In January 1979, a postman found the owner of Gastwirtschaft Meier dead at the regulars' table in the small village of Kattrepel. The case remained mysterious amid the catastrophic winter of 1978/79. The Dithmarscher Landeszeitung reported on the incident with a striking opening sentence.
The incident occurred in Kattrepel, a village on the Schleswig-Holstein west coast. On New Year's morning 1979, the postman for Kattrepel discovered the owner of Gastwirtschaft Meier dead in his pub while on his car route. The report in the Dithmarscher Landeszeitung on January 4, 1979, began with the sentence: 'Nicht schlecht staunte der Briefträger für Kattrepel, als er auf seiner Auto-Tour in der Gastwirtschaft Meier in Kattrepel den Wirt tot am Stammtisch liegend fand.'
The discovery took place during the 'catastrophic winter' of 1978/79, when half of Germany was iced over, villages were without power, and babies were born in helicopters. In Berlin, temperatures dropped to minus 19 degrees on New Year's Eve, and the Tagesschau headlined 'Schnee-Chaos.' Neighbors had heard the pub owner alive on New Year's afternoon, making the death particularly puzzling.
The pub owner had been robbed twice before in his establishment. The newspaper asked: 'Sollte ihm das dritte Mal zum Verhängnis geworden sein?' The Kripo Brunsbüttel was called in, as usual for dead pub owners. Based on the 'Gesamtsituation,' the police suspected a possible crime. The newspaper, which has been recording local events for over 150 years, kept the report brief in two columns despite the snow catastrophe.
The account blends routine and the extraordinary and is praised in a SPIEGEL column as an example of powerful German language. It portrays life as a tragicomedy in an unclear overall situation.
