Silence upon the heather ^Featured

(The links and the films are in German language)

Very silent

What became of the Kurt-Werner Wichmann case and the pieces of evidence that the Lunenburg police (Lower Saxon) presented to the completely shocked public worldwide more than a year ago?

Among them personal objects of people that Wichmann had buried before his suicide. From which years do the curiosities that Wichmann buried, along with an almost new Ford Probe, date? 

What became of the case? The sensational cases?

Ilse Gerkens and the Ulrike Burmester case?

The Gerkens case has been open since April 11, 1968. Although Wichmann was only 18 years old at the time, he is associated with what happened.

The mother of an eleven-year-old daughter was shot off her bicycle with four bullets virtually after shopping. 

The Ulrike Burmester case took place on May 14, 1969, when the 14-year-old schoolgirl from Lunenburg was reported missing by her relatives.

Her body was recovered from the Elbe River at the end of May 1969.

She had probably been sexually abused and then strangled. She had been dumped in the Elbe with a stone.

It is interesting that the accomplices are still at large and that the situation in which Ulrike Burmester was found is almost similar to that of the Schulze couple case and their daughter. The father died under the most mysterious circumstances, nearly on the same place as Mario Schulze dumped with a stone. After the last report, Schulze dumped himself.  

Mother and daughter have not been found to date.

The tracks of the mother and daughter Schulze end at a lake a few kilometres away and only those of the father led away. However, no one can explain where the bodies of the mother and daughter are supposed to be. The police searched the entire area with a large contingent, including man trailer dogs. 

Until now, it was assumed that this was an extended suicide. Incredibly, this suicide took place where Wichmann and his henchmen presumably committed the deeds. 

What is clear, however, is that Wichmann acted not alone. A disturbing conclusion after many years. 

Years later, the couple Ursula and Peter Reinhold from Hamburg-Bergedorf were found in the Goehrde forest after six weeks. On July 12, 1989, hikers found the badly decomposed and stripped bodies. Most of the Reinholds had already been skeletonized by animals and decomposition.

The cause of death could never be determined. Curiously, the couple's car was found at the railway station in nearby Winsen at Luhe.

Ever since lead investigator Juergen Schubbert was retired and also failed in court with his suit for continued employment beyond retirement age, many observers have been wondering whether the case should go to rest altogether.

Then, a few weeks ago, German media heard that the investigators would also pursue the trail of a paid killer, Wichmann. It may well be that the passionate cemetery gardener also received money for his misdeeds. 

The Goehrde murders and the murder of the sister Birgit Meier of the then LKA (State Criminal Investigation Office)  chief Wolfgang Sielaff were staged in a sensational film documentary.

After years of searching for his missing sister, the latter succeeded in discovering the mortal remains in an assembly pit in the former home of Wichmann, who took his life in 1993 in a different custodial context.

Up to the time Sielaff found his sister's remains, the ex-husband of those killed was the target of the investigation, although the prosecution knew he was innocent, they continued to investigate and never apologized. 

Germany was flabbergasted. 

But what was behind Wichmann's connections to the right-wing extremist scene in the Lunenburg Heath? 

Not far away, a gigantic weapons depot was dug up after the attack on the Munich Oktoberfest in 1980. This weapons depot was attributed to the alleged NATO Stay Behind Network Gladio undertaken by a Forrester.

But is it true that this is where Wichmann obtained the weapons for his deeds?

Is it simply the time for heather to grow over the case?