Remembering Marianne Bachmeier

Marianne Bachmeier was the mother of Anna, a 7 year old little girl that was raped and murdered by a butcher she lived nearby to.

Marianne had an unfortunate life even before this incident. Her alcoholic ex Waffen SS father was physically abusive and her stepfather, after her mother left her father was apparently little better, being very strict. Her mother eventually threw her out.

When Anna was seven years old, Marianne was effectively a single mother at this point, and one who had already given up two children to adoption, having become pregnant at 16 and 18. The third time, at 22, alone and struggling, she still decided to keep her daughter even though she worried maybe Anna would be better off being adopted too. Anna was described as a child with a happy disposition despite her difficult circumstances.

The murderous rapist said he’d killed the little girl after he had raped her because, according to him, Anna blackmailed him by telling him that if he didn’t give her money, she would tell her mother of the rape.

Such an evil and obviously fake excuse, added insult to an already impossible injury. The rapist, Klaus Grabowski, a 35-year-old butcher, whose house Anna had visited before to play with his cats, was an already convicted sex offender that had been chemically castrated but who then took hormones to try to reverse the process. he was turned in by his girlfriend at the time.

On the third day of the trial, on 6 mArch 1981, Marianne entered the courtroom, and using a Beretta .22 pistol, fired seven or eight shots at Grabowski, hitting him six times. She offered no resistance and made no effort to get away. Immediately after shooting him she said:

“I wanted to kill him.”

“He killed my daughter… I wanted to shoot him in the face but I shot him in the back… I hope he’s dead.” Two policemen also claimed to have heard Bachmeier call Grabowski a “pig” after she shot him.

The video at the end is a reenactment of the event, which is reported to be quite close to the events, though apparently in the real version she took the handgun out of her purse instead of her coat.

She used a Beretta model 70s that held 9 rounds of .22 LR in the magazine plus one in the chamber. She apparently fired at least seven times, maybe eight but hit him six.

The images below are of the real Marianne.

The Model 70s in .22 was also favoured by various spy services.

She was initially charged with murder but the public outcry saw to it that her conviction was deemed “not premeditated” and in March 1983 was sentenced to 6 years, but was released after three.

In 1985 she married a German teacher and they moved to Accra in Ghana in 1988, where he taught German, but they divorced in 1990 and she then moved to Sicily where she worked as a euthanasia assistant in a hospice in Palermo.

She was diagnosed with pancreatic Cancer and returned to Germany.

In 1994 she gave an interview in Germany and her autobiography was published in the same year. In 1995 in a TV interview she said she had planned the murder to ensure Grabowski received proper justice and to stop his lies about Anna and her supposed blackmail.

She died in 1996 of pancreatic cancer in a hospital in Lübeck.

A former friend, in 2006, in a documentary about her life, stated that Marianne had practiced shooting the Beretta in the basement of the pub where she worked. Marianne never regretted her act of revenge, which personally, I qualify as a modicum of justice.

Proper justice should have been much slower for Grabowski.

I do not know what religion, if any, Marianne had, and given her life, it is probable she may have not had any. Regardless, it seems quite obvious to me, that had she had a chance at a life in a normal family that loved her, she would have had a much different life. In any event, even with her very difficult life, she acted as any good mother would.

As it is Lent, I will pray a full rosary for her soul, and hope that merciful God Almighty saw fit to allow her only a small penance, if any was required, before allowing her into heaven and reunion with Anna.

I salute this woman and her actions, which I deem, no human being has the right to judge, but only God.

May she be in peace with Anna in the Divine presence.