Vera broth

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Vera Brühne (nee Kohl , after 1979 she called herself Maria Adam ; * February 6, 1910 in Essen ; † April 17, 2001 in Munich ) achieved great media fame in 1961/1962 when she was accused together with Johann Ferbach , the Munich doctor To have murdered Otto Praun and his lover Elfriede Kloo .

Life

Vera Brühne grew up in a middle-class family in Essen-Kray . Her father, Ludwig Kohlen (1870–1951), was mayor of the mayor of Kray-Leithe, which was independent until 1929, when she was born . In his first marriage, Brühne was married to the actor Hans Cossy , the father of their daughter Sylvia (1941–1990). She later married the famous film composer Lothar Brühne . This marriage also ended in divorce.

Praun murder case

Sequence of events

Otto Praun and his housekeeper Elfriede Kloo were found shot dead on April 19, 1960, the Tuesday after Easter, in Praun's villa in Pöcking on Lake Starnberg . Maundy Thursday, April 14, 1960, was determined to be the time of death. Initially, the investigators assumed an extended suicide Prauns. Only after Vera Brühne had been found to be the heir to Praun's finca in Spain, the bodies were exhumed and autopsied at the instigation of Praun's son Günther. Vera Brühne and her friend Johann Ferbach were arrested in October 1961 . Both were charged with murder .

Günther Praun, the son of the murdered Otto Praun, brought various decisive pieces of evidence into the proceedings (especially the victim's wristwatch and a letter allegedly found at the crime scene) that had not been secured by the police and could have been falsified by Praun. The contradicting statements of Vera Brühne's daughter, Sylvia Cossy, who originally incriminated her mother and then revoked her statement in court, also played an important role in the process.

Trial and sentencing to life imprisonment

Even before the start of the trial before the Munich II Regional Court , Brühne was portrayed as guilty in Stern , in the Münchner Abendzeitung and in other media. The legal proceedings were reported in the tabloids for weeks, the attractive broth was portrayed as a “greedy bitch” and - at the time - scandalous erotic debauchery was speculated. Vera Brühne had become massively involved in contradictions and also tried to bribe witnesses. On June 4, 1962, she and co-defendant Johann Ferbach were sentenced to life imprisonment for joint double murder . The appeal for a revision was rejected by the Federal Court of Justice on December 4, 1962 , making the judgment final . After eighteen years in prison, she was pardoned in December 1979 by the then Bavarian Prime Minister Franz Josef Strauss ( CSU ) and released from the Aichach correctional facility .

Suspicion of miscarriage of justice due to inconsistencies

Brühne denied the act of which she was charged all her life. In 2001, the weekly newspaper Die Zeit came to “... the conclusion that is now the legal consensus : Vera Brühne - whether a murderer or not - should never have been convicted on the basis of such one-sided and unclean investigations.” It was all the more surprising that many felt that none Retrial has been approved. The lawyer magazine wrote in its No. 17/2000: "(...) according to the latest findings of forensic medicine it is certain that the death of the victims could not have occurred at the time the court assumed." This date of the crime was an important part the reasons for the judgment.

According to research by the WDR , from today's perspective there are further inconsistencies in the judgment. A few unexplained deaths, including actual or possible murders, have been proven among witnesses and accomplices. Reapplications for a new trial have been rejected for years. There is evidence that Praun had links to the illegal arms trade . In particular, it has been linked to a major corruption affair, the scandal surrounding the procurement of the HS-30 armored personnel carrier. One of the main characters in this affair was Werner Repenning , Strauss's personal advisor. A connection between Praun's murder and these connections has often been suggested.

Life after release from custody

After her release from prison in 1979, Vera Brühne lived under the name Maria Adam in her old condominium in Munich. In 2001 she died in the Klinikum rechts der Isar in Munich. Vera Brühne was buried in the grave of her first husband in the Solln forest cemetery.

Günther Praun, the son of the murdered Otto Praun, lives to this day in the villa in Pöcking on Lake Starnberg . The villa in Spain, which according to the will of the murdered Vera Brühne should have flowed to, passed to him after the final conviction, which became unworthy of inheritance .

Radio play and tape recordings of the interrogations

In 2017, the author and director Michael Farin produced the three-part radio play No. 989, Aichach - Vera Brühne recordings for Bayerischer Rundfunk . It is based on the files of the trial and tape recordings of the interrogations in the Brühne case. In addition, 21 tape recordings of the interrogations of Vera Brühne, Johann Ferbach and Sylvia Cossy (Cosiolkofsky) by the public prosecutor and investigating judge were made available in the BR's radio play pool for a total of 9 hours.

literature

Non-fiction books :

  • Petra Cichos: Murder files Vera Brühne. Book documentation of the investigation files, Cichos Press, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-9818678-1-7 .
  • Michael Preute , Gabriele Preute, Klaus Brenning: Germany's criminal case No. 1 Vera Brühne. A miscarriage of justice? Goldmann, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-442-03891-X .
  • Max Pierre Schaeffer: The Vera Brühne case. The truth. Blanvalet, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-7645-0039-5 .
  • Hans-Dieter Otto: The lexicon of legal errors , Ullstein-Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-548-36453-5 , page 142-147.
  • Ulrich Sonnemann , political writer and philosopher, published the polemic Der Westdeutsche Dreyfus-Scandal, which is critical of justice . Breach of law and renunciation of thought in the ten-year-old legal case Brühne-Ferbach. Comment from Sieghart Ott. Rogner & Bernhard, Munich 1970, ISBN 978-3-920802-38-1 . The book was banned and confiscated nationwide two weeks after publication on the initiative of Franz Josef Strauss . Years of legal disputes with the Bavarian justice administration followed. In 1985 there was a new research
The past that did not end: power frenzy, business, etc. Constitutional breach in the Brühne / Ferbach judicial scandal. Editor Christoph Nix , ed. Ulrich Sonnemann, Focus Verlag, Giessen 1985, ISBN 978-3-88349-324-4 . The book was banned after a short time. The patron Jan Philipp Reemtsma paid a fine of 25,000 DM .
  • Christoph Nix: Brühne, Vera and Johann Ferbach . In: Groenewold / Ignor / Koch (ed.): Lexicon of Political Criminal Trials. April 2017. Online text [1]

Novels and Movies :

  • Peter Anders: The Vera Brühne case - factual novel. Decent-Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-9806204-1-7 .
  • Peter Anders: “I am innocent, please!” The Vera Brühne case. Factual novel. Decent, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-9806204-5-1 . (edition extended by 30 documents)
  • In 1972, the television of the GDR broadcast the two-part film Der Fall Brühne-Ferbach (director: Michael Wendang, scenario: Günter Prodöhl) in its series Criminal Cases Without Example . a. with Gisela May as Vera Brühne, Harry Hindemith as Dr. Otto Praun, Hans Teuscher as public prosecutor Rüth and Herbert Köfer as government inspector Homann.
  • The Vera Brühne case was viewed as a documentary by Michael Gramberg under the title Life Prison for Vera Brühne as the first episode of the series The Great Criminal Cases in 2000 .
  • Her story was filmed again shortly before her death in 2001 in a film named after her with Corinna Harfouch in the title role, whereby the question of guilt was left open.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b The great criminal cases: Life sentence for Vera Brühne . TV documentary, Germany 2000.
  2. ^ Karl Stankiewitz: Beautiful and enigmatic: The verdict against Vera Brühne. In: Münchner Abendzeitung. June 4, 2012, accessed January 12, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Vera Brühne: "She didn't want grace, but law" , article from February 6, 2010 by Bettina Stuhlweissenburg on Merkur .de
  4. ↑ The true liar . Die Zeit, No. 22, 2001
  5. ^ BR radio play Pool - Farin, criminal case Vera Bruhne. Radio play in 3 parts and 9 hours of original sound
personal data
SURNAME Broth, Vera
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Adam, Mary
BRIEF DESCRIPTION alleged double murderer
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH eat
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 2001
Place of death Munich