Among the many unspeakable peculiarities typical for the German legal & political landscape one of my favorite murders is the removal of Barschel. The death of the former prime minister of Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost German state, in October 1987 occurred in a hotel room in Geneva, where he was found by a reporter, dumped in a bathtub , fashionably dressed, seemingly peacefully asleep.  The picture of  the dead victim was neatly presented to millions and millions of consumers, and the story told and retold again and again.

I do believe that in point of artistic atrocity and tasty necromania, this undertaking has been a magnificent example of vicious malignancy and will be for decades. In this case it became obvious that seemingly almost no one was quite interested in proper investigations. The police machinery seemed to be an aquittal mechanism , the local parliament did its best to explain away what happened really and the deed itself was done with unprecedented professional origininality and ingenuity. The confusion caused and the results achieved were so devastating that presumably a true genius was at work. The acquittal - oriented investigations led to so many theories, complex structures of unprecedented chaos, and so many contradictory results that it seems to be absolutely impossible to find any responsible person for the deed. The total annihilation of the target  allegedly having committed suicide by swallowing a variety of pharmaceuticals that could have killed a horse, or two, is the genuine masterpiece in a collection of bizarre mysteries delighting the murder aficionado.

No one ever asked where the drugs were taken from, and who supplied them. These can only be delivered on the black market  if required, apart from that by specialized pharma suppliers. Some of them were not available in the western hemisphere at all, others are designed exclusively for clinical purposes ( e.g. a substance to subdue the contractions of certain muscles that make you puke, in order to conduct examinations using fiber-optic
instruments), others found are commonly used in certain brothels by prostitutes to put the customer to sleep in combination with alcohol - and then grab the money. A large quantity of wine in the dead guys´ blood was not found in the first analyses by the well-reputed Swiss forensic experts, that conducted a few marginal investigations and were never asked for serious support by German authorities after 1987..... Also the brothel K.O. pill residues were not found in the first place. Both of these substances in combination cause immediate unconsciousness when swallowed. Interesting that the bodily physical evidence including all these precious bodily fluids  were quickly taken back to Germany to be analyzed by a Hamburg professoral authority, that could not find the alcohol and the K.O. pill rests.  A traffic policeman  would have been laid off after that type of obvious superprofessional conduct. This, say the mob narcotic arsenal, was discovered almost a decade later. The Swiss were left with some blood samples, a few pieces of evidence, and had to get along without notable German interest shown. They got accused of handling the case in a sloppy fashion, as well as the federal German police agency. The samples went here, and there, and the first conspiracy theories arose, including the interesting one that medical assistance during the act of suicide was required to prevent the injuries of the esophagus, throat etc. when using a device, a plastic tube, or something similar, to pump up the stomach with masses of pulverized sleeping pills available only in East bloc countries at that time. The bottle of wine ordered in the Hotel Beau Rivage in Geneva was never found, but alcohol rests in the blood of the target. Where were all these pills kept in ? Nothing was found, just evidence of  pharma material in the remaining rests and pieces of the target that was buried in 1987. Was it the quantity of the entire bottle resembling the amounts of alcohol in the blood that were discovered in the late nineties, not 1987 ? We do not know.

In this confusion of pills, coma, cyclobarbital, clinic devices, wine not found, and so on the German public got slam-hammered with a suicide theory. All the institutions involved sang the same song of suicide, at that time sold off as a " confession " by someone " guilty " of having got on the nerves of his political opponent during an election campaign, and having committed a few minor - not even criminal - acts that look rather like a joke than a serious attack. Still, the joke was sold off as a political offense to " prove " the arrival of tyranny. A nice story. After the first campaign wave had slowed down, Barschel became a Macbeth-style hero in an theater play for the kids and the elderly. That was performed to educate schoolkids and to illustrate the meaning of democracy. The fact that Mr. Engholm placed a spy in the Barschel campaign team - similar to Nixon - was not mentioned. Engholm got his political career finished off for his own comrades  were upset because of a contract ( details unknown ) signed with a nuclear power supplier, in contrast to his promise to switch nuclear facilities off. Meanwhile samples of all these precious bodily fluids that went wandering around were the object of intense studies by almost anyone, and in the end, murder conspiracy theories became so numerous as if some type of inflation took place. The conservative press blamed it on the CIA, the leftwing press blamed it on the North Korean secret service. Another guy blamed it on the Mossad. Some blamed it on the victim. In the late nineties conservative BILD came up with the news that the sex life of Barschel was, to put it mildly, full of delicacies that were observed in an East German hotel room. Rumours about arms deals were spread. Conexions with honorable folks like Ollie North were uncovered. The US DOJ refused to provide information about this sort of conexion.  A large quantity of pages in East German secret police files were destroyed by West German agencies in the nineties, including transcripts of wiretapped phone calls.  Barschel said " I give it to these ""§==% in Bonn ", according to a East German spy that listened. The East German agency, in official terms, does not know anything, stated by their latest chief ( now a retired political analyst ) just recently.

It seems that someone lured the target into the hotel room, possibly offering valuable material about the big scandal, and then simply someone  else fed him with KO-drops- spiced wine and later used a tube not handled by a
physician , but some amateurish brute ( causing injuries ), to pump up the body with an overdose of  various sleeping pills partly withrawn from the western market already. Then B. got dumped in the bathtub. The wine bottle disappeared ( showing evidence of  the undesired kind  ).

A suicide could lead to the conclusion that he smeared himself with an amount of almost unavailable substances, swallowed KO-drops, drank a bottle of wine, inserted a tube into his throat after having taken anti-puke medication, pumped himself up, and then, unconscious, sleepwalked into the bathtub, after having removed the evidence for KO-pill infested wine.

A perfect suicide. Congratulations.

Several professors and forensic analysts were in combat to produce the most irritating theory. A Hamburg authority did not find the KO-pill rests and the alcohol in the blood ( how much was it ? ). Police did not find the supplier of the material. Germany´s super-detective Mauss, who later served some purpose in the Colombian hostage market stayed around the corner in a neighborhood hotel the very night the deed happened, but does not know anything.

Strange enough: The suicide version was created shortly after the stiff was found. Later Swiss police complained that there were virtually no German enquiries to be noted. No serious activities by federal agencies, despite the possibility of a terrorist plot. Stoltenberg´s (  Barschel´s don ) allegation that the case will remain unsettled in fall 1987  is noteworthy. Barschel´s legal advisor, another superprofessional hitting the very top of juridical heaven, sneaked out of the show stating that his client was a liar and heavily depressed, thus producing a suicide image, and one of overwhelming guilt and shame, while the stiff got snatched and removed from Swiss facilities as quickly as possible...ironically exactly those details were forgotton by quite a few German superprofessionals that could have proved a murder in 1987, in the first place, when it was necessary to gather the evidence. Ten years later or so a soc.d. - run commission found that a lot of the allegations against Barschel were never proved. If almost nothing was proved, why commit suicide ?

These original allegations of political misconduct targeting his personal opponent Engholm were produced by a journalist called Pfeiffer allegedly working  with Barschel and a now convicted mail serviceman called Postel that started an illuminating career using fake professional records. With these, he made it to the position of an official medical functionary and without having anyone notice he continued his work as a state-employed physician for years. Maybe his medical statements were more professionally made than those in the Barschel case. Also the journalist is a good friend of the guy that stayed right next to the hotel Beau Rivage during the alleged suicide event. This guy worked with the German spy agency BND, the federal police agency and the Colombian hostage cartel. His name is Mauss, a private detective....These three figures are extremely close to the drowned prime minister, and closely linked with each other. Please note that this statement is ambiguous. The postman´s career suddenly got cut when a fake ID was found, together with the real one, so that the nature of his status was discovered.  As the fake Dr. Dr. Bartholdy, postman Postel blew up like a bubble. Neither his patients nor the state-employed medical staff realized that Postel was a postman, and not a physician, philosopher and so on. Interesting that the drowned prime minister also had two German Ph.D.s in possession, but that is another story. Postel climbed up to the position of a forensic psychiatrist involved in countless court hearings - using fake documents again to get this honorable job in the nineties. No one noticed that his statements were obviously not produced by a professional psychiatrist, and his business continued for quite a while. Also, Postel earned some reputation as a forensic expert examining murder cases. Pfeiffer wrote a biography about Postel. He ( or Postel ) invented a few satirical psywar maneuvers during this awesome campaign effort against the poor target Engholm , who blamed the dead victim for having committed an act of murder.  Among these: Some Dr. Wagner phoned Engholm´s physician to spread AIDS rumours. Fake documents were issued - allegedly by the Green party, but in reality Pfeiffer falsified these records. Some silly paper was produced to show that Engholm had a tax problem. A private detective got hired. The accusation that Barschel ordered all this was never proved. Then Pfeiffer got around telling everyone he ran " secret " jobs for the target B.. These allegations of psywar attacks were
" confirmed " by several government officials including Mr. Ahrendsen, who faced a lawsuit in early 2000 because of alleged fraud and forgery committed in a notary office. The accusation is unpleasant and can lead to quite a few years of imprisonment, for the damages caused are up to several millions. Postel, the gifted psychiatrist, got a 4-year prison sentence for his altruistic support of mentally deranged criminals in court and released early in January 2001 for his decent behaviour in prison.  He stated that he found it fascinating to throw someone into the lunee asylum.

Pfeiffer also came up with a brochure issued by the society for a humane death ( a charitable org that promotes the right to commit suicide), allegedly ordered by Barschel, and his affiliate Mauss later showed up the very day Barschel died - right around the corner.  Mauss got almost sacked in Colombia in the later nineties, for allegedly having conducted illicit hostage deals and saved by the German government itself ( Schmidbauer ) after 9 months in a dark Colombian prison, Postel got down into jail in East Germany, Pfeiffer - despite his confessions of having committed a variety of minor criminal offenses such as forgery - escaped so far, and later on sacked the succeeding p.m. Engholm, the head of the soc. d. party in Schlewig - Holstein, and a few minor apparatchiks, by stating that he got payed roughly 40 000,-- German bucks for the story about the "Nixon-style misconduct" that led to the moral guilt dilemma, and the alleged suicide. During the initial campaign wave during fall 1987 neither Pfeiffer nor Engholm admitted or mentioned that Pfeiffer, the spy placed in the Barschel election team, received some inofficial campaign donations and worked together with Engholm for quite a while, who probably got highly amused by the acts his own agent committed. Engholm just recently faced allegations by FOCUS magazine of being a spy having worked for the communist East German spy agency, counteracted with  penal law action, and no one knows anything, of course. In a talkshow he created the " moral right to lie " - for himself. Just recently he got caught promoting the preservation of " GDR culture " and was not amused that certain journalists were present.

Official version today, in 2001: No one knows anything, nothing is proved.

It seems that the use of fraud and deception was the origin of the mysterious Barschel legend, being presented to the public as the German equivalent of Nixon, that caused his moral dilemma and his suicide. Well, Nixon was alive and well despite his horrible moral disaster....and some criminal records, while Barschel allegedly drowned himself in a mess of KO-pills, alcohol, bathtub water, and general desperation without having the chance to defend himself.

Methodically, it can be only be stated that a suicide occurred AFTER police made sure that a murder  was not likely.

Say, it would have been normal to investigate, claim that terrorists might be involved, and then, in the end, start up with some suicide theory. It was run in an inverted fashion. Maybe all the evidence published in the beginning is a negative mirror image of what really happened. Testimonies held as false were true, and those regarded as true  were false, just like Postel´s professional records, Pfeiffer´s factory of fake documents, forensic statements by some superprofessors and so on. Even illegally snatched material about psychic disorders was used to prove a suicide theory. The original motif in the first campaign wave ( fall 1987 ) was a little tyrant suffering from both drug and power addiction, and being trapped in his own neurotic web of psywar follies like making dirty phonecalls, hiring a few private detectives to investigate alleged sexual misconduct, tax evasion and so on. Orchestrated like a Wagner opera this got repeated again and again - without waiting for properly investigated results.  The massively supported suicide theory showed up the very day the death was uncovered, and slowly, but constantly faded away in the course of time. In the end, when it was clear enough that a murder had happened, say a decade later, prosecutors started to walk around with guns, strange enough....they probably feared that a still sleepwalking Barschel would return from his grave and get them....shortly before criminal investigations got formally closed in 1998, the wife of the chief investigator got snatched and held hostage by a convicted murderer....apart from this a series of other highly mysterious disapperances and deaths occurred mainly involving witnesses and close aides....and really strange it looks how a suicidal suicide theory was created. It could have been done by the East German spy agency Stasi, and the CDU was the main fraction being seriously damaged politically. After the event, they lost voters, and further voters, and further voters and never regained the position held in 1987. Still, police showed no interest to gather evidence about a murderous conspiracy, and stuck to a fake suicide theory. Some change occurred after 1994, too late.

Who ran the conspiracy, then ? Well, the same people that could have manipulated ( federal ) police and judiciary.

Because the existence of a prime minister has some importance, and because the stiff was dumped in a foreign country, this was a typical federal case, but the investigations were handed over to the local authorities. Also, there was some type of political relevance. But we could not witness formal murder investigations by the federal authorities, instead we faced a manipulated suicide theory from the very beginning, while a possible murder scenario was systematically ignored, and the evidence " forgotten " about due to sloppy behaviour, which was the official explanation for the ignored evidence. Intentional blindness of federal agencies, running around like drunks trying to find trees in a forest, lead to the conclusion of support. Another example of strange ignorance or lack of competence is the arson & murder case that happened in Lübeck in January 1996 ( 10 dead asylum seekers ), and peculiar errors again were defined away  - allegedly " sloppy " conduct of police & others. Is sloppy behaviour intentional ignorance ? What is intentional ignorance ? Support ?

But, who could have manipulated the investigations ? Well, certainly politicians close to the federal government itself. Apart from this, it shall not be forgotten that the East German spy service owned for example the boss of the West German anti-espionage unit - anti-espionage in West Germany was run by the adversary for quite a long time. Also several folks at the the top level of BND, the James Bum Club of the system, were controlled by the East German spy service. This list is very long, say KGB and Stasi agents running top government positions, as was confirmed by an East German expert  just recently again. Another aspect is the fact that due to a variety of postwar regulations related to security matters, the ( western ) allied secret services could operate in West Germany as they wished. They partly functioned as a substitute of the German authorities themselves. Please note that a few of the major German media companies received a license to print, not to kill, from the British army, simply spoken, in the years after WW II, because Hamburg, their seat, belonged to the British-controlled part of split-up Germany. But the German press is full of agents from everywhere.....

So you have - amidst dazzling paranoid conspiracy theories that were published by the " orthodox " press & media
( a tremendous chaos alltogether ) quite a few people that might be authors of the deed, you can choose the one you hate most.

What you do not have is - clarity and an idea of who controls the scenario. Also, it cannot be expected that the legal and political institutions are able to define a clear ruling.

That is why the artistic atrocity typical for the act, combined with malignant evil, cute necromania and inspiring
devastating confusion put the deed into the category of the most favored, almost perfect murder in a series of undertakings of this kind that enrich the legal & political landscape for quite a while now.