Johann Ferbach

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Johann Ferbach (born August 9, 1913 in Cologne ; † June 21, 1970 in Straubing ) became famous throughout Germany when he and Vera Brühne were indicted on April 25, 1962, the Munich doctor Otto Praun and his housekeeper Elfriede Kloo on April 14. To have murdered April 1960 in Pöcking on Lake Starnberg .

Life

Ferbach grew up in Cologne and learned the trade of gunsmith in Hermann Kolb's machine tool factory. On January 1, 1939, he was drafted into the Wehrmacht . In 1943 he deserted from the Eastern Front and then worked as a construction worker in Cologne under the name Hans Spieß. For the family of the actor Hans Cossy , Ferbach led the construction of a makeshift protection system on a piece of land rented by Cossy. In autumn 1944 the rented house was destroyed by bombs and the makeshift protection system was buried. Ferbach enforced that an access to the makeshift protection system was exposed, which u. a. Cossy's wife Vera (1961/62 under her second married name Vera Brühne became known nationwide) and their daughter Sylvia (1941–1990) were saved. The Cossy family moved to Munich after the war, while Ferbach found a job as an assembly fitter in Cologne. Ferbach was employed subject to compulsory insurance in 1960 and was widowed. On Wednesday, April 13, 1960, he was on sick leave and received a check from the responsible health insurance company. Otto Praun had bought a VW Beetle for the chauffeuse Vera Brühne , which had been organized by Ferbach.

On October 3, 1961 Vera Brühne came in because of an arrest warrant from the September 26, 1961 pre-trial detention . On October 12, 1961, Ferbach was arrested in Cologne and was remanded in custody in Klingelpütz and later in the Munich-Neudeck prison. On November 28, 1961, the police spy and later witness Siegfried Schramm also came to Neudeck. In an interim report, the court had found that Ferbach was not ruled out as a possible perpetrator, but rather was brought into an informal connection with the offense and had made himself suspicious by various contradicting statements.

On April 25, 1962, a main jury trial began at the Munich II district court against Brühne and Ferbach. They were accused of murdering the doctor Otto Praun and his housekeeper Elfriede Kloo on April 14, 1960 in Praun's villa in Pöcking . On June 4, 1962, after 22 days of trial and 113 testimony, the verdict, pronounced by six jurors and three professional judges, was announced: life imprisonment for joint double murder. Johann Ferbach died of heart failure on June 21, 1970 in the Straubing correctional facility .

In 1978, eight years after Ferbach's death, Der Spiegel took the view that Johann Ferbach would  not have been convicted - like Walter Huppenkothen - had his legal advisor Alfred Seidl not handed over the mandate to his lawyer colleague Heinz Pelka and trainee lawyer Martin Amelung . Allegedly he did this "mainly for financial reasons".

Retrial

A request for a revision was rejected by the Federal Court of Justice on December 4, 1962 , and the verdict became final. Two applications were made to reopen the proceedings in favor of Vera Brühne, and three in favor of Johann Ferbach.

“There is no evidence to support the jury's account of the double homicide. The crime reconstruction of the court is a pure invention. There is no evidence against an invention. There is nothing I can do legally against it. I would like to emphasize that it can happen to every citizen of this state to get into the same situation as Ms. Brühne or Johann Ferbach. "

- Wilhelm Haddenhorst
  • Before October 1963, Revue and Neue Illustrierte reported on witnesses to an application for reopening by Heinz Pelka. A Josef Matzerath explained in the magazine why he had not reported as a witness in the murder trial. In mid-1962 he applied for parole because of a prison sentence . “It wasn't approved yet. I feared that they would refuse if I spoiled the tour for the public prosecutor in Munich. ”Matzerath reported in 1962 that on the night of Maundy Thursday to Good Friday in 1960 he met Ferbach in the Cologne nightspot“ Sevilla ”and talked to him about women. A statement he did not want to repeat under oath. The application for resumption was rejected by Judge Konrad Sattler in 1964. In the 1950s, Sattler gave seminars on constitutional law at the Federal Intelligence Service in Pullach for weeks.
  • A new witness, Hans Joachim Seidenschnur, said Otto Praun is said to have traveled to Algeria and was mistaken for an arms dealer.
  • Witness Roger Hentges stated in the fall of 1967 that Otto Praun had called him in Frankfurt on Maundy Thursday , April 14, 1960 and asked for money. Which Werner Repenning and a Lieutenant Colonel Schröder took care of immediately . The corresponding application for a retrial was made by Dr. Maximilian Girth (formerly government and criminal councilor).
  • The murder weapon in the double murder of Elfriede Kloo / Otto Praun was a model baby pistol . On April 20, 1960, one day after the two corpses were found, the investigating chief detective, Karl Rodatus, shot Praun's half-starved Spaniel Pitty with the murder weapon, thus destroying possible traces on the weapon. Praun had two pistols of this model. Renate Meyer (born July 15, 1918 Koenigsberg ; † February 1, 1969 Munich ) worked as an assistant to Otto Praun until his death. According to Orttner, Ms. Meyer admitted to the Würzburg journalist Hans-Dieter Orttner (alias Peter Anders) a week before her death that a pistol that was used in Dr. Praun was no longer found traded to be an FN model baby . A representation that Ms. Meyer, one of the most informative witnesses for the judgment, made appear as an accomplice. Reinhard Gehlen , President of the BND , allegedly had Franz Josef Strauss investigated because of a possible involvement in the alleged arms deal Prauns. The requests for readmission were based on this.

References and comments

  1. ↑ Peter Anders: Deadly Intrigues The case of Vera Brühne . Jasmin Eichner, Offenburg 1995, page 43
  2. ↑ a b c The many pillars of the judge Seibert . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1970 ( online ).
  3. ^ Siegfried Schramm, general agent for the American flying car "Flymobil U 18". The Flugmobil . In: Die Zeit , No. 21/1962
  4. ^ Siegfried Schramm (* 1926, 1978 haulage contractor, journalist, councilor of Huglfing ) Our Bavarian soul is tortured by this . In: Die Zeit , No. 10/1988
  5. ↑ The Vera Brühne case . In: Die Zeit , No. 14/1964
  6. ↑ The wild . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1978 ( online ).
  7. ↑ Uwe Schultz: '' Great Processes: Law and Justice in History '', CH Beck , Paris 2001, ISBN 978-3406477119 , p. 381.
  8. ↑ Active again . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 1964 ( online ).
  9. ↑ The secret of Pöcking . In: Der Spiegel . No. 20 , 2001 ( online ).
  10. ↑ A man by the name of Seidenschnur . In: Die Zeit , No. 40/1965
  11. ↑ Peter Anders: Deadly Intrigues The case of Vera Brühne . Jasmin Eichner, Offenburg 1995, page 156
  12. ↑ What Gehlen was hiding . In: Die Zeit , No. 42/1971
personal data
SURNAME Ferbach, Johann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES pike
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German contract killer
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Cologne
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1970
Place of death Straubing