(Bloomberg) -- It was a cold and sunny Sunday morning on March 4, 2018, and Bernhard Günther spotted snowflakes as he walked through Haan, a quiet and leafy suburb of Düsseldorf. The area is called Musikantenviertel, or musicians’ quarter, for the street names that pay homage to famous composers: Beethoven, Wagner and Mozart. Günther, who at the time was the chief financial officer of energy company Innogy SE, was returning home from his weekly jog with a handful of neighbors.
He had just said goodbye to the last of the group and made his usual stop at a local bakery. As he stepped off a main road onto a tree-lined path, a man grabbed him from behind. When Günther tried to escape, a second man blocked him. For a moment, the executive caught the man’s eye. Then, the pair pinned Günther to the ground as one of them took out a jar and poured searing liquid over his face.
After the assailants disappeared, Günther ran home.
The liquid was concentrated hydrochloric acid. It corroded much of his face and nearly cost him his eyesight. Had he not washed it off in time, “there would probably have been nothing left,” he reflected. In the years to come, Günther, 57, wouldn’t only struggle with trauma. He’d also deal with a series of bitter realizations: that the justice system won’t automatically take a victim’s account for granted, that police can’t always do whatever it takes to find a culprit and that sometimes the truth doesn’t come out.
But that morning, he was in survival mode. His wife was on her way back from a trip to Cologne, and Günther wanted to spare their 10-year-old twins, who were sleeping upstairs, the sight of his injuries. He called emergency services and paramedics quickly summoned a rescue helicopter. To make sure he wouldn’t be recognized by the press, they covered him with an emergency foil blanket. He was flown to a clinic in Duisburg that specialized in burn injuries and remained in intensive care for just under two weeks.
“In the beginning, we didn’t have any clues,” said Dorothea Tumeltshammer, the prosecutor heading the probe. “It didn’t look like he was a random victim.”
There were no eyewitnesses and security cameras in the area didn’t produce any leads. The only hard evidence was the jar that had been left at the crime scene, and a rubber glove carrying DNA. The Düsseldorf police department set up an investigative team that would eventually grow to around 30 people.
It was named “MK Säure” – a German abbreviation for “Acid Murder Squad.”
Casting Nets
Violent attacks rarely happen at random. In most cases, perpetrator and victim have some sort of relationship, which is why about 80 percent of aggravated assault probes in Germany are solved, compared to less than 60 percent of all crime investigations. Acid attacks, which are mostly reported in Southeast Asia as acts of revenge against women, suggest a particularly personal motive.
Police initially focused on Günther’s family and social circles, which he found abhorrent, before expanding their search to his workplace. To find leads, they encouraged Günther to think of anyone who might have had an interest in hurting him. “They told me: think wildly, go ahead and name names,” he remembered.
Business leaders hadn’t been targeted in Germany since the 1980s, but for Günther it was clear that the culprit couldn’t have come from his private life. At the time of his attack, Innogy, his employer, was looking for a new CEO, and Günther was one obvious candidate. (The vacancy disappeared a week after his assault when RWE AG and rival E.ON SE announced they would swap assets, Innogy included.)
The suspicion that the attack was professionally motivated struck him as it was happening — because it wasn’t the first time he had been preyed on at a sensitive moment in his career.
In 2012, Günther was running in a forested area when he was attacked by two young men waiting by the side of the road. Police quickly determined that he had been at the wrong place at the wrong time and closed the file. Günther couldn’t argue with them – random attacks did sometimes occur. Still, he remembered finding it odd that one of his assailants wore gloves in summer.
Now, six years later, a friend and colleague suggested that Günther think about who could have benefited in both instances by getting him out of the way.
When the first attack happened, Günther had been working at German energy giant RWE AG and was being considered for a CFO role. In 2018, two years after he moved to Innogy, he was among the contenders for the CEO position.
He drew up lists of competitors for each of the jobs.
When he crossed-checked the lists, only one name remained: a former fellow manager at RWE who he nicknamed “Mr. X.”
Justice Monopolized
In Western societies, governments have long monopolized the processes of bringing perpetrators to justice. There are many theories about why this happened, but upholding the rule of law is a key reason. The aim is to prosecute crimes impartially, and without violating individual rights.
Victims aren’t in the driver’s seat during a probe — they are technically only witnesses. While justice systems around the world have in recent decades put greater focus on victims’ rights, their accounts — like those of any witness – can’t be simply be taken for granted.
Günther had to sit with all the frustration that the role can involve. While he provided police with information, he had no way of knowing where the investigation was headed or what was being done to target Mr. X. There were long periods when Günther had no contact at all with the investigators.
At the same time, he was still coping with the aftermath of the assault, which entailed endless medical appointments and operations. The physicians tried to soften the paralyzing effects of the scars on his face and throat. The tissue of his eyelids was dying off, and doctors removed and reconstructed them with transplanted skin from other parts of his body.
After a few weeks, he began returning to the office. Work, he concluded, was a good way to come to terms with what had happened.
Several months into the investigation, prosecutors downgraded the probe from attempted murder to aggravated assault when it became clear that the acid couldn’t have been lethal. Under German law, this meant that police were no longer able to use powerful investigative tools like phone taps to deepen their search. Then, one day in September, prosecutors informed Innogy’s head of media relations that they were closing the probe.
Prosecutors said that after six months of investigating they hadn’t found enough evidence to continue.
“Every stone was turned over,” Tumeltshammer said. “We closed the investigation after we had followed up on all the leads.”
As police didn’t provide any further details, Günther had no way of knowing how deeply Mr. X had been investigated — or whether he had been confronted at all.
Devastated, Günther and his wife decided to take matters in their own hands. They hired an attorney and a team of private investigators, and convinced Innogy to offer an €80,000 reward for any tips leading to the perpetrators. Sascha Kuhn, a lawyer who specialized in corporate whistler-blower hotlines, was brought in to handle the process.
Posters offering an €80,000 reward were plastered across the Dusseldorf area. By November, a crucial tipster had surfaced.
Getting Closer
During their first meeting, the man, who introduced himself with an alias, told Kuhn that he knew the identities of Günther’s attackers. One of them, the “pretty boy,” was a Serb, the other a Turk. Both were habitués of Dusseldorf’s red-light district and new to organized crime. They had been brought in by middlemen working on behalf of the ultimate customer: “a bigwig” from the business world. The informant knew details that police hadn’t disclosed. He wouldn’t divulge who the Turkish man was, but in exchange for around €10,000, Kuhn received three photos of the other man pulled from social media and his name: Marko L.
When the images landed in Günther’s inbox, the first two didn’t set off any alarms. But he said that he will never forget the feeling of opening the third – a photo of Marko L. standing in front of the Louvre pyramid. This was the man who had blocked his way that March morning and who had, for a fleeting moment, looked him straight in the eye.
Over the next several months, Kuhn met with the informant at different locations around Dusseldorf.
“He openly said from the start that his only motivation was money,” Kuhn said, recalling how he once brought a backpack with €50,000 in cash to one of their rendezvouses. “This wasn’t someone who sings in the church choir.”
Marko L. was taken into custody during a visit to the Dusseldorf area in late 2019. But he denied having any part in the crime, and his DNA did not match material found at the crime scene. A court ruled to let him go.
“At that time, we couldn’t back up the suspicion,” Tumeltshammer said.
A month after Marko L. was released, Günther gave an angry interview to the German business daily Handelsblatt, in which he openly criticized prosecutors. By then, he had already undergone a number of surgeries. In a photograph accompanying the story, Günther wore tinted glasses and a wide headband. He pledged not to give up until the case had been solved.
Half a year later, Innogy agreed to offer another reward, this time for €100,000. Another year passed without anybody coming forward. So Günther’s team returned to the same informant to ask him to disclose the identity of second person, the “Turk.”
“We thought we had nothing to lose,” said Kuhn. “After a few days of reflection, he agreed.”
In August 2021, the two met for the last time. Kuhn learned the name of the second assailant: Nuri T., a man living in Belgium.
From that point on, things moved quickly. In Dec. 2021, Nuri T. was extradited to Germany. A DNA test connected him to the glove and jar that had been left at the crime scene three-and-a-half years earlier. Nuri T. vigorously denied having anything to do with the attack, but evidence – including a scar on his ankle which appeared to have been caused by acid – convinced judges otherwise. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison following a trial in Wuppertal.
That case, including Nuri T.’s testimony, yielded a raft of new information. Marko L. was arrested again in May 2023. He was sentenced earlier this year to 11 years in prison.
Both men appealed their convictions, but Germany’s top criminal court upheld both sentences.
The informant, whose name was never revealed, ended up collecting the entire €180,000 reward.
Looking Ahead
An uncomfortable truth about this story is that, without Innogy’s financial contribution and Günther’s personal wealth, neither man would have likely been caught. German prosecutors can usually only offer up to €5,000 for tips. Access to money changed the course of justice – and who had to face it.
“That leaves a bad taste,” Tumeltshammer said. “Without this considerable amount, we wouldn’t have been able to convict the perpetrators.”
The middlemen and the instigator still haven’t been caught. And it’s unclear if they ever will be. While the tipster had a few ideas about who might have hired Günther’s assailants, he didn’t seem to know much about the ultimate client. Günther is considering offering another reward.
Tumeltshammer moved to another unit, but her office is still investigating the case. She declined to comment on what next steps might be. Marko L. and Nuri T. could potentially increase their chances of early release by cooperating with prosecutors, although perpetrators linked to organized crime typically decline to do so out of fear for their loved ones.
There’s also a clock ticking — most crimes carry a time limit for any prosecution.
Mr. X no longer works at a big energy corporation, and Günther has never confronted him personally.
While Günther’s face has improved over time, thick strands of scar tissue still make it difficult for him to move the left side of his face and neck. He has more operations planned on his eyes, and never leaves the house without applying some makeup. He’s now used to the unease that his appearance can cause when meeting new people. Posing for a camera isn’t fun – and when he looks in the mirror, he sees “a face that seems alien.”
“In 90% of my dreams, this new face isn’t there,” he said.
Like many people who survived traumatic experiences, Günther’s worldview has changed. He has continued to work, joining the board of Finnish energy giant Fortum Oyj after leaving Innogy at the end of 2020 (in June, he announced plans to step down by the end of the year), and reserves more time for close friends.
Uncovering the truth of what happened to him still ranks high on his list of priorities. “For me and my wife, the case is by no means closed,” he says. “It will only be closed when the chain of people behind it has been uncovered all the way to the initiator.”
Günther still jogs on Sunday mornings. Only now, his group picks him up at his doorstep and brings him home at the end.
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