By Matthias Lukaschewitsch
The scandal surrounding the child molester Axel. K. (60) shakes the posh Wannsee district in southwest Berlin. The man, who has a criminal record, is said to have abused at least three children in his delicatessen next to the Conrad School for almost a year – unnoticed by the police and the judiciary. Now a mother is talking about how her children were lured into Axel K.’s shop.
Anna S.
Axel K.’s delicatessen shop at the Conrad School in Wannsee Axel K.’s former delicatessen at the Conrad elementary school in Wannsee – the store has been empty since March
Photo: BZ
And also: “Why didn’t the man serve his sentence in prison? Who allowed him to get out?”
She describes how brazenly Axel K., who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2018 for sexually abusing a child, acted. How he lured the students from the neighboring school to his shop. “He always had a plate of cookies, the kids knew that. They came into the store and were allowed to help themselves. And: “My children were allowed to snack on honey from him.”
Her twelve-year-old son Sven
says: “For us he called himself Alex. He didn’t mention that his name was Axel. Once I felt really scary in the store. I was supposed to help him put labels on the honey jars. And also cash in the store. It was a Saturday. He told me beforehand that other children were coming. But suddenly I was all alone in the store with him. He asked strange things: ‘Is someone coming to pick you up? And if so, when?’” Axel K. also always looked at him for so long.
The boy: “It was scary for me to be alone with him. I went home after half an hour.”
According to Anna S.’s children, there was a “secret” room in the store. “None of the children were allowed in there.”
When they asked what was in there, Axel K. said to them: “There’s a lot of technical stuff and things from the previous shop owner.” But was it all really that harmless? The fact is: The public prosecutor’s office is also investigating Axel K. for “possession of documented sexual abuse.”
So did he film his actions in the store? Sven S. says: “It was strange. His cell phone was always on a shelf upstairs. It always beeped and flashed red when we were there. I then asked him why it’s up there?” Axel K.’s answer: “Oh, it’s there because I’m playing music.” Today, however, the boy is skeptical. But he also says: “He never did anything to me.”
Before the parents and children became aware of Axel K.’s criminal past in May 2022, the parents had no suspicions, the mother admits. But: “Of course there were signs where we were skeptical.”
So she says – long before Axel K.’s past became known – that she was in the supermarket with her three boys. “Suddenly a tall, older man (it was Axel K., editor’s note) came up to the children and addressed them by their first names.”
She says she has never seen the man before. She asked her children: “How do you know him?” The answer: “Well, he owns the shop at school. We can always eat cookies there. Almost all primary school children go there. He’s very nice to us.”
Scary: When the mother stands at the checkout in the supermarket, the cashier says: “Here, this chocolate is for her children, which a man has already paid for.” The mother is horrified: “How does he know which chocolate you like? The children calm her down and say: “Mom, he’s nice.” He knows us from the store.”
Today, she says, she feels very sick when she thinks about what Axel K. is said to have done to other children in the store: “It can’t be that way that a man who is so criminal is walking around freely in Germany ?”
She was also in his shop once: “A little boy from across the street proudly came into the shop, went to Axel K. and said: ‘Look Alex, my new shoes have finally arrived, what do you think of them?’ The mother looked at the man in surprise. Axel K. just said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world: “The boys like to come to my shop to chat.”
Axel K. was arrested on July 19th and has been in custody ever since.*Names changed
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