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Expressions of mourning by the population in Solingen, September 6, 2020
Photo: SASCHA STEINBACH / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Decency
The subject needs a small preliminary remark: On the occasion of the five-fold homicide in Solingen, we once again learned that the self-crowned top of German criminal journalism is not only capable of anything, but also quite unwilling to be ashamed of anything, even if it is public humiliation 11 year old children.
If you can hardly believe it again, you can listen to or read the interview that the editor-in-chief of the medium that opened on September 4th with the illustrated report "In front of the door there are still the shoes of the dead children" and a corresponding video, on September 7th
the DLF ("medias res").
For that very reason, of course, it is pointless to deal with it in more detail.
Anyone who is proud to be regarded as the cadre maker of a journalism of humping up and stepping down, unencumbered by consciences of any kind, has no problems with their own indecency, but may feel pride in the contempt of the decent, similar to one lying in the dirt Citizen fright who delights in the disgust of the good.
catastrophe
In the case of catastrophes like the deed in Solingen, it becomes painfully clear how great the human need is to attribute a sudden onset of horror and uncertainty to clear, clear causes.
That is neither reprehensible nor surprising, but makes it clear how fragile the securities are on which our attitude to life is based.
Of all catastrophes of the clear, personal, interpersonal kind, it is the largest and most terrifying conceivable that a mother insidiously kills her children, without notice and without any apparent external cause.
The fear that such an event triggers in everyone who is confronted with it creeps deep into the emotions and has to be mastered, processed and integrated into their own everyday life by the individual.
There are various strategies for this at the individual level.
They range from a disproportionate, hysterical identification with crime victims, whose fate and suffering are made into their own in this way, to apparently callous, disinterested cynicism.
Much more important, however, are collective methods of processing: interpretations, delimitations, assignments, consequences.
Is the act that happened part of normalcy?
Is the perpetrator one of us?
Are there explanations based on generic, familiar, socially acceptable cause allegations?
And what conclusions can be drawn?
What does all of this concern us or each individual?
Who is responsible for processing?
Thomas Fischer, arrow to the right
Born in 1953, is a legal scholar and was Chairman of the 2nd Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice.
He is the author of an annually revised standard short commentary on the criminal code and numerous other specialist books.
One finds all these questions, one way or another, more or less twisted, hidden or distorted, regularly when catastrophic events such as in Solingen become public.
As one must not forget, this becoming known is in itself part of the stage on which everything unfolds: what is actually perceived, taken important and reported is not accidental.
There are filters of perception and evaluation.
Even an event as terrible as the death of five children is not singular;
Much less is this true of countless other events which stir up and preoccupy large numbers of people.
A fivefold murder in Solingen is objectively no "worse" than it would be in Cape Town or Shanghai.
Nonetheless, it seems closer to us, although the spatial distance is not important.
Rather, the proximity results from the familiarity of the situation: emotionally, we assume that we know what it looks like, smells and feels like in Solingen, how we live, shop or work there.
"Solingen" thus appears as a familiar closeness, into which violence and fear break in with all the more cruel suddenness.
Cape Town or Shanghai, on the other hand, are a long, unknown distance for most of the people living here, which is perceived in principle as dangerous and unpredictable.
So it is not actually a personal interest in victims or perpetrators that particularly moves us about acts of violence in closer social areas.
But it is the interest in ourselves, in our own safety and trust in the furnishings, surroundings and routines of our own life.
Public reporting in the media is a very important engine and filter for collective and individual processing.
It can traditionally be based on the organizational and content-related distance, which distinguishes "the press" from the simple talk of the round table and the stairwell - not in reality, maybe, but in principle.
The formalized, professional production of "public opinion" in the press has a high leap of faith insofar as it represents a social authority outside of the individual, apparently small-framed, often pitiful subjectivity and thus symbolizes the suspension of the individual way of life in a social structure that is perceived as common.
This works, as you can experience every day, even on an extremely limited intellectual and social level of credibility: The vast majority of readers of the "largest" German daily mentioned above consider it to be intellectually unbelievable, sensational and morally questionable.
But it is consumed nonetheless because in precisely this questionable function it is perceived as part of social orientation and creates a quasi-reliability.
This is a similar effect as the German "folk music" hit or the standardized, idiotic TV series on the evening before.
more on the subject
Icon: Spiegel PlusIcon: Spiegel PlusPsychiatrist on case in Solingen: "The survival of the oldest child raises essential questions" By Beate Lakotta
The reality of the Internet and the revolution in communication have fundamentally called into question the remaining certainties of this kind, but have different effects in different age and social groups.
So far, however, it has not been possible to actually replace the functions of a quasi-authoritative public with the chaos of "digital spaces", chats, blogs and forums: Most users know or at least suspect that nothing valid on "Twitter" or "Instagram" arises, but chaotic flatulence unfolds.
That does not change even if comedians known from radio and television print out their Twitter tweets and have them bound between two book covers: more than a diary of arbitrariness can never be created.
Take away
For the purposes of criminal law, so-called takeout suicides are usually only of interest if they fail - in whole or in part.
In the reality of life this is not the majority;
The public is less likely to find out about the successful deeds.
In criminology and forensic medicine, insofar as they deal with the actual processes, causes and consequences of illegal actions and not with the search for and punishment of the guilty, take-away suicides are a case group of special interest.
The assumption that the case from Solingen is to be regarded as such is currently based on assumptions and press reports.
It is not yet known exactly whether they are correct.
There is also no need to come to conclusive judgments or categorizations based on second and third hand reports.
When it comes to the term "take away suicide", the emphasis is on suicide.
But whether this is the case in reality is often precisely the question.
The term "take away" is, as a rule, a cynical euphemism.
That would be noticed if the press started to label terrorist so-called suicide bombings as "takeout suicide".
Because in the case of an assassination attempt with acceptance or certainty of one's own death, it does not depend on the content of the latter, but on the killing of the others, "those who were taken along".
In the designation of an act as "take away suicide" there is always a valuation that can, but does not have to be, correct - although this term also contains a number of possible interpretations, which result from different motives.
The so-to-speak classic ascription is that the perpetrator acted out of a motive close to a feeling of pity, concern or affection.
That happens, but of course it is only one of numerous interpretations.
It is also very simple and one-dimensional.
Even under extreme situational narrowing of perception and behavioral control, feelings and motives are not perceived as simple catchphrases, as a total of feelings ("pity").
You suspect this when you try to visualize your own affects and motives for action in critical situations: you don't think "anger", "fear" or "compassion", but rather feel a large number of mostly unclear, sometimes strangely concrete, sometimes vague emotions, Associations, resolutions, or considerations.
more on the subject
Solingen: Five dead children - public prosecutor's office is investigating mother for murder
In the past few days, one could read many times about the crime in Solingen that the alleged perpetrator might have felt "overwhelmed" or "totally overburdened".
This is a rather strange description of a condition by which the active killing of five (own) children is to be explained.
Because everyone knows the constant noise of omnipresent "overload" and the supposedly uninterrupted barely bearable "stress", the mutual lamentation of which is the core of countless conversations in the spheres of work, leisure, family and other social environments.
"Overload" and "excessive demands" are therefore usually not obvious or even plausible motives for murder, but descriptions of an allegedly necessary, at least unavoidable condition of everyday social life: The "stress" begins at breakfast, extends beyond the demands of work, family, the relationship conflicts, banking to shopping, competitive sports and evening entertainment.
Anyone who kills five work colleagues because they have been stressed by the incoming files or the breakfast chaos of their children cannot hope for sympathy and compassion.
"Excessive demands" is therefore at best a vague approximation of a state of mind and a state of motivation that the vast majority of the population, if one can believe the announcements of horror, simply "cannot imagine".
One could doubt this if one visits the chat rooms, in which people talk shop about the supposedly appropriate torture and punishment for child murderers and child abusers.
With a good will to be philanthropic, one could assume that the atrocities and excesses of violence regularly proposed there are not only spawning of the state of soul and conscience, but also of simple stupidity as well as the emotional impoverishment and the inability to feel what is supposed to produce the fantasies: compassion and empathy.
As is well known, the motives for killing third parties, including close relatives, can be extremely diverse and varied.
This also applies if, in connection with such an act, the perpetrator makes a - seemingly serious - attempt to kill himself.
Of course, one must always carefully examine how serious the unsuccessful undertaking of suicide was, especially if it fails miserably after other people have been killed with great effort and considerable energy.
But not every unsuccessful suicide suggests a mere deception.
It is not "prescribed" that murderers and suicides have to be courageous, painless, tough on themselves and relentless in the implementation of their plans and impulses.
In other words: It is very likely that you will be scared to death if you hold the pistol to your head or the knife to your neck or if you stand at the open window on the 10th floor.
And it may well be that the experience of one's own fear of death breaks through the "course" and brings to pause, which carried the previous crime.
Of course, all of this is all the more true if the failure of the suicide is based on a quasi-technical mishap: loading jams, loss of consciousness, missing the target, intervention by rescuers.
more on the subject
Five killed children: horror in Solingen Armin Himmelrath reports from Solingen
In the case of Solingen you simply have to say: You don't know.
So far there has been no adequate investigation into the background and processes, and if there were and will be, no one is obliged to be the first or as soon as possible to educate readers, viewers and indignation seekers about it.
This applies to the entire context including the reasons, occasions, motivation and consistency of the act.
That "a mother" only kills her children when she is "desperate" or "overwhelmed" is an assumption with potential for touching and plausibility, but just as speculative as any other "story" of "withdrawn life", money - and relationship problems, divorce stress or teenage pregnancy.
Mental illness may play a role, but it can also be a reprehensible motive.
Everything possible, everything fantasy, everything projections.
As we know, the accused can be happy: the step from the overwhelmed, abandoned young mother to the selfish monster is extremely short in more than one editorial office and less a question of the facts than the market assessment.
affect
In almost all cases, serious acts of violence are committed in emotionally tense situations.
"Cool", callous, emotionally uninvolved killers, as they roam the world of entertainment as fantasy heroes, are firstly extremely rare and secondly regularly not nearly as personable or even tolerable as the residents of Beverly Hills make the youth of the world believe want.
Affect, excitement, and tension are therefore not the exception, but the rule when committing homicide crimes.
It is very difficult to imagine how exactly the emotional situation could be if one kills several people one after the other, who are also close relatives, even children of their own.
Anyone who always takes great credit for his "empathy" on the occasion of such terrible acts may do the test once and only try to concentrate on the emotional view of the alleged perpetrator for four or five minutes (that is very long!).
The prerequisite for this is that one does not break off too early and too fearfully and not use every opportunity to escape into the irrelevant "I cannot imagine that" and into the socially desirable outrage affect.
Rather, it is important to stick to the "plan" and to make a serious effort to imagine the concentration and fixation, the determination and all the small boundary conditions that the perpetrator could have fulfilled.
You will find that this is difficult, but also quite educational.
Putting teddy bears and candles on the street out of sympathy for dead children who, until a few days ago, didn't interest you in the least, is touching and well-intentioned, but not very stressful emotionally.
It is much more difficult, but at least as important, to seriously get involved in what the event might have to do with you - not in the sense of "guilt" or "responsibility", but on the level of understanding.
The questions that are asked time and time again are as predictable as they are inevitable and regular: How did it come about?
Who's to blame?
Could it have been prevented?
Who could have failed?
What conclusions can be drawn?
There is no need to discuss these questions here.
They go their own way, almost unaffected like the assumptions, assertions and excitement about possible answers.
Someone will say that the youth welfare office should have controlled the family more closely, others will say that you cannot say that, others again that the state is to blame, another group that the social cold is terrible.
All true, all untrue.
Perhaps the interesting question is: Do you have to be "crazy" to commit such an act?
Is it conceivable that a woman who insidiously kills five of her children one after the other is "fully guilty", ie "sane" - able to be assigned guilt because she has not mastered and controlled herself as the normal citizen should do in normal position?
Or do you have to take the normal citizen as a benchmark while committing five murders?
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Title: On Punishment: Law and Security in a Democratic Society
Editor: Droemer HC
Number of pages: 384
Author: Fischer, Thomas
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This question is rather simplistic, but touches on the basics of our "attribution" of responsibility, our understanding of "guilt" and our requirements for resistance, self-control, normality and social orientation in thinking, feeling and acting.
It would be completely wrong at this point to speculate about the specific case.
We just don't know;
nobody knows at the moment.
If the urgent suspicion against the accused is confirmed even more, professional experts will try to investigate the questions with the methods of their sciences.
You do not break new ground in every new case;
the map with the coordinates of the "normal", the reasonable, the presupposable on the one hand and the "crazy", the unreasonable, the alien is not
terra incognita
, but is constantly updated on the basis of
what is
already known, postulated and justifiable.
Anyone who is interested in what is humanly possible and in the causes of such catastrophes must be open to it and be prepared to show patience, distance and self-criticism.
The criminal law has developed numerous possibilities to deal with "normal" and abnormal affects.
In Section 20 of the Criminal Code, which deals with "culpability", it is stipulated, among other things, that whoever was in a state of profound impaired consciousness at the time of the act and therefore either did not recognize the injustice of what he was doing or was not capable to resist the impulse to act.
As an application of the "profound disturbance of consciousness" the "storm of affect" is mostly mentioned, which is supposed to bring about acts with a "breakthrough character", "breaks in the continuity of experience", explosions of long-pent-up hatred.
Acts of this kind are often characterized by excessive, irrational excesses of violence, furthermore by typical attempts at previous offenses, by an extensive lack of safeguards against failure or detection as well as by emotional "crashes", deep shocks, rigidity and emptiness after the crime.
One can also formulate the same thing the other way around: Acts that show such characteristics are called "acts of affect" in forensic psychiatry.
Because whether all the descriptions and "necessities" are correct and whether they had an influence in individual cases is by no means known in general and in a specific case only approximately.
Life is not based on diagnoses and terms, but these must try to truly describe the reality of life and make it understandable.
In all cases of affect-based behavior that violates or destroys foreign legal interests, the question arises of how much self-control can be expected of the individual.
This even extends to the temporal and emotional lead-up to the offense: Anyone who culpably puts themselves in a state or does not counteract it, which turns out to be the cause of a crime, is guilty and responsible for it: Such "previous fault" can occur at the time of the offense existing inability to control oneself, to compensate and legitimize a punishment.
The prerequisite for this is, of course, that the perpetrator was able to foresee and avoid the course of events in the specific circumstances.
Much will be said, written and thought about the act of Solingen.
It would be very gratifying if everyone worked hard to show those involved in the disaster the decency that they and we all deserve.
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