The whole world was shocked by this horrible and awful conduct that blurred the line between revenge and justice. The third day of Klaus Grabowski’s trial for killing 7-year-old Anna Bachmeier was an entirely different kind of trial in the courtroom. Marianne Bachmeier, Anna’s mother, went to court to face charges for a crime that had outraged Germany. She pulled a small revolver out of her purse, aimed it at the man who had taken her kid, and pulled the trigger. There were eight shots. Seven reached their objective. Grabowski died on the floor of the court.
People in the room that day were surprised right away, but Marianne didn’t mean to do it. This event was the end of years of sorrow, unfairness, and suffering that were hard to understand. Long before that terrible day in 1981, her life had been bad. She had a hard childhood and had been hurt. Later, being a single mother was hard for her. Even though it was hard, she tried to give her daughter Anna the stability and safety that she had never had herself. But that little feeling of safety went away for good in March 1980.
Klaus Grabowski was a convicted pedophile who had abused kids in the past. He had been to jail several times and had chemical castration, but hormone therapy eventually reversed the effects. The police knew what he was doing, yet for some reason, he was still free. He pulled Anna off the streets of Lübeck, beat her up, and killed her on that terrible day. He killed Anna by strangling her with a pair of his fiancée’s tights. Then he put her body in a box and left it near a canal. The whole country was shocked by the brutal and useless deed.
Marianne went to court expecting for justice, but what she witnessed there made her pain worse. Grabowski not only denied guilt, but he also said that Anna was trying to control him by saying that the girl had threatened to call the police if he didn’t pay her money. This awful lie not only affected Anna’s memories, but it also made an already bad situation worse. At that point, Marianne could tell that the man on trial wasn’t sorry for what he had done. He was blaming the victim, who was her daughter, to avoid taking responsibility.
On the third day of her testimony, she strolled into the courtroom with a small Beretta gun that she had somehow slipped past security. As Grabowski was getting ready to speak again, Marianne pulled out her revolver, stepped up, and shot it. After that, there was chaos in the courtroom. People watching, judges, and lawyers all raced for cover. At the end, though, Klaus Grabowski was found dead.
They took Marianne into custody soon away and charged her with murder. There was a lot of discussion about her trial in Germany and around the world. Some people thought of her as a grieving mother who had done what the law couldn’t: stop Grabowski from hurting another child. Some individuals thought her actions were hazardous and constituted a form of vigilante justice, which shouldn’t happen in a civilized society. The court awarded her six years in prison for killing someone and holding a pistol without authority. She just had to do three before they let her leave.
The years after were hard for Marianne. Even though a lot of people looked up to her as a folk hero, she never got over the agony of what she accomplished and the loss of her daughter. She left later, tried to start afresh, and stayed out of the public eye. She died in 1996 at the age of 46, and her ashes were buried next to Anna’s. After a life full of pain and tragedy, they were finally together in death.
It’s not simply about a shooting in a courtroom that happened to Marianne Bachmeier. It’s about a mother who was so upset and enraged that she lost faith in the system. People in society think about topics that make them uncomfortable because of her actions: What happens when the system we rely on fails? Is there ever a good reason to get back at someone for anything they did to hurt you? And what would we all do if it were our kid?
People still disagree about whether Marianne was a criminal, a victim, or a symbol of justice that was denied years later. But one thing is for sure: people will always remember her story.