Customs killings in Achleiten
The Achleiten customs killers took place on May 26, 1978 in the Austrian state of Upper Austria . Two felons prematurely released from prison murdered two Austrian customs officers at the Achleiten - Passau border crossing after they had shot a family man in the Netherlands . In a later arrest attempt, a perpetrator was killed and a gendarmerie officer was seriously injured. The second offender gave up and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
prehistory
Johann Oskar Majer, born in 1951, and Helmut Tumeltshammer, born in 1945, had a total of 17 convictions, including for burglaries and robberies, which is why they each served ten-year prison sentences from 1969 onwards in the Stein prison. After nine tenths of their sentences, the two were released early on January 11 and March 1, 1978, respectively. With the cash and valuables stolen from Tumeltshammer's parents, they then traveled through Germany, Switzerland and France to enrich themselves with criminal offenses.
On May 22, 1978, they borrowed cash from the Austrian embassy in Paris and drove to the Netherlands in Tumeltshammer's Mercedes , where they stopped on a motorway near Arnhem on May 23 . They met the Dutch father Eike Jonker in a parking lot. To get to his vehicle, they drove Jonker into an adjacent forest, forced him to strip down to his socks and killed him with bullets in the head and neck.
After changing license plates, the two perpetrators drove the dead man's Renault to the German-Austrian border crossing in Passau-Achleiten on May 26, 1978.
Customs killings and exchanges of fire
Because they believed that the murder had already been discovered and that they were being searched for, the perpetrators lost their nerve when they were checked by German border police and drove through the Austrian customs office in Achleiten without stopping. The two Austrian customs officers Johannes Haas and Josef Kaspar then took up the chase in Haas' private BMW . They finally managed to stop the fugitives on Nibelungen Strasse , near Krempelstein Castle , on the meadow at the entrance to a forest path.
However, the perpetrators there succeeded in stealing the service weapons from the customs officers at gunpoint. Then Haas and Kaspar had to lie down on the floor, where they were murdered by the two perpetrators who were shot in the neck. The crime was observed by a passing German tourist who then notified the gendarmerie. Majer and Tumeltshammer first drove on in the customs officers' BMW, but then abandoned the vehicle for fear of being followed and fled on foot.
In the meantime, one of the largest manhunters in Upper Austria's history had been triggered, during which the media also interrupted their current program. Since there were no descriptions of the perpetrators, the search measures concentrated on the escape vehicles. A resident in Hilkering finally noticed two suspected men who he reported to the gendarmerie in Aschach . These were the wanted ones.
When the gendarmerie officers Siegfried Hagn and Karl Lindenbauer arrived, Johann Majer immediately opened fire and seriously injured officer Lindenbauer with a shot through the hip, but was then shot and fatally injured by officer Hagn. Helmut Tumeltshammer, who had taken cover, was then jointly shot at by the two officers, whereupon he surrendered without resistance.
Tumeltshammer confessed to the three murders during the subsequent interrogation and was described in a psychiatric report as being cold and unstable. On December 19, 1978, he was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Ried im Innkreis district court.
aftermath
The executive spoke of one of the most brutal crimes in Austrian criminal history. The Federal Customs Inspectorate announced that it would intensify the tactical training of customs officers and that it would approach the legislature to renew the legal provisions on the use of weapons.
Finance Minister Hannes Androsch expressed his condolences to the relatives, while Justice Minister Christian Broda said in a televised conversation that the case was a serious setback for efforts to reform the penal system. On June 1, 1978, after an urgent request from Federal Councilors Bürkle , Fürst , Lichal and Schambeck , Broda faced a parliamentary debate on the early release of the felons.
A memorial stone for the murdered customs officers was erected near the banks of the Danube near Krempelstein. The case is also shown in a showcase in the Crime and Gendarmerie Museum in Scharnstein Castle .
Trivia
Alois Mannichl , at the time of the murders, a German border police officer at the Passau-Achleiten crossing and a good friend of the two murder victims, called the incident a decisive experience, which gave him the harshness against criminals that he later implemented as the director of the Passau police department. In 2008 he himself was the victim of an unexplained knife attack.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Defendant: "Why should i liagn?"
- ↑ Fear of murder was the motive for the tax collector's execution
- ↑ Tax collectors shared execution
- ↑ Customs murder trial: After a brief consultation, the life fell
- ↑ New laws to protect customs officers?
- ↑ Stenographic minutes of the 376th session of the Federal Council, pp. 47 to 68
- ^ Die Zollwacht, p. 21
- ↑ The tax collector murders near Achleiten
- ↑ Live in doubt