Siegfried Buback

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Siegfried Buback, 1976

Siegfried Buback (born January 3, 1920 in Wilsdruff ; † April 7, 1977 in Karlsruhe ) was a German lawyer . From May 31, 1974 until his death, he served as Attorney General at the Federal Court of Justice . His assassination by members of the Red Army Fraction (RAF) is commonly seen as the start of the terror year 1977, which culminated in the German autumn .

Life

The son of a civil servant studied law at the University of Leipzig and passed the first state examination in 1941. On April 11, 1940, Buback applied for membership in the NSDAP , which was confirmed on July 1, 1940 (membership number 8179469). In 1941 he was drafted into the Wehrmacht .

Buback returned from captivity in 1947 and passed the second state law examination in 1950. After his return from captivity, he did not belong to any political party. His career began in 1950 when he was employed as an assessor in Lower Saxony . In 1953 he became public prosecutor there , in 1959 first public prosecutor. After moving to the federal prosecutor's office , he was appointed senior public prosecutor there in 1963 and federal prosecutor in 1971. At the federal prosecutor's office, he mainly worked for the treason department , where he was responsible for the manhunt for leading first-generation RAF terrorists even before his term as federal prosecutor .

Buback first achieved nationwide fame in 1962 when he led the investigation into the Spiegel affair against Spiegel and its publisher Rudolf Augstein for treason. In 1970 he was able to solve the theft of a Sidewinder missile from the NATO airfield in Zell near Neuburg an der Donau, carried out in 1967 by a trio around Manfred Ramminger .

In 1969 Buback captured the soldier murderers of Lebach in a sensational case after months of searching that initially seemed hopeless and was the leading investigator in the Guillaume affair that led to the resignation of Chancellor Willy Brandt in 1974 .

On May 31, 1974, Buback was appointed as the successor to Federal Prosecutor Ludwig Martin and in this function was entrusted with the investigation and prosecution of the deeds of the Red Army faction , of which he himself became a victim. His successor in the office of Attorney General was Kurt Rebmann .

assassination

Memorial stone at the crime scene

On April 7, 1977, Siegfried Buback was sitting in the passenger seat of his Mercedes-Benz 230.6 company car , while his driver Wolfgang Göbel (30 years old) was in the driver's seat. Georg Wurster (43 years old), at that time head of the driver's service at the federal prosecutor's office, had taken a seat in the back seat. They were on their way from Buback's apartment in Neureut to the Federal Court of Justice. The Mercedes was waiting at the intersection of Linkenheimer Landstrasse (today's Willy-Brandt-Allee) and Moltkestrasse ( ⊙ ) at a red light.

A Suzuki GS 750 motorcycle with two people wearing olive green full- face helmets stopped to their right . Without getting down from the seat, one of the people fired fifteen rounds at the Mercedes from a semi-automatic HK43 rifle . All three men in the car were hit. After the wounded driver left the vehicle, the vehicle equipped with a manual transmission drove a few meters further. Due to a slight slope at the intersection, the car overcame the curb on the right edge of the road at the junction and rolled on until it came to a standstill at a post there.

Buback and Göbel died at the scene, Wurster succumbed to his injuries on April 13. The "Ulrike Meinhof Commando" of the Red Army Fraction actually committed itself to the act , previously it had been called "Aktion Margarine" in the jargon of the RAF, based on a product whose name matched Siegfried Buback's initials.

Reactions to the Assassination

The then Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt said in his speech at the funeral service for Siegfried Buback:

“He was a tough fighter for the law, for the basic democratic order, for the security of the Federal Republic of Germany. The shots here in Karlsruhe were not only aimed at the Federal Public Prosecutor, who did not let the melted terrorist troops come to rest, but they should apply to the rule of law at all. "

In an announcement by the left-wing extremist terror group Revolutionary Cells in the magazine Revolutionärer Zorn from May 1977, approval of the murder was expressed:

“It hit Buback at just the right moment. This has shaken the myth of the inviolability of the police state . [...] That is why we think the execution of the highest state security guard is right at this point in time - especially for the comrades fighting in the prisons. We look forward to this successful campaign together with many legal and illegal comrades! "

On the occasion of the assassination attempt in 1977 an anonymous author under the pseudonym Göttinger Mescalero wrote an article for the Göttingen AStA newspaper in which he first described his spontaneous reaction to the death of Buback as "secret joy", but politically rejected such murders. The text has been the subject of several criminal proceedings and heated public debates.

Perpetrator

The motorcycle used for the deed, later rebuilt in an art exhibition in 2013

Christian Klar , Knut Folkerts and Brigitte Mohnhaupt were convicted as perpetrators until 2016, but their perpetrators are being questioned by new publications. Who actually sat on the motorcycle and who fired the fatal shots is still unknown today. In 2010, largely prompted by the research and publications of his son Michael Buback (see below), another criminal case against Verena Becker began .

On April 17, 2007, Michael Buback had already published an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in which he wrote that an informant had contacted him. He had credibly assured him that neither Christian Klar nor Knut Folkerts and Günter Sonnenberg were the shooters. According to other RAF members, Folkerts was not at the scene at all at the time in question, and according to the informant, Sonnenberg was driving the motorcycle. Knut Folkerts is said to have driven the getaway car to the Netherlands and, although he was not at the scene, could be guilty of collective murder. Der Spiegel reported in its online edition on April 21, 2007 that Buback had been murdered by Stefan Wisniewski . Verena Becker reported this back in the 1980s . Since murder does not expire under German criminal law ( Section 78 (2 ) StGB ), an investigation ( Section 160 StPO ) into suspicion of murder was initiated on April 25, 2007, 30 years after the crime against Wisniewski .

Book The Second Death of My Father

Buback's son Michael published the book The Second Death of My Father in 2008 about the results of his investigation into the murder of his father. Among other things, he writes about his suspicion that German secret services were involved in the murder of his father or at least could have been informed about it beforehand - and that the Federal Prosecutor's Office, in conjunction with secret services, covered the real murderer, with a lot on Verena Becker, formerly RAF -Member, hint. The RAF researcher Wolfgang Kraushaar then made his own research, according to which the suspicion remains a well-founded assumption.

Trial against Verena Becker

On August 27, 2009, as in 2007 against Wisniewski, an investigation ( § 160 StPO) was initiated against Verena Becker on suspicion of murder. From September 30, 2010 Verena Becker had to answer for the assistance in the murder of Siegfried Buback and his companions before the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart. Michael Buback's book is considered one of the impetuses for the trial against Verena Becker.

In February 2009, the Federal Criminal Police Office had several envelopes containing letters confessing to the Buback murder, with which the RAF confessed to the attack on April 13, 1977, had DNA analyzed. Verena Becker's saliva traces were found on three envelopes. In 2010, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution presented documents that exonerated them from complicity. The documents of November 16, 1981 state that "Becker and Mohnhaupt [...] flew to Baghdad in April 1977". Unfortunately, the original documents are no longer available, the corresponding tapes have been deleted, the original copies and large parts of the files have disappeared and the author of the documents that have only just emerged has died. This representation was later supported by Verena Becker herself; she stated in May 2012 that she was neither directly involved in the attack, nor in its planning, and that she was in the Middle East at the time in question.

The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court sentenced Becker on July 6, 2012 to four years imprisonment for aiding and abetting murder in three cases. Two years of that counted toward a previous prison sentence. On February 12, 2014, the OLG Stuttgart suspended the remaining sentence on probation.

The RAF researcher Kraushaar had observed the trial and commented that, in his opinion and that of other trial observers, "the state is defending the accused". It is a " perversion of the rule of law when the representative of the prosecution secretly represents the interests of the accused, in this case an ex-terrorist". In June 2011 he titled a newspaper article about the trial A Farce in Stammheim . Michael Buback appeared as a joint plaintiff in the process . Among the witnesses was the former terrorist Bommi Baumann .

Investigations 2014

In November 2014, the Federal Prosecutor's Office re-investigated the case of Siegfried Buback's murder, the focus of which is said to be on several men and women who had previously been convicted of other crimes.

The son (Michael Buback) and the brother of the victim applied for 2015 Ermittlungserzwingungsverfahren against the former RAF member Siegfried Haag and another person whose name against Siegfried Haag on a reading copy was changed the handwritten original. The application was rejected as inadmissible by the 6th Criminal Senate of the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court because of incomplete citations; Apart from that, " criminal charges " had already occurred.

Quote

In an interview with Stern magazine in 1975, Siegfried Buback said:

Question: “According to the human rights convention , which has the force of law in our country, every defendant can nominate a defense lawyer of his choice. In the case of Andreas Baader, is this right still guaranteed after his three defense lawyers, Croissant , Groenewold and Ströbele , have been excluded and Baader was unable to name a new defense lawyer who could have familiarized himself with the extensive process? "

Answer: “The question is: Does the principle of fair trial that you mentioned also apply when a defense counsel abuses his prerogatives and when the client knew about it or even instigated it to do so? I am of the opinion: No. "

This statement is sometimes interpreted to mean that Buback denied the terrorist suspects the right to a fair trial.

literature

  • Johannes Agnoli : Buback, an obituary. A documentation. Self-published, Berlin 1977.
  • Publications on the consequences of the "Buback obituary" and terrorism discussion in the press. Press office d. Univ., Bremen 1977. (Editorial deadline October 7, 1977)
  • Peter Brückner : The Mescalero Affair. A lesson for enlightenment and political culture. Anares, Bremen 2002, ISBN 3-935716-64-8 .
  • Michael Buback : The second death of my father. Extended edition with new facts. Knaur-Taschenbuch-Verl., Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-426-78234-7 .
  • Reinhard Scholzen : Still a lot of questions. The murder of the Federal Public Prosecutor Siegfried Buback and his companions on April 7, 1977. In: CD Sicherheitsmanagement Vol. 33, No. 5, October / November 2009, ISSN  0947-871X , pp. 17-30.
  • Wolfgang Kraushaar: Verena Becker and the protection of the constitution. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-86854-227-1 .
  • Michael Buback , Elisabeth Buback: "The general must go!", Osburg-Verlag, Hamburg 2020, ISBN 978-3-95510-211-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Der Spiegel No. 43/2002 of October 21, 2002, p. 62 ff.
  2. ↑ SWR Terrorism Blog from March 15, 2011
  3. ↑ Focus Online: Attorney General Buback, murdered by the RAF, was a member of the NSDAP , March 15, 2011.
  4. ↑ No avenging angel in red robe , Die Zeit , May 31, 1974.
  5. ↑ State Office for the Protection of the Constitution BW, "Red Army Fraction" (RAF)
  6. ↑ The history of the RAF ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Part 4/6, ZDFinfo from August 2, 2015, ( alternatively on Youtube ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.zdf.de
  7. ↑ a b Spiegel Online: Ex-terrorists exonerate Klar and Folkerts as Buback murderers
  8. ↑ Press release Associated Press, December 12, 2008 (no longer online)
  9. ↑ a b c The unwilling criminalist. taz, September 29, 2010
  10. ↑ Clemens and Katja Riha: The trial against Verena-Becker has started , 3sat Kulturzeit, October 7, 2010
  11. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung - Buback: Grace for clear
  12. ^ Spiegel: Wisniewski is said to be a Buback murderer
  13. ↑ Pieke Biermann: An uncomfortable suspicion. Review of: Wolfgang Kraushaar: Verena Becker and the protection of the constitution. Deutschlandradio Kultur, October 18, 2010
  14. ↑ Blog on SWR.de about the trial in Stammheim
  15. ↑ Hans Leyendecker, The DNA of Terror
  16. ^ Spiegel Online, New suspicion against ex-terrorist Verena Becker
  17. ^ Spiegel Online, Ratte und Geier
  18. ↑ Verena Becker denies involvement in the Buback murder , Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 14, 2012
  19. ↑ Ex-RAF terrorist Becker convicted of aiding and abetting Buback's murder , on: spiegel-online.de (as of July 6, 2012)
  20. ↑ Detention for ex-terrorist Becker for aiding and abetting ( memento from July 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: tagesschau.de , July 6, 2012 (accessed on July 6, 2012).
  21. ↑ spiegel.de July 6, 2012: Black Hole in History
  22. ↑ Wolfgang Kraushaar: A farce in Stammheim , in: the daily newspaper of June 8, 2011, p. 15
  23. ↑ In search of the truth , sueddeutsche online November 6, 2014, accessed on January 15, 2015
  24. ↑ Press release on the Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart, decision of July 6, 2015, Az. 6 Ws 2/15
  25. ↑ RP-Online, Buback-Sohn files new proceedings against RAF members
  26. ↑ Marcus Klöckner: Assassination of Siegfried Buback: Michael Buback: The wrong copy shakes trust in the files. In: Focus Online . March 29, 2015, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  27. ↑ Holger Schmidt: Application already inadmissible: No lawsuit enforcement in the Buback murder case SWR of July 14, 2015 cf. (File number 6 Ws 002-15)
  28. ^ Edition of June 5, 1975
  29. ^ So Heinrich Hannover in his book The Republic in front of court
personal data
SURNAME Buback, Siegfried
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer; Attorney General at the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilsdruff , Meißen District Administration , Free State of Saxony
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 1977
Place of death Karlsruhe