sitting at the bar?
[19:25] It's, it's strange. And as much as Marianne did her
[19:29] absolute best to raise Anna in the circumstances that they were
[19:33] in, I think she forgot a lot of the time just how young Anna
[19:37] was. Because she had to give.
[19:40] Her daughter, so much independence and freedom.
[19:43] I think she would forget that she was actually so young, seven
[19:46] years old, but she would treat her more like she was a teenager
[19:50] who had a bit more knowledge and and St. smarts and common sense.
[19:55] She would expect Anna to care for herself and and make her own
[19:59] meals when she was too busy. I mean, Marianne didn't have
[20:03] much choice, but Anna was forced to grow up very, very quickly.
[20:08] Marianne Bachmeyer has been. Accused of being quite a selfish
[20:12] and neglectful mother. Um, even when she wasn't on
[20:15] shift, sometimes she would just be drinking with the regulars in
[20:19] Tapasa instead of taking her baby home or to the park or you
[20:24] know, something child appropriate.
[20:26] Anna was exposed to a world that was way too mature for her.
[20:30] She was surrounded by people drinking and smoking and
[20:34] swearing and talking about explicit topics.
[20:37] She was 7. And then Marianne would bring
[20:39] her home at the end of the shift, which her shifts would
[20:42] end in the early hours of the morning.
[20:44] She works at a bar so she's nocturnal pretty much.
[20:48] She would go home and sleep through the day ready for her
[20:51] next shift the next night. So her seven-year old daughter
[20:54] was also on that cycle, but actually not quite because
[20:59] Marianne would drink during her shifts and she would stay for a
[21:02] drink with the regulars after. So she would proper conk out
[21:06] asleep when they get home and she would be passed out until
[21:10] like 5-6 PM the next day. Of course, Anna was 7 years old
[21:14] and she hadn't drunk alcohol, so she was up and she was bright
[21:18] and and ready for the next day. But her mum would just be asleep
[21:22] all day and like I say, Anna would be expected to make all
[21:25] her own food and essentially raise herself because her mum
[21:28] was asleep or working all the time.
[21:31] Apparently those who were close with Marianne at this point said
[21:34] that she knew that this was very tough on her daughter.
[21:38] She knew that this wasn't an ideal situation, but she was
[21:41] very overwhelmed trying to balance both work and being a
[21:46] mother. It was a really, really tough
[21:48] situation for both of them and we have to keep that in mind.
[21:51] It is just such a shame that Anna didn't get a normal
[21:55] childhood, but then suddenly Anna Bachmeyer's childhood would
[22:00] be brutally ripped from her and Marianne was left to face the
[22:05] unimaginable pain of losing another child.
[22:17] On May 5th, 1980, it seemed like any other day.
[22:21] Marianne was now 29 years old, and she was asleep during the
[22:25] day after a long shift at Tapasa the night before, the night
[22:28] before, or the early hours of the morning.
[22:31] When they arrived back from the shift, Marianne and Anna had
[22:35] gotten into an argument, which I think in itself is very, very
[22:40] sad that a 7 year old is being expected to kind of hold her own
[22:45] in an argument. And this is what I mean by how I
[22:47] think Marianne would treat this 7 year old much more like a
[22:51] teenager who can argue. I feel like a 7 year old can't
[22:54] really argue. They can kick off, they can
[22:57] tantrum, they can be naughty, but I don't think you can back
[23:01] and forth argue with a child that just doesn't quite
[23:06] understand. But anyway, that aside, Marianne
[23:09] and Anna had had an argument in the early hours of the morning.
[23:13] And then Marianne slept through the hall next day and Anna was
[23:17] expected to wake up at a normal time and take herself to school,
[23:21] give herself breakfast, get ready, all of that on her own at
[23:24] 7 years old. But Anna woke up that morning
[23:27] and. In a form of.
[23:29] Protest to her mother to show her just how pissed off she was.
[23:32] After this argument, Anna decided to skip school.
[23:36] So she went round to a friend's house actually.
[23:38] But by the time she got there, the friend had already left for
[23:41] school. So Anna just had the whole day
[23:44] to herself and she didn't really know how to occupy it.
[23:46] Apparently she was just like walking the streets trying to
[23:49] entertain herself for those few hours.
[23:51] And while it's not entirely clear what happened next,
[23:55] because remember, this is a very old case.
[23:57] Very old. It was in 1980, which I guess is
[24:01] quite a long time ago. Well, that's certainly a long,
[24:04] long time ago in terms of technological advances because
[24:07] there will have been no, no phones, no CCTV, nothing like
[24:11] that. You cannot compare a case from
[24:14] that time period to this time period in terms of like
[24:17] evidence. So because we don't have all
[24:20] that evidence stuff, we have no idea what Anna did on her day
[24:25] off. But one thing that I think we
[24:27] can guess is that Anna was out in the streets making friends
[24:31] because one thing about being raised in a bar, our situation
[24:35] meant that Anna was very, very confident and she could talk to
[24:39] anyone, especially adults, random adults, since that was
[24:43] her whole entire socialization. Of course, this is all just
[24:47] guesswork, but one thing we do know for certain is that at some
[24:51] point that day, Anna crossed paths with a man, a 35 year old
[24:56] butcher from the town named Klaus Grabowski.
[25:00] He actually lived about 200 meters away from Tipassa, which
[25:05] is also where Anna and Marianne lived, I believe.
[25:08] So it's very likely that he would have seen Anna before, or
[25:11] might have even met her, spoken to her in the bar.
[25:14] From what we can gather, it seems that Klaus lured Anna into
[25:20] his house, the seven-year old girl, on the premise of coming
[25:23] back to play with his cats. But what happened next was
[25:27] beyond horrific. Klaus sexually assaulted the
[25:31] little girl and then strangled her to death with her own
[25:36] pantyhose. He proceeded to put her dead
[25:39] body in a cardboard box and then carried it out to the canal and
[25:44] just left her on the bank like she never even existed.
[25:49] Poor Anna was only 7 years old when she suffered so much
[25:54] violence at the hands of this sick monster.
[25:58] Klaus Grabowski had a dark criminal past with a disturbing
[26:02] history, a pattern of abusing children.
[26:06] Anna wasn't his first victim. I think she was his first murder
[26:10] victim, but certainly not the first child that he had sexually
[26:14] assaulted. In the 1970s he was charged
[26:17] twice for sexually abusing young girls on 2 separate occasions.
[26:22] So he was a registered sex offender at the time of this
[26:26] case. In Germany, sex offenders who
[26:28] had been found guilty in a court of law could choose to be
[26:33] chemically castrated as part of their quote UN quote treatment.
[26:38] That was what the government insisted on calling it at the
[26:40] time, treatment rather than punishment it they were hoping
[26:45] that it could be a cure for paedophilia.
[26:48] Chemical castration is much different to, you know, physical
[26:52] castration where they cut off someone's gun ads.
[26:56] Chemical castration is usually done through drugs that alter
[27:00] the person's sex hormones, decrease their libido, and then
[27:04] in general make sex seem unappealing.
[27:07] Usually the effects of chemical castration are stopped and
[27:12] reversed once the drugs are finished, so it's not a
[27:16] permanent solution or a permanent punishment by any
[27:19] means. It was temporary, but Klaus was
[27:22] given this choice. He could have the chemical
[27:24] castration if he agreed, he would be released.
[27:27] He wouldn't have to be locked up behind bars because, well, they
[27:31] hoped that that would make him not a danger to society anymore.
[27:35] But if he didn't want to have the chemical castration, then he
[27:38] would have to remain in a psychiatric institution for for
[27:42] an indefinite amount of time. It could be years and years,
[27:46] decades even. So in 1976, four years before he
[27:51] would go on to murder Anna Bachmeyer, he chose to undergo
[27:56] chemical castration. And of course, he was released
[27:59] back out into the world very shortly after, which is very
[28:02] disturbing. This is a man.
[28:03] That has willingly sexually assaulted two children.
[28:07] They gave him a few pills and then said, look, you're allowed
[28:11] out, just stay away from kids. Like as if that's going to
[28:14] actually work in the long term, especially this kind of
[28:17] treatment that is temporary if he was to stop taking those
[28:21] tablets. We have to put a lot.
[28:23] Of trust into a situation like that, you have to trust a
[28:27] paedophile to want to take medication to stop them from
[28:30] being a paedophile. Someone that has already acted
[28:34] on that urge twice, of course they're not going to want to
[28:37] keep taking that medication shortly.
[28:39] But I don't know they they trusted him to take the meds and
[28:43] stay away from kids. Clearly this so-called treatment
[28:46] didn't work because four years later he would go on to do
[28:50] unspeakable things to Anna Bachmeyer.
[28:53] And it's just absolutely heartbreaking that this 7 year
[28:55] old little girl's life was the price that had to be paid for
[29:01] insufficient rehabilitation. On the 5th of May, when Marianne
[29:05] woke up, Anna wasn't in the house.
[29:07] Although this wasn't immediately alarming because she was
[29:11] supposed to be at school that day.
[29:12] So Marianne woke up thinking that Anna had gotten herself
[29:16] ready, got on herself some breakfast and gotten herself to
[29:19] school. So Marianne went about her day
[29:21] as as normal. She ran some errands, went and
[29:23] did a photo shoot for a magazine.
[29:26] I don't know, apparently she had this certain make and model of
[29:29] car that this magazine were doing a shoot about.
[29:31] I don't know, she whatever. But after all of that, she
[29:34] returned back home and it was now kind of the evening and
[29:37] there was still no Anna in the house.
[29:40] Marianne panicked, but not to a huge extent just yet.
[29:44] Obviously she didn't know where her daughter was, and that's
[29:46] worrying, but she never in a million years thought that
[29:49] something terrible had happened to her.
[29:52] She thought that Anna was just playing out in the streets, lost
[29:55] track of time, didn't tell her mum where she was going to be,
[29:57] you know. So Marianne goes out into the
[29:59] streets and she's walking up, down, around, everywhere, all
[30:02] over town, shouting Anna's name and not seeing her.
[30:07] No one had seen or heard from her all day.
[30:09] By the time night fell, Marianne knew that she couldn't do this
[30:13] alone, and so she called the police to officially report her
[30:17] daughter missing. A search took place overnight
[30:20] and into the next morning, but there was still no sign of Anna
[30:24] whatsoever. At this point Marianne was
[30:26] actually a bit annoyed with Anna, thinking that this was
[30:29] intentional, thinking that she was just trying to make a
[30:33] statement to her mum, because remember, they'd gotten into a
[30:35] huge argument the night before, before they went to bed.
[30:38] So she thought that Anna was just making her worry.
[30:42] She thought that maybe she was like hiding out at a friends
[30:44] house, hoping. To piss her mum off.
[30:47] But as time kept going by, hours and hours went by.
[30:51] She spoke with more of her daughter's friends and their
[30:54] parents. It started to seem really,
[30:57] really horrifying. Then a policeman knocked on
[31:01] Marianne Bachmeyer's door with some awful news.
[31:04] Earlier that morning, a woman had shown up to the police
[31:07] station with some information about Anna.
[31:11] This woman was Klaus Grabowski's fiance.
[31:15] She claimed that the night before she had gone home to her
[31:19] partner. She'd seen Klaus and everything
[31:21] was fine, but after a while he started confessing things to
[31:26] her. He told her straight up that
[31:29] that day he had sexually assaulted and murdered A child,
[31:34] and he gave his fiancee so many details.
[31:37] He talked about how he had strangled her with the pantyhose
[31:40] right there in their flat, and then he'd put her body in a
[31:43] cardboard box, taking her out to the canal and just discarded her
[31:47] there like she was rubbish. He had told all of this to his
[31:50] fiancee. His fiancee knew that she needed
[31:53] to report it. And now?
[31:55] The police were feeding back all these awful details to her poor
[31:59] mother. Marianne was overwhelmed with
[32:03] every devastating emotion that you can imagine.
[32:06] In fact, I bet it's hard for a lot of listeners to imagine how
[32:10] Marianne must have been feeling. Losing a child is apparently a
[32:15] pain unlike any other, but among.
[32:17] All of that sadness and anger. Marianne also felt a lot of
[32:22] guilt. I mean, partly because she'd
[32:24] been annoyed with her daughter for the past, I don't know, 2
[32:28] days while they were looking for her because she thought she was
[32:31] taking the piss. She thought that her daughter
[32:33] was trying to make a statement and she was angry about that.
[32:36] And now she realized she was wrong the whole time and she
[32:38] just felt awful. And she felt.
[32:40] So bad that the. Last time she had ever seen and
[32:43] spoken to her daughter, it was an argument and now she could
[32:47] never make up with her when she realized that Anna had skipped
[32:51] school that day and that was how she was on the streets.
[32:54] That's how Klaus saw her. Marianne felt even worse still,
[32:58] because if they hadn't had that argument, Anna wouldn't have.
[33:02] Skipped school and she would have been safe there.
[33:05] It's another heartbreaking series of what ifs.
[33:09] What if things were different? Of course nothing could be done
[33:12] now to change the circumstances. It was absolutely heartbreaking,
[33:18] but if there is even a slight silver lining on this, the way
[33:23] that they had received this information was incredibly
[33:26] useful from Klaus Grabowski's fiance herself.
[33:30] She had gotten a confession. She had.
[33:32] This man's name, his address, she could take police, right?
[33:35] To him then and there. And they did, they went and
[33:39] arrested him immediately the day after he had committed this
[33:43] horrific crime. It was an incredibly quick
[33:45] investigation in that way. And of course, that doesn't make
[33:48] anything better. In fact, I don't know what's
[33:50] worse, you know, solving it quite quickly and having a face
[33:54] and a name and, and having to look at the person that did that
[33:57] to your daughter. Or could you imagine if it
[34:01] became a cold case? And they were never able to find
[34:04] the killer. Again, I don't know what's
[34:06] worse, having no answers or having the answer and staring
[34:10] him right in the eye. When Klaus Grabowski was
[34:13] arrested, he told police where they could find the body on the
[34:16] canal. They went and collected her and
[34:19] Annas body was apparently tied up and she had been carefully
[34:23] placed inside this box. When Marianne went to Lubex
[34:27] cemetery to go and pick out a spot for Anna's grave, the
[34:30] undertaker asked her if she wanted a single or a double
[34:33] grave and Marianne replied double.
[34:36] It's for Anna and me. I'll be with her soon.
[34:39] Marianne had already been through so much in her life, it
[34:44] was relentless and she had been forced to be incredibly
[34:48] resilient. She had to be, but losing her
[34:51] daughter was something that she just couldn't get past.
[34:55] She wasn't going to move on from this.
[34:57] She can't move on from a pain like that.
[35:00] It was just too much for her to bear.
[35:02] She didn't want to live with the knowledge of what happened to
[35:06] her daughter and what her daughter went through in her
[35:08] final moments. On the day of Anna's funeral,
[35:11] the sun was shining bright and people turned up in droves.
[35:15] To pay their. Respects for someone who had
[35:18] only had seven years on this earth, it was one hell of a turn
[35:23] out for her funeral. It seemed like every single
[35:25] staff member and every single regular at Tapasa were there for
[35:30] her. And the funeral wasn't a
[35:32] traditional religious ceremony. That wasn't very Marianne, and
[35:36] in turn, it wasn't very Anna. They were very alike.
[35:39] She was like her mother's mini me.
[35:41] So this funeral was more like a celebration of what Anna's life
[35:45] was. Marianne had arranged for a Pink
[35:48] Floyd song to blare out of the speech because everyone formed a
[35:52] circle around her coffin. It was such a beautiful,
[35:56] heartfelt tribute. But back at the police station,
[35:59] Klaus Grabowski was being interrogated and.
[36:02] He. Was coming up with some wild and
[36:06] truly disgusting stories about he confessed to the police that
[36:11] yes he did murder this 7 year old girl but he denied ever
[36:16] sexually assaulting her he told police this twisted version of
[36:20] events that it was this seven-year old girl that was the
[36:24] one actually trying to seduce him and he said that he turned
[36:29] her down because. He's a good.
[36:31] Guy he turned her down, but that didn't go down well with Anna.
[36:34] He said that she got very angry. He claimed that when he didn't
[36:38] go through with what she was asking, she tried to blackmail
[36:42] him. This monster claimed that Anna
[36:45] had threatened him that she would go home and tell her mummy
[36:49] that Klaus touched her if he didn't give her some money.
[36:53] Klaus said that he panicked when she supposedly said this.
[36:57] He didn't know how to protect himself from such a claim to his
[37:01] reputation and so he decided to kill her.
[37:05] Because that is the logical fucking thing to do, isn't it?
[37:08] This whole story is just absolutely heinous in so many
[37:12] ways. To suggest that this little
[37:15] innocent 7 year old girl could ever come up with such a twisted
[37:19] plan is disgusting and infuriating.
[37:24] And how does he? Expect anyone to believe this,
[37:26] that a 7 year old girl was able to concoct such an elaborate,
[37:31] complex and and truly evil plan. I don't think any even knew what
[37:36] blackmail was at 7 years old, never mind fucking knew how to
[37:39] do it. And I just think about what
[37:41] Marianne would have thought and felt when she heard these
[37:46] horrific claims from Klaus of him trying to smear the
[37:49] reputation of her daughter. She was already devastated by
[37:53] the things that he had done to her daughter and now he was
[37:57] throwing out all of these accusations, making it so much
[38:00] worse. The pain was almost too much to
[38:03] bear and I can only imagine it must have brought up a lot of
[38:06] thoughts and feelings from when she went through a quite a
[38:09] similar situation herself. Remember when Marianne was 18,
[38:13] she was heavily pregnant and her neighbor broke into her house
[38:18] and raped her and then tried to justify it by saying she was a
[38:21] whore and she deserved it. She had to listen to her rapist
[38:25] saying all of that about her and now she had to sit there and
[38:28] listen to Klaus Grabowski saying it about her seven-year old
[38:33] daughter. Marianne knew that she had to
[38:35] get justice for her daughter, that was non negotiable.
[38:38] She was going to do that. But she found it very very hard
[38:42] to trust a justice system that had allowed this man back out
[38:46] onto the streets in the 1st place after sexually assaulting
[38:49] two different girls in the decade before this.
[38:53] He was then allowed out onto the streets to go and sexually
[38:56] assault and murder 7 year old Anna.
[38:58] It made Marianne so angry and she had such a lack of trust in
[39:03] the system that she was prepared to take justice into her own
[39:07] hands and seek revenge. In March 1981, Klaus Grabowski
[39:12] murder trial began in the District Court in Lubeck.
[39:15] In the first few days, the defence team were making some
[39:19] rather awful statements about Anna's life.
[39:23] They were trying to pin both her and her mother out to be bad
[39:27] people, almost insinuating that they deserved this.
[39:30] They brought up Marianne's job at the bar, saying that she
[39:33] works all these long hours late into the night, insinuating that
[39:37] she is neglectful of Anna and they're failing to acknowledge
[39:40] the part of that situation that she needed a job to be able to
[39:44] provide for her and that daughter and the job at T Pasa
[39:48] worked. So it's like mothers can't win
[39:52] unless everything is absolutely perfect there.
[39:54] There was always going to be something that they tried to
[39:57] pick out about Marianne. Klaus's defence also decided to
[40:00] bring up Anna's school attendance.
[40:03] As if that has. Anything to do with this whole
[40:05] situation, you know, saying that she used to skip school and a
[40:08] lot of the time she was late and then insinuating that that is
[40:11] her mother's fault because she works late and all of this kind
[40:14] of stuff. And you know what?
[40:15] Maybe there's a bit of a point in there, but it's so irrelevant
[40:18] to the point at and as if any of that has anything to do with her
[40:23] sexual assault and murder at the hands of a sick paedophile.
[40:27] Her school attendance is absolutely irrelevant.
[40:30] Having to sit through a trial like that sounds like a parent's
[40:34] worst nightmare. It must have been truly awful
[40:37] for Marianne to have to listen to his defence team twisting the
[40:41] story. But then this nightmare got even
[40:44] worse. Klaus continued to defend
[40:46] himself in all these different ways and he said that he had
[40:50] killed Anna when he was going through a time of serious
[40:54] hormonal imbalance. Obviously after his chemical
[40:57] castration, you know, his treatment quote UN quote
[41:00] treatment for paedophilia. He was now claiming that that
[41:03] treatment had actually caused him to re offend.
[41:08] Marianne had to sit in that courtroom and listen to Klaus
[41:11] give all these different reasons and excuses as to why her child
[41:16] was no longer alive, and by the end of day 2 she could not
[41:21] listen to a single second more of it.
[41:32] Day three of the trial was March 6th, 1981.
[41:36] It was a cold and rainy morning as people began entering the
[41:40] courtroom. All the like.
[41:42] Main people enter 1st and then the gallery.
[41:45] The public are only allowed in 5 minutes before the trial begins.
[41:49] So right now it was still pretty quiet in the courtroom.
[41:52] There weren't as many people. Klaus Grabowski was brought in
[41:56] through a side door. He was led over to his little
[41:59] desk and he sat down. Then Marianne walks in the room
[42:03] and she walks quite close up to Klaus Grabowski, and she hovers
[42:08] just a few meters away from him. People noticed her fumbling with
[42:12] something under a long green coat, and then suddenly she
[42:16] pulled out a 22 caliber Beretta pistol from her purse and aimed
[42:21] it at Klaus Grabowski's back. She fired eight shots.
[42:25] And. And only two of them missed.
[42:27] She successfully shot her daughter's murderer 6 times and
[42:33] killed him instantly. Everyone around gasped and
[42:36] screamed. People were trying to run out of
[42:38] the courtroom, worrying that she was about to what, do a whole
[42:42] entire massacre in that? Some people were just absolutely
[42:45] stunned in place. That kind of freeze response.
[42:48] They couldn't believe what they had just seen.
[42:51] Immediately after being shot, Klaus's body slumped forward
[42:54] onto the desk and and then slowly slid onto the cold
[42:59] courtroom floor. Witnesses claim they heard
[43:02] Marianne whisper this is for you Anna before dropping the gun to
[43:06] the floor, showing that she wasn't a danger to anyone else.
[43:09] She had come here to do what she set out to do and she went
[43:13] calmly with police when they arrested her today.
[43:16] You can't just walk into a courtroom with a damn gun in
[43:18] your bag. Like there's so many more safety
[43:21] measures that are taken. I mean, at least in the.
[43:24] UK that's all I can really account for.
[43:26] They have those big like, metal detector things like they have
[43:28] in airports. Like it's so safe and secure
[43:32] now, I think because of cases like this.
[43:34] But back in 1981, there were no checks before you entered a
[43:38] courthouse. You could literally take
[43:39] anything in there. Marianne was able to take a
[43:42] whole entire gun tucked up in her coat without anyone noticing
[43:45] at all. In her police interview, she
[43:48] told them that she'd actually managed to get hold of the gun
[43:50] through someone at Tipassa. I don't think she named anyone.
[43:54] She wasn't a snitch. But she told the police.
[43:56] That she had managed to get hold of this gun and she'd been
[43:58] storing it for a little while, actually, at Anna's grave.
[44:02] The type of gun that she used was the exact type that the US
[44:06] military used at that point in time.
[44:08] So I guess it wouldn't have been majorly hard to get a hold of
[44:10] one of these types of guns if you knew the right people.
[44:14] But she insisted to police that she didn't get a hold of this
[44:17] gun to commit murder to kill Klaus Grabowski.
[44:20] That wasn't when she set out to get a gun.
[44:23] It wasn't for that reason. It was actually for self
[44:26] defence. She said that after her daughter
[44:28] was abducted and murdered from the streets, of course she felt
[44:33] very, very unsafe and she wasn't about to let someone kill her.
[44:37] She said that when she actually received the gun, she had no
[44:40] intention of shooting killing Klaus Grabowski whatsoever.
[44:44] But when the trial began and she saw him trying to weasel his way
[44:49] out of it and smear her daughter's reputation in the
[44:52] process, she felt like the justice system just wasn't going
[44:55] to punish him the way that he deserved.
[44:58] And so she felt like she had to take justice into her own hands
[45:02] and take revenge. But police didn't quite believe
[45:05] Marianne when she said this. When she said that she got the
[45:08] gun for self defence, she didn't get it thinking she was going to
[45:11] kill him. She was trying to say that
[45:13] shooting him in the courtroom was a relatively like spur of
[45:17] the moment decision. But yeah, police didn't believe
[45:20] that, especially with like the speed and accuracy at which she
[45:24] got the gun out and shot. It and aimed at him like.
[45:27] It seemed like she'd practiced. It seemed like she'd done it
[45:30] before. And I mean, there had to be at
[45:32] least. Some level of prior planning,
[45:34] even if it had only began that morning, because obviously she
[45:37] needed to put the gun in her bag and like hide it walking past
[45:41] everyone in the courtroom. And why bring a gun to a
[45:44] courtroom in the 1st place if you don't plan on using it?
[45:46] You know, we don't know if she had the gun on her for the first
[45:49] two days of the trial. She shot him on the third day.
[45:52] So I mean, she could have taken it and just had it in her bag
[45:55] everywhere she went maybe on those first two days and then
[45:58] maybe it actually was a spur of the moment decision to walk in
[46:02] and just shoot him on the third day.
[46:03] I mean, regardless of just how spur of the moment it was, we
[46:07] can all agree that there was at least some prior planning for
[46:10] her to have put that gun in her bag as she was on her way to the
[46:13] courtroom. After she was arrested, a doctor
[46:16] was brought in to assess Marianne's mental state.
[46:20] And one of the first things he did, he gave her a blank piece
[46:22] of paper and said, write anything you want on there.
[46:25] And this was supposed to just kind of, I don't know, whatever
[46:28] she came up with in that moment would be quite indicative of how
[46:31] she was feeling and how she was thinking.
[46:33] If she was in some sort of like psychotic episode, then they
[46:37] should be able to tell based on what her brain tells her to
[46:40] write. But when she handed back the
[46:42] piece of paper Marianne had written, I did it for you, Anna.
[46:46] And she'd drawn 7 little hearts by it as well.
[46:49] People believing she drew one for each year that her daughter
[46:53] was alive. I believe the results of the
[46:56] mental assessment with that she was fine because we couldn't
[47:00] find anything else. They clearly didn't find
[47:03] anything. Once this case hit the news, it
[47:05] became one of the most famous cases of vigilante justice in
[47:10] German history and also now world history.
[47:12] Marianne was front page news for weeks and she became very
[47:16] popular with the people of Germany because they really
[47:20] sympathized with her and they understood why she did what she
[47:24] did. She became widely known as the
[47:26] vigilante mother and a lot of people supported the decision
[47:30] that she made on that day to kill her daughter's killer.
[47:33] A lot of people believed that Klaus Grabowski was a monster
[47:37] and karma got him the way that it should.
[47:39] In fact, a lot of parents were coming out saying that they
[47:42] would do the exact same thing if they were in Marianne's shoes
[47:45] and they had to face their daughter's rapist and murderer.
[47:50] She had a lot of support and sympathy from the people of
[47:53] Germany. It was actually really nice to
[47:55] read about. People were sending her letters
[47:57] and flowers, even sending her money.
[48:00] And even though she couldn't really access any of these gifts
[48:03] and letters and the money that she was being sent because she
[48:07] was being held in prison, obviously she had also killed
[48:10] someone. So now she was awaiting her own
[48:12] murder trial. So she couldn't actually like,
[48:15] see any of the gifts or use them or whatever.
[48:18] But it was. Just nice to know that she had a
[48:20] lot of backing. But while she was waiting in a
[48:24] cell waiting for her trial, Marianne's mental health was
[48:27] really, really suffering. Another psychiatric assessment
[48:30] showed that she was at very high risk of suicide, whether she was
[48:35] to stay in prison or leave. But after a whole year of being
[48:39] held in this cell awaiting trial, her doctor was getting
[48:43] very, very concerned for her. And he actually tried to argue
[48:46] for her to be released on medical grounds.
[48:49] But the prosecution on this case, we're trying very, very
[48:52] hard to treat Marianne just like any other person that would be
[48:57] suspected of murder. It was very, very tough because
[49:00] the whole entire country loved and supported her and thought
[49:03] that she did the right thing. But she still murdered some
[49:07] someone, you know, and in the eyes of the law, they have to
[49:09] treat that the same way as any other murder case.
[49:12] A lot of people wanted the court to go easy on her, to show her
[49:15] some mercy, to give her a lower sentence.
[49:17] But. If they were.
[49:18] To do that, what kind of message would that send to their people?
[49:22] It would encourage more and more people to take the law into
[49:25] their own hands, to take justice into their own hands, and things
[49:28] would get very dangerous very quickly.
[49:31] In a way, the courts kind of had to make an example of Marianne
[49:35] and send the message that no matter what your reason is for
[49:38] wanting to kill someone, you can't do it.
[49:41] You know, if you kill someone, you pay the price for it, no
[49:44] matter what your reasoning. But like I say, pretty much the
[49:47] whole of Germany saw Marianne as a hero that shouldn't be
[49:52] punished like any other murderer.
[49:54] She murdered someone that a lot of people believe deserved to be
[49:59] murdered anyway. At the age of 32, Marianne was
[50:02] charged with Klaus Grabowski's murder and it went to trial.
[50:05] And if she was convicted, she could actually spend the rest of
[50:09] her life in prison. The trial dragged on for about
[50:11] four months, and her side was trying to say that she was so
[50:16] emotionally distressed by what Klaus had done to her family
[50:21] that she shouldn't be held responsible for her actions that
[50:24] day. But the prosecution were trying
[50:26] to argue that she knew exactly what she was doing.
[50:28] She brought the gun into the courtroom that day with the
[50:31] intention of committing murder. They believed.
[50:33] And apparently after she shot Klaus, Marianne made some
[50:37] suspicious comments. The judge himself overheard her
[50:41] say, I wanted to shoot him in the face, but I only got him in
[50:44] the back. I hope he's dead, 2 police
[50:47] officers heard her say. Unfortunately, I only got the
[50:50] pig from behind. These comments were presented in
[50:53] court by the prosecution in an attempt to show that her killing
[50:57] of Klaus was premeditated. Her saying, like, I wanted to
[51:01] get him in the face proves that she had thought about killing
[51:05] him before that moment and thought that she wanted to do it
[51:07] in the first. You know, it's not a very strong
[51:09] case against Marianne. And plus, she had the backing of
[51:13] the whole entire country. So I think that had a very big
[51:18] part to play in what I'm about to tell you.
[51:21] In the end, Marianne's murder charge was dropped.
[51:24] She was still charged with manslaughter, and she was
[51:27] sentenced to six years in prison, but she only served
[51:30] three of those years. Oh, and actually a part of that
[51:33] she was was also charged with being in possession of an
[51:35] illegal firearm. So for manslaughter and the
[51:38] firearm charge, she served three years in prison altogether.
[51:42] But when she was released three years later, things began to
[51:46] change and people's perceptions of Marianne began to change.
[51:51] The media began digging into her past and suddenly the public
[51:55] opinion shifted. They went from loving this
[51:58] vigilante antihero to condemning her very.
[52:02] Quickly, the public found out. That she had been pregnant twice
[52:06] in her teenage years and given both of the babies up for
[52:08] adoption and they didn't like that.
[52:10] I guess I found that absolutely ridiculous that you can be mad
[52:13] at anyone for wanting a baby to have a better life than what
[52:18] they could give it like that. What?
[52:20] What do you want her to do? Do you want the baby to suffer?
[52:22] Sorry. I get like really passionate
[52:23] about that kind of stuff. pro-choice, you know?
[52:26] But I don't think it was the adoption stuff that really
[52:28] shifted the public opinion. I think that was when they found
[52:32] out that her father was a Nazi soldier.
[52:35] At this point post war Germany was really trying to move on
[52:39] from its past and this information that the nation's
[52:44] hero actually had ties to the Nazi party, it really didn't sit
[52:49] well with the German public. All that support that Marianne
[52:52] had initially received very quickly turned into harsh
[52:56] judgement. She no longer seemed to fit that
[52:59] innocent mother hero role that everyone saw her as.
[53:04] Marianne was 35 years old when she was released from prison and
[53:08] she successfully, I would say, moved on with her life after
[53:12] this she. Met a man and got married to
[53:15] him. And that was in Germany, but
[53:17] they very quickly moved to Nigeria because her new husband
[53:21] was a German teacher. So they went over to Nigeria.
[53:24] He was teaching the kids German. They then split up, so Marianne
[53:29] went to Sicily and moved out there on her own, and out there
[53:33] she was a. Carer at a Hospice, she always
[53:35] said that she didn't want to go back to Germany as a whole, but
[53:39] especially Lubeck, because the memories, every single St. would
[53:44] have been a memory of Anna. And unfortunately there she was,
[53:47] only ever known as Anna's mum, that woman that shot a man in
[53:51] court, you know. And of course, at this point,
[53:53] she had really tried to move on and really tried to put that
[53:56] behind her and keep living not only for herself.
[53:59] But for her? Daughter but tragically,
[54:02] Marianne was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of
[54:06] 46 she was young and she only had a limited amount of time
[54:11] left on earth and she decided that she would finally return to
[54:15] lubeck after. All that is where she had always
[54:19] planned to die and be buried. Right next to her daughter.
[54:23] On September 17th, 1996, Marianne Bachmeier passed away.
[54:28] And of course, she was buried right next to her little girl.
[54:31] Marianne never regretted what she did in the courtroom that
[54:34] day, even as practically the whole of Germany turned against
[54:38] her. She always felt like she did
[54:41] right by her daughter and she never took back her actions.
[54:44] But a crazy part of this whole story is that because Klaus died
[54:49] during his trial, before there was a guilty verb verdict, he
[54:53] actually died. Technically an innocent man, he
[54:57] was never able to be found guilty.
[55:00] But I mean, does that even matter?
[55:02] In some ways, Marianne's actions feel like justice enough.
[55:05] An eye for an eye. After all, we get why she did
[55:08] what she did, and parents all over the world said that they
[55:12] might have done the same if they were in her situation.
[55:15] She just couldn't bear to hear her child's memory get poisoned
[55:19] by this monster, by the lies of the man that killed her.
[55:23] Maybe Marianne wasn't the innocent perfect hero type that
[55:27] everyone wanted from the vigilante mother, but that
[55:31] doesn't change the situation. The situation that everyone
[55:34] initially loved and supported her for, that she avenged her
[55:39] seven-year old daughter and got rid of the sick disgusting
[55:43] paedophile that took Anna from this earth.
[55:47] And it makes you think if it was Annas father rather than her
[55:51] mother that had gone into the courtroom and shot her murderer.
[55:55] Would he have? Faced the same judgment that
[55:58] Marianne face. Or does the world just expect
[56:01] more from mothers than they ever expect from fathers?
[56:04] Do they expect more from women in general?
[56:07] Women can never be perfect, can they?
[56:09] Before I finish up this episode, of course, we've talked about so
[56:12] many sensitive topics in this one, so check in with yourself.
[56:16] I hope you're doing well and I want to share some different
[56:18] organizations that help with this kind of thing.
[56:22] If you need help or if this case has affected you and you want to
[56:25] do something, you want to act, I've got you.
[56:28] If any of you are able to donate or read up on the work that
[56:31] these organisations do, I mean, please do that.
[56:34] Women's Aid UK is a charity that supports women and children who
[56:38] are affected by domestic abuse. They aim to ensure that victims
[56:42] are believed, they are understood and they know that
[56:45] the abuse that they have faced is not their fault.
[56:48] Gingerbread is a charity supporting single parent
[56:50] families. They campaign against poverty,
[56:53] disadvantage, and stigma to ensure fair and equal treatment.
[56:57] And of course, you can get involved with either of these
[56:59] charities or so many more. We actually have a link down in
[57:03] the description of all of our episodes with a huge list of
[57:07] charities and organizations that we love and support and would
[57:10] love for you guys to support as well.
[57:12] You can donate, you can volunteer your time, or even
[57:16] just raise awareness of the incredible work that these
[57:19] organizations do. Like I said.
[57:21] All the links will be in the description of this episode.
[57:29] Thank you so much for listening to Usual Disclaimer.
[57:32] If you want to hear more cases like this one, make sure to
[57:35] follow Usual Disclaimer on your podcast app so that you get
[57:38] notifications when we post new episodes.
[57:41] And if you really enjoyed, I'd love it if you could leave a
[57:43] rating and a review too. Usual Disclaimer with Eleanor
[57:47] Neil is an Audio Boom Studios production.
[57:50] See you next time.

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