The amok run of Winnenden shook deeply the whole country. 11. March 2009 shot and killed a teenager 15 people, then himself. Ten years later, grief still prevails – but it has done something.
The memorial room in the Albertville-Realschule in Winnenden
Nina Mayer is nearing 25. Birthday this 11. March 2009. The young woman taught as a Trainee teacher for German, Religion and art at the Albertville-Realschule in Winnenden near Stuttgart in southwest Germany. In her spare time, she plays the piano and attends to disabled people. “She had such unshakable Faith in the Good in this world and the fact that everything is already in the rules somehow,” says her mother, Gisela.
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However, the 11. March 2009, Nina, Mayer’s death. A 17-year-old former student enters at half past ten in the morning to your school. He is holding a Beretta in his Hand. His father, a sports shooter, had stored the large-caliber gun as prescribed in the vault, but behind sweaters in the closet of the bedroom hidden. Tim K. has an attempt on students, teachers, and later on passers-by. He kills on this day, 15 people, including Nina Mayer, and injured 13 more, before he then aligns the gun on himself.
Hate is Regret
Gisela Mayer feels the first “infinite fury, infinite hatred” to the killer of their daughter. In the course of the years have changed this, however. “Today, I see a very miserable, hate-riddled young man,” says Mayer. “One who has never felt something like joy in life. And for this reason, those hated, and which had exactly the. Today, he is in my eyes a very unfortunate Boy.”
On the escape of the gunman killed in this dealership is a seller and a customer
Together with other families of victims, Mayer founded a few weeks after the death of her daughter, the “action Alliance, amok run Winnenden”, which is a year and a half later, the “Foundation against violence in schools”. Their goal: to prevent acts such as the Winnenden. Since then, she explains, carry out prevention work in schools, talks with parents, who Worry about their children. “It was the act of an Individual and the debt can also take never anyone,” says Mayer. “But there is the complicity of all those who were not attentive, did not see.”
School psychologists and door locks
Gisela Mayer and her colleagues are, since 2009, also for a tightening of the arms law. That sport shooters are allowed to store their weapons at home, that large-caliber guns as a sport weapons are allowed, you could not change. However, the policy did a lot of things, says Mayer. So Protect must reckon today with spot checks, in which it is checked how you store your weapons at home. In addition, there are more prevention programs in schools. “And there were also set a school psychologist,” says Mayer. “Still Far from enough. But some of it is Good.”
Gisela Mayer has been the fact for the prevention of violence
Also at the Albertville-Realschule has since 11. March 2009 many things have changed. The school was rebuilt and enlarged. A classroom was converted into a memorial room for the victims of the killing spree. And all the doors close automatically, while the lesson is running. In order to prevent that a potential attacker can penetrate, such as Tim K. did it.
“We can learn from what happened,”
“Of course, it can happen again, we cannot exclude the possibility, says Sven Kubick, since 2010, rector of the Albvertville-high school, in an interview with DW. “We can only raise the standard of safety so that we can say that our students learn here the maximum security.”
Even if, in the meantime, a new Generation of students attend the lessons: the consequences of the act are still present, Kubick. In the memory, but also in looking ahead. The students were engaged in numerous projects against violence and for social interaction. “We can learn from what has happened. We can try to work with the students so that they deal peacefully with each other. These are the ways of the school.”
In the memorial room of the Albertville-Realschule in Winnenden
An image that remains
As in previous years, the students of the Albertville-Realschule will remember for remembrance day this year with a Church service, with candles, flowers, and talks to the dead. For members like Gisela Mayer, the pain has become a part of life. “He is always present,” she says. A great comfort, the image that has stayed by her daughter, their lightness, their love for life is for you. “Today, I manage to smile even when I think of you and not always just to cry.”