Hamburg police officer becomes the first murder victim of the RAF in 1971

Norbert Schmid is the first murder victim of the Red Army Faction (RAF). The civil officer was shot dead in Hamburg on October 22, 1971 - the suspected shooter was never convicted. "The state betrayed my husband," said Schmid's widow later.

by Jochen Lambernd

On the night of October 22, 1971, the two police officers Norbert Schmid and Heinz Lemke observed the passengers leaving the S-Bahn in Hamburg-Poppenbüttel from their civilian vehicle. They should direct their attention to "escaped foster children and other suspicious persons" who seem to be wandering around aimlessly. In concrete terms, this means:Recently there has been an instruction to watch out for people with a terrorist background.

Norbert Schmid is hit by several bullets

At around 1:30 a.m., the police noticed a young, dark-haired woman who first disappeared, but then came out of an underground car park in the nearby Alstertal shopping center (AEZ). Schmid asks the woman to identify herself. But she flees along Heegbarg Street to a block of flats. Schmid runs after them. Lemke leaves the car and follows. Suddenly another couple appears. But the man and the woman don't want to help - on the contrary. Schmid calls out:"They're armed." shots are fired. Schmid is hit by several bullets. He didn't have a bulletproof vest at the time. The 32-year-old collapses dead. Heinz Lemke was probably only hit on the foot due to a warning from his colleague. The perpetrators escape - in the officers' civilian vehicle.

The shooter is recognized in the mugshot

The search is initiated immediately. About three quarters of an hour after the crime, the police noticed a woman in a phone booth. It is Margrit Schiller, a long-sought member of the Baader-Meinhof group, later the RAF. It quickly becomes clear that the 23-year-old did not kill Norbert Schmid. She has a gun in her purse, but no one fired from it. Heinz Lemke testifies that a man fired the shots. With the help of mugshots, the officer can identify the Baader-Meinhof member Gerhard Müller. Margrit Schiller also later accused Müller of the crime.

According to the authors Stefan Aust ("The Baader-Meinhof Complex") and Butz Peters ("Deadly Error:The History of the RAF"), the woman who was with Müller on the night of the crime was said to have been Ulrike Meinhof. However, other sources - including the "Zeit" - mention Irmgard Möller - also an RAF terrorist.

Mayor Schulz:"A purely criminal group"

Hamburg's Mayor at the time, Peter Schulz (SPD), said after the murder that people should finally stop seeing the "group as an association with political objectives. This is a purely criminal group in the truest sense of the word." Interior Senator Heinz Ruhnau (SPD) describes the police officer's death as "a call on all citizens to take responsibility and duty in order to put an end to the spread of violence". The commander of the security police, Hans Pries, insists that he will not rest "until the sneaky perpetrators are brought to justice".

Murder charges against Gerhard Müller are dropped

In the following year, several RAF members are arrested nationwide. On June 7, 1972, Gudrun Ensslin was arrested in a boutique in Hamburg. Gerhard Müller was also caught a few days later - on June 15, 1972 - in Hanover together with Meinhof. In the subsequent Stammheim trial against the leaders of the RAF from 1975, Möller was treated by the federal prosecutor as a key witness - albeit without a legal basis. It does not come into force until 1989. His statements are central to the proceedings against Baader, Meinhof, Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe. The charges against Müller for murdering Schmid are eventually dropped. On the one hand, police chief Lemke has meanwhile weakened his statement. He is no longer sure what exactly he observed. On the other hand, statements in which Müller heavily incriminated himself were not forwarded to the competent court. Because according to Paragraph 96 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the delivery of documents is prohibited if they contradict the "good of the federal government".

According to the judgment of the Hamburg Regional Court of March 16, 1976, "despite serious suspicions, there is insufficient evidence that Müller was the perpetrator". Müller was sentenced anyway - but only to a ten-year prison sentence for membership in a terrorist organization, from which he was released early in 1979. According to rumors at the time, the police murder was "a gift" to Müller - as a "reward" for his statements against the RAF in the Stammheim trial.

Widow Schmid:"The state betrayed my husband"

Schmid's widow is appalled by these legal decisions and will not be able to make her peace with them in the decades that follow. "The state, which was protected by my husband, betrayed my husband," complained Sigrun Schmid in 2010, full of anger and bitterness, in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung". She is 25 years old when her husband is killed. The couple has two small daughters, whom she then has to look after alone, according to the "SZ" she fights her way through. As far as the shooter - presumably Gerhard Müller - is concerned, Sigrun Schmid told the "Hamburger Abendblatt" as early as 1991:"If I imagine that the murderer has seen the sun rise every day for the last 20 years and my husband hasn't, then I can feel it I have tremendous anger." Sigrun Schmid does not undergo therapy to process her grief and anger:"I didn't want to show anyone how broken I am," quoted the widow from "Zeit" in 2007.

Letter to Köhler:No "mercy for the merciless"

When there was a public discussion in the 2000s about Brigitte Mohnhaupt's early dismissal and Christian Klar being pardoned, Sigrun Schmid decided to write to the then Federal President Horst Köhler. She implores him not to be lenient. "Anyone who pardons such cold-blooded and brutal killers is making themselves complicit," she was quoted as saying in the Hamburger Abendblatt in 2007. The perpetrators robbed their victims of their human dignity. "Showing mercy for the merciless is a kick for the victims, for their families." Her words are clear and bitter. "I should forgive, but I can't," the Christian told Die Zeit.

Köhler did not answer her letter personally, but - rather awkwardly - a state secretary:"I can assure you that the Federal President appreciates the suffering and pain that you, like all the relatives of the victims, have experienced as a result of the crimes of the RAF and that you are currently experiencing through the are very aware of having to go through the extremely intense public discussion once again," quotes the "SZ".

Whereabouts of Gerhard Müller a state secret

Words that shouldn't have helped the widow. Her husband's murder goes unpunished. How the life of the alleged perpetrator Gerhard Müller continued has not been clearly clarified to this day. It is likely that he assumed a new identity as part of a witness protection program - a possibility for "persons at risk" which Müller can certainly apply after his key role in the Stammheim trial.

Müller is said to have died in 2005, as former Attorney General Monika Harms reported with reference to information from the Federal Criminal Police Office at the time. The terrorist's former lawyer, Leonore Gottschalk-Solger, also reported Müller's death in March 2007:He probably committed suicide.

What happened to the RAF terrorists?

• Gerhard Müller arrested in Hanover in 1972 and sentenced to ten years in prison in 1976 for membership in a terrorist organization, but released early in 1979. He'll probably get a new identity. He's said to have been dead since 2005.
• Margrit Schiller is in prison until 1973 and is arrested again a year later. In 1979 she was released. After stays in Cuba and Uruguay she returned to Berlin in 2003.
• Ulrike Meinhof was arrested in Hanover in 1972 and sentenced to eight years in prison in 1974. In 1976 she was found dead in her cell in the Stuttgart-Stammheim prison.
• Irmgard Moeller was arrested in Frankfurt in 1972. She has been in prison for a total of 23 years. In 1994 she was released from the JVA Lübeck.

Fresh flowers on the grave today

The murder of Norbert Schmid made the headlines in 1971. What's left? The naming of a square after him in Hamburg's Hummelsbüttel district at least testifies to the city's attempt to keep the police officer in public memory. However, the rather barren square with an adjacent discounter does not have any particular significance.

Schmid's grave is in the cemetery in Hamburg-Volksdorf. According to Sigrun Schmid, the place corresponded to its nature. That is why there is no burial place at the so-called blood beech in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery, where Hamburg's police officers who died on duty are buried. The grave in Volksdorf is still being cared for and planted with fresh flowers. The colorful selection is a splash of color in the deep and drab gray that the RAF brought to the Schmid family.