The case is unforgotten. Even though it happened more than 20 years ago. The double murder on the "Apollonia" was and still is reported and discussed today like hardly any other yachting drama. ARD is now opening a new chapter in the media coverage of the case.
On 8 March at 9.45 pm, Das Erste will broadcast a reconstruction of the horror voyage. The episode from the series "Die großen Kriminalfälle" is entitled: "Mord in der Karibik - Die Todesfahrt der 'Apollonia&apos'".
YACHT has seen the film in advance, together with a very special viewer: Michael Wunsch, the eyewitness who survived the massacre with serious injuries. Due to the death threat from the perpetrator, which has still not been withdrawn, Wunsch retreated into anonymity and did not make any public statements for years. However, he breaks his silence in the new issue of YACHT (on newsstands from Wednesday).
Wunsch comments on the film, which recreates the horror, in all openness. His descriptions make many things clearer: the characters of those involved, the disastrous chain of maritime and human weaknesses, the escalation on board, the growing desperation ("We begged for our lives"), and finally the course of the crime. Even a good 22 years after the tragedy, the eyewitness does not concede any mitigating circumstances: "It was murder," he says, "quite clearly murder."
On the occasion of these spectacular statements, Klaus Hympendahl also researched the fate of the ship for YACHT. The probably most intimate expert on the case - author of the chronicle "Logbook of Fear", which is now also available as a paperback from Delius Klasing - learnt that the double murder was by no means the low point in the life of the former "Wappen von Bremen". Eight years later, she sank in a hurricane.
Then an American enthusiast fell in love with the wreck, spent ten years restoring it and now sails it in the Caribbean. The "Apollonia" is still good for any number of stories - it's hard to imagine that there is a yacht anywhere with anything close to a comparable vita.
