Broken octaves seems to mean that each bass note is repeated one octave higher, so that you get a bass of eighth notes but only have to compose newly every other of them. Gitta seems to say that Murki is actually the name of that technique. If so, I wonder whether the word originally had a pejorative meaning aimed at the composer, possibly akin to Murks. Well, the trick does suit beginners at the piano (unless their hands are too small), whereas it gives 'cellists a hard time.

(BTW, Leeneia, Michael has been with us in many threads about German stuff, so I am surprised that he had news for you. He wrote that he lives in the USA now. Guest Gitta, however, seems to be a newcomer, so impatient that she could not wait for another couple of months to make the decade full. But many of us enjoy reading "random" old threads, in particular if they bring back memories of piano lessons, when music was still waiting to be discovered by our young hands, ears, and brains.)