Twelve-year-old Luise F. was murdered by her two classmates last year. The case affected all of Germany – but some, it seems, got lost in the search for answers.
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When it comes to Luise, the girl from Freudenberg who was killed by her friends exactly a year ago, there is either screaming or silence. There seems to be no in-between. This is what I think to myself when another Instagram message pops up: Arthur (not his real name) commented on your picture. It’s early December, I posted a picture of my article about this case on social media. Months of very intensive research. According to Arthur, what we wrote was wrong. But more on that in a moment.
A few months ago. My colleague Michael Streck and I traveled to Freudenberg for the first time. A few weeks have passed since Luise was found in the forest, stabbed to death by her classmates. We want to know: What does it do to a city when a crime like this happens?
But we get rejections or no replies to emails. Many people react annoyed on the phone. There are no longer personal conversations at all. You can, you can, you can’t say anything.
But we hear one thing again and again: the journalists practically invaded the city when it became known what had happened here. The beautiful Freudenberg has fallen into disrepute. Some journalists, we are told, offered school children money for statements about Luise, entered the school grounds and made their way to the secretariat in the hope of getting a statement from the school management. The English Yellow Press even rang the doorbell of the families of the perpetrators and victims. With the video camera on.
So it’s no wonder that no one wants to talk to us journalists. But not all journalists work the same way.
Freudenberg is silent. We’re leaving for the first time. Frustrated. Just a glimmer of hope, a few people are saying to us, “Maybe we’ll talk to you at a later date.”
Weeks later we come to Freudenberg for the second time. Most people are still silent, but a small number of people who told us during our last visit that they might talk actually do so. Visit after visit, we get closer and closer to the answers to our questions.
One person we spoke to was Sven Dickel. He showed us how much Luise’s death touched some people in Germany. Together with a local entrepreneur, he set up a memorial stone near where the body was found. He and other committed people look after the memorial site in their free time, after work and on weekends, dispose of rubbish and plant tulips, Luise’s favorite flowers. Only a few of the helpers know the victim’s family or one of the perpetrator families personally. Dickel comes from near Freudenberg, most of the others live all over Germany.
Dickel and his helpers not only take care of the memorial stone, they have also set up a Facebook group, “In memory of Luise”. A few of them are also online, not just on Facebook, but especially on TikTok and Instagram. They look for those who use fake accounts to spread fake news, rumors and nonsense.
People like Arthur, the man who spammed my comment sections until I eventually blocked him. People like Arthur, who regularly post videos about the Luise case. Quickly edited snippets behind lurid lines, accompanied by dramatic music.
There are many such accounts. Shortly after the crime, the first ones popped up. Some published pictures and videos of the perpetrators, and Luise herself could also be seen. A little later, the real names of everyone involved were published. Even the names of family members and their jobs. Everything can be read by everyone. This was followed by death threats, hatred, demands that people please write the addresses of the perpetrators in the comments. They want revenge. Vigilantism.
Others took advantage of the wave of attention. They posed as Luise’s sister, even as one of the perpetrators, and thus gained new followers. The conspiracy theorists also benefited from the hype and generated likes with their crude ideas.
One of the men who commented on my post also commented on the posts from Dickel’s environment. He also has his own TikTok channel with videos about Luise. The documented version – two schoolgirls kill a girl martially out of jealousy – doesn’t seem to be spectacular enough for people like him. Some add additional perpetrators, for example the father of one of the perpetrators. Everything is shown to be even worse and even more extreme.
While the contributions from Dickel’s group correspond to the files and the numerous statements of our interlocutors, the statements of the “agitators”, as he calls them, cannot be verified or even refuted. The agitators wrote to his TikTok followers, insulted them, defamed them and sometimes even threatened them, even though they had nothing to do with the case, Dickel wrote on Facebook in November.
In the days after Arthur’s first comment, Dickel kept sending me screenshots from TikTok. A fake account, for example, writes to those close to the affected families: “We are a large press office for the stern publishing house,” it says, “we would like to do an interview with you.” Is this a desperate attempt to get answers? Answers that fit into your world view?
Two fronts have formed around the Luise case. And as a reporter, I found myself caught between the two fronts. Because we reported how it was – and not how it could have been. Truth is important. But it also hurts sometimes.