Germans Plan More Protests Over Executions

German officials vow to continue protesting the death penalty in the United States following Arizona’s execution of two German-born brothers in the past two weeks.

They will have the opportunity to do so when Arizona sets execution dates for two other German brothers, Michael and Rudi Apelt.

The two men from Dusseldorf, Germany, are on death row for fatally stabbing Michael’s American wife in Pinal County the day after taking out a $400,000 life insurance policy on her.

The brothers, who were vacationing in the United States at the time of the killing, are still appealing their 1990 convictions.

The executions of Walter and Karl LaGrand unleashed scores of editorials in Germany condemning Arizona’s death penalty. Newspapers and magazines in Germany, where the death penalty was banned in 1949, supported German officials’ claims that Arizona violated international law.

They cited Arizona’s failure to notify German officials when the LaGrands were arrested in 1982 for killing a Marana bank manager and stabbing a teller.

Der Spiegel, Germany’s equivalent of Time magazine, argued that notifying the consulate would have afforded the LaGrands a better defense team.

“Death penalties, say critical lawyers, are less punishment for evil deeds than (the result of) a bad defense,” Der Spiegel said.

At the same time, Der Spiegel attacked the German government, saying its efforts were too little, too late.

It said the German government had known of the LaGrands’ fate since 1992. In all that time, it appealed to neither the American government nor the World Court.

Germany formally appealed to the World Court last Tuesday - the day before Walter LaGrand was executed in the gas chamber and a week after Karl LaGrand’s Feb. 24 death by lethal injection.

One German newspaper, Nurenberger Zeitung, called on more Americans to follow the example of American Bud Welch, who lost his daughter, Julie Marie, in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

At first, the paper said, Welch was full of hate for convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh and wanted nothing more than to see him executed.

In time, however, Welch came to see that McVeigh’s execution would neither bring back his daughter nor end his pain. McVeigh’s execution would only mean “new violence” and “new pain for the McVeigh family.”

The death penalty was abolished in Germany largely because of its associations with the Holocaust gas chambers, said Barbara Beeman, a German television correspondent.

Beeman said she felt it was ironic that the United States, the world’s policeman, did not uphold international law in the LaGrands’ case.

“America’s the last Western nation that has the death penalty,” said Beeman. That, she said, puts the United States in the same company as countries such as Iran and Iraq.