Germany does not have a nationwide sex offender registry. However, some states have now developed a similar system known as “HEADS,” which helps track down the whereabouts of released sex convicts during their time on supervision in the community.
The system has been in place in several states, including Bayern, Sachsen, Brandenburg, and North Rhine-Westphalia. Information contained in the system includes fingerprints, DNA, conviction history, and risk assessment.
The current German law governing sexual offenses still has many loopholes and is nowhere near as comprehensive as in other developed countries.
Authorities say the judicial system only gives 1,000 guilty verdicts out of 160,000 rape cases every year in Germany.
The lack of a nationwide registry puts children at higher risk of being the next victims due to the lack of information on parents’ part.
In May 1980, the 7-year-old Anna Bachmeier skipped school and ended up in the hands of Klaus Grabowski, a convicted sex offender.
Hours later, the girl was killed, and her body was dumped in a canal. Anna’s mother, Marianne Bachmeier, shot the defendant dead in the courtroom during trial for his crime.
10 /10 Act Of Revenge
The murder in the courtroom divided the public’s opinion on whether or not Marianne Bachmeier should be penalized for delivering justice to the killer of her daughter.
This act of revenge probably is one of the most spectacular cases of vigilante justice in the history of post-war Germany.
Several years after the incident, the public was unsure if the killing had been a justifiable homicide given Marianne’s circumstances or that she had broken the law herself by taking justice into her own hands and therefore appropriately imprisoned.
9 /10 Mother Of Three
Marianne had three children. Not long before Marianne gave birth to her second daughter, she was raped. She eventually gave both daughters up for adoption. Anna was her third daughter, born in 1973.
Unlike with the first two, the then 23-year-old mother decided to keep the child. Marianne made a living and raised her daughter using the money she earned from running an inn and a restaurant in Lubeck.
On May 5, 1980, following an argument with her mother, little Anna skipped school for no reason and visited a man she thought she knew well, Klaus Grabowski.