Stefan Grage (34)

Stefan Grage, 33, was shot dead by a fleeing neo-Nazi during a vehicle check at a motorway rest area in Roseburg (Schleswig-Holstein) on February 23, 1997.

Stefan Grage was a police officer. On the morning of the crime, he and a colleague were on patrol. At the highway rest area, they noticed a silver Mazda whose license plate had a conspicuously large number of holes. A check revealed that the license plate had been reported stolen. The 24-year-old perpetrator, who was asleep in the car, seemed to have noticed the police officers. He suddenly stood next to the patrol car and without warning began shooting at the two officers through the side window with a pump-action shotgun . Stefan Grage's colleague managed to escape, seriously wounded. For him, any help came too late – he succumbed to his injuries shortly afterward.

"He was a policeman through and through."

Stefan Grage was a police officer at the Mölln motorway station – a picture of him still hangs there today. He is survived by a sister and his mother. She said of him: "He was a police officer through and through." From then until her death, Stefan Grage's mother visited her son's grave every other day.

The judge spoke of the perpetrator's "will to destroy".

Because Stefan Grage was able to send out a radio message at the last moment, reinforcements arrived shortly after the attack. The perpetrator, Kay D., then fled in his car and led police on a chase. During a further exchange of gunfire, he was finally hit and arrested. Upon his arrest, he referred to himself as a "White Aryan resistance."

The perpetrator was already on the run at the time of Stefan Grage's murder. A few days before the attack, on February 19, 1997, he stormed into a bookstore in Berlin-Marzahn armed with a rifle and shot the first person he encountered. The bookseller, Klaus B., survived the attack. The bookstore was located in the same building as the district office of the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism); Member of Parliament Gregor Gysi had his office one floor above. The bookseller was probably not the neo-Nazi's primary target . The attacker was celebrated by the neo-Nazi scene for his actions. At rallies, right-wing extremists chanted "Freedom for Kay D."

In December 1997, the Lübeck Regional Court sentenced the perpetrator to life imprisonment for murder and two counts of attempted murder. In his reasoning, the judge spoke of the perpetrator's "will to destroy" and stated that he had been "a ticking time bomb for police officers" and had acted out of "the lowest of morals." The perpetrator described his act in court as a "final battle" and himself as a "political soldier." He was released from prison in 2016.

Following the attack, a memorial service was held in St. Michael's Church in Eutin. Twenty years after the attack, Stefan Grage's former colleague said : "I wish for nothing more than to have had this day, this date, never happened. My life, my family's life, and Stefan's family's life have been fundamentally changed."

Source: Der Spiegel

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