After almost 60 years of marriage Henry E. attacks according to the indictment, on a Monday morning to the castle and hammer strikes. Several times, the hammer head hits the skull of E. s wife Anneliese. Then Heinrich E. takes the kitchen knife, the blade is twelve inches long, to stab six Times, pierced a lung and his wife, and hits her heart. Anneliese E., 88 years old, bled to death in the kitchen of the common house in Rösrath, a suburb of Cologne.

the Prosecutor described the allegations against Henry E., who was elected to the emergency. There had been no Alternative, he should have said a few weeks later in the custody of his daughter.

In a wheelchair is pushed Heinrich, E. in hall two of the Cologne district court. The balding hair schlohweiß, the body emaciated, and of leukemia is drawn closed, the thin legs tightly. The 89-year-old former secondary school teacher, once a teacher of Latin, Greek and chemistry, wears a black suit and a white shirt.

A marriage without love, a community of purpose

The chamber to clarify the question of why Henry E. is set to be killed after so many years of marriage, his wife. The prosecution accuses him, his wife, on 4. To have June from ulterior motives, murdered. Henry E. is said to have been driven by a furious jealousy. He thought, his Anneliese, with whom he had three daughters, want to spend their evening of Life with another man. E. silent to the allegations. To the circumstances of the offence, he had no memory, says his lawyer.

After the reading of the charges Marsbahis will be heard the daughter as a witness. For her statement, Susanne E. directly sets in addition to your hard-of-hearing father. Then she gives a deep insight into a marriage that had largely been without love, and only works as a purpose community. “The bottom line is: it’s tragic.”

Susanne E., which occurs as a secondary applicant in the process, describes her father as a empathielos, as a man, the woman and children are often humiliated and devalued. “In this family you had to work,” she says. At the same time he was formed, was busy with poems and aphorisms, intensive family tree researched and a lot of time in nature spent. As a teacher he was popular. Time and again former students had come to his home to ask for advice.

“That was the worst Moment of my life”

Heinrich E. s was the biggest Problem, the jealousy, tells Susanne E., the eldest daughter. Again and again he had beaten his wife and pushed. Everywhere he had suspected double-Crosser. But the affair had never existed, the father had no cause for jealousy. He is the everything.

once the Situation was escalated threat. This was in one of Cologne’s library in September 1977. You know so exactly, because you’ve already had as a child diary, said the daughter. The father was freaked out, and got beat on his wife, to the daughter protected and the blows suffered. “That was the worst Moment of my life,” recalls the 56-Year-old. Even then, the police had been turned on.

“Why do the parents not get a divorce?”, judge Sabine Kretzschmar asks. A separation had always been subject, replies the daughter. Yet to implement I want the none. The mother, formerly a distinguished teacher in the place, I am afraid your View. Once you have said, an escape is not a solution. “No matter where I’m going with you. He will find us and kill me,” recalls Susanne, E. the words of the mother.

but in The end, just before the fact, after a multi-week cruise through the Mediterranean, they’ve taken on the Insistence of one of her daughters decided to leave her husband now. Her sister had secretly reserved a place in a senior residence, tells Susanne E. A day before the violent death of the mother, it should have a phone call. “Maybe he has noticed there’s something to this.”

Heinrich E. a life imprisonment threatens. The process is on 6. December continued.