DEUTSCHLANDDADA SAGA Felix Rian Constantinescu 2016 Jürgen Bartsch From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jürgen Bartsch Born Karl-Heinz Sadrozinski November 6, 1946 Essen, Germany Died April 28, 1976 (aged 29) Eickelborn, West Germany Cause of death halothane overdose Killings Victims 4 Span of killings 1962–1966 Country West Germany Date apprehended 1966 Jürgen Bartsch (born Karl-Heinz Sadrozinski) (November 6, 1946 – April 28, 1976) was a German serial killer who murdered four boys ages 8–13 and attempted to kill another. The case of the sexual offender Bartsch in German jurisdiction history was the first to include psycho-social factors of the defendant, who came from a violent early surrounding, to set down the degree of penalty. Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Murders 3 Sentence 4 Death 5 Influence 6 References 7 External links Early life[edit] Bartsch was an illegitimate child whose birth mother died of tuberculosis soon after his birth, and he spent the first months of his life being cared for by nurses. At 11 months he was adopted by a butcher and his wife in Langenberg (today Velbert-Langenberg), who gave him the name Jürgen Bartsch. Bartsch's adoptive mother, who suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, was fixated on cleanliness. He was not permitted to play with other children, lest he become dirty. This continued into adulthood; his mother personally bathed him until he was 19. At the age of 10, Bartsch entered school. Because, in his parents' opinion, it was not sufficiently strict, he was moved to a Catholic boarding school. Murders[edit] Bartsch began killing at the age of fifteen. His first victim was Klaus Jung who was murdered in 1962. His next victim was Peter Fuchs who was killed four years later in 1965. He persuaded all of his victims to accompany him into an abandoned air-raid shelter, where he forced them to undress and then sexually abused them. He dismembered his first four victims. His intended fifth victim, 15-yearold Peter Frese, however, escaped by burning through his bindings with a candle that Bartsch had left burning after leaving the shelter.[1] Bartsch was arrested in 1966. Sentence[edit]
Upon arrest, Bartsch openly confessed to his crimes. He was sentenced to life imprisonment on December 15, 1967, by the Wuppertal regional court (Landgericht Wuppertal). Initially, the sentence was upheld on appeal. However, in 1971, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany, returned the case to the Landgericht Düsseldorf, which reduced the sentence to 10 years of juvenile detention and had Bartsch placed under psychiatric care in Eickelborn. There, he married Gisela Deike of Hanover on January 2, 1974.[2] Death[edit] The forensic psychiatrists considered various therapy concepts: psychotherapy, castration and even psychosurgery. Bartsch initially refused any surgery but finally agreed to voluntary castration on April 28, 1976 in order to avoid lifetime incarceration in a mental hospital. This was about ten years after incarceration, two years after his marriage, and after his depressive condition did not improve. The doctors of Eickelborn State Hospital chose a castration methodology that accidentally resulted in Bartsch's death. An official autopsy and investigation determined that Bartsch had been intoxicated with a Halothane overdose (factor 10) by an insufficiently trained nurse.[3] Influence[edit] The 2002 film Ein Leben lang kurze Hosen tragen (released in the U.S. in 2004, as The Child I Never Was) depicts Bartsch's life and crimes. Bethlehem's bassist and main songwriter uses the name Jürgen Bartsch. Bartsch is referenced in Elfriede Jelinek's novel "Die Kinder der Toten" at p. 505 (1995) as someone who had no difficulty dismembering his victims. References[edit] Jump up ^ Der Kindermörder Jürgen Bartsch on YouTube Jump up ^ Also du bist die Gisela - Aus einem Fernseh-Gespräch mit Frau Bartsch Jump up ^ Script of a documentary TV show (german) Press release of movie based on Bartsch's case books in German libraries on Bartsch's case remarks on a movie about Bartsch Alice Miller, Am Anfang war Erziehung (English title: For Your Own Good), Suhrkamp, 1983, ISBN 3518-37451-6 Paul Moor, Jürgen Bartsch: Opfer und Täter, Rowohlt, 1991, ISBN 3-498-04288-2 External links[edit] Entry at murderpedia.org Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 72187628 LCCN: n85330719 GND: 118652923 Categories: German serial killersMale serial killersGerman adopteesPeople from Essen1946 births1976 deaths20th-century German criminalsGerman murderers of childrenGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by GermanyAccidental deaths in GermanyDrugrelated deaths in Germany Olaf Däter From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Olaf Däter (born September 25, 1969 in Bremerhaven) is a German serial killer who has been dubbed as Oma-Mörder ("Granny-Killer") by the media. In June 2001 Däter killed five elderly women within ten days. As he had previously worked as gerontological nurse for the women, they trusted him and let him into their apartment. There he attacked the women from behind and suffocated them, whereby the obese Däter used his whole bodyweight. The doctors examining the first four victims didn't notice the severe internal injuries and declared the women to have died of natural causes, which was subject of intense public discussion. He tried to kill a sixth woman, but she survived and told his name to the police. Däter was arrested and confessed to the murders. He named financial problems as motivation for his actions. At the time of the murders Däter was deeply indebted. He intended to steal money from his
victims after the murder, but on several occasions he didn't manage to do so, because he was interrupted by a doorbell. In November 2001 Däter was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Landgericht Bremen. References[edit] Die Großen Kriminalfälle Der Fall des "Oma-Mörders" Categories: 1969 birthsPeople from BremerhavenGerman serial killersLiving people21st-century German criminalsGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by GermanyGerman prisoners sentenced to life imprisonmentPrisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by GermanyMale serial killers Karl Denke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Karl Denke Karl Denke.jpg Only known photograph of Karl Denke, after his suicide Born 12 August 1870 Oberkunzendorf, Münsterberg, Silesia, Kingdom of Prussia (now Ziębice, Poland) Died 22 December 1924 (aged 64) Münsterberg, Poland Cause of death Suicide by hanging Other names Father Danke Motive Cannibalism Killings Victims At least 42 Span of killings 21 February 1909–21 December 1924 Country Germany (area now part of Poland) Date apprehended 20 December 1924 Karl Denke (12 August 1870 – 22 December 1924) was a serial killer from Germany. Denke was born in Münsterberg, Silesia in the Kingdom of Prussia (now Ziębice in Poland).[1] At the age of 12 he ran away from home; little else is known about his early life. However, in adulthood he worked as an organ player at the local church and was well-liked in his community. Denke quit church membership in 1906. On December 20, 1924, Denke was arrested after attacking a man at his house with an axe. Police searched Denke's home and found human flesh in huge jars of curing salts. A ledger contained the details of at least 42 people whom Denke had murdered and cannibalized between 1914 and 1918.[2] [3] It is thought he even sold the flesh of his victims at the Breslau (today's Wrocław) market as pork. [4] Two days after his arrest, Denke hanged himself in his cell. References[edit] Jump up ^ "Centipede: Nice enough to eat; Cannibals of the 20th century". The Guardian. May 20, 1993. p. 12. Jump up ^ Corke, Jonathan (December 7, 2003). "Cannibal's victim in cold packs; Exclusive pleased to meat you". Daily Star. p. 21. Jump up ^ "Cannibalism: Hard act to swallow; What drives some people to eat others? We examine the body of evidence". The Straits Times. Singapore. December 14, 2003. Jump up ^ Robbins, Martin (September 8, 2010). "What does human meat taste like?". Guardian Unlimited. Further reading[edit]
Blazek, Matthias (2009). "Karl Denke". Carl Großmann und Friedrich Schumann – Zwei Serienmörder in den zwanziger Jahren. Stuttgart. pp. 133–34. ISBN 978-3-8382-0027-9. Martingale, Moira (1993). Cannibal Killers: The Impossible Monsters. London: Robert Hale. pp. 34–35. ISBN 0-7090-5034-8. External links[edit] Short biography, other short articles: [1] and [2] original pictures taken in 1925 were found Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 306369198 LCCN: no2014051169 GND: 1047929988 Categories: 1860 births1924 deathsPeople from ZiębicePeople from the Province of SilesiaSerial killers who committed suicide in prison custodyGerman serial killersGerman cannibalsGerman people who died in prison custodyPrisoners who died in German detentionSuicides by hanging in GermanyMale serial killers Volker Eckert From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Volker Eckert Born Volker Eckert 1 July 1959 Plauen, East Germany Died 2 July 2007 (aged 48) Bayreuth, Germany Cause of death Suicide by hanging Criminal penalty Committed suicide before sentencing Conviction(s) Assault Killings Victims 9+ Span of killings 7 May 1974–2 November 2006 Country Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Spain State(s) Saxony Date apprehended 17 November 2006 Volker Eckert (1 July 1959 – 2 July 2007) was a German truck driver and serial killer who confessed to the murders of six women, five of whom were prostitutes. He was accused of committing 19 murders in France, Spain and Germany between 1974 and 2006. 15 year old Eckert committed his first murder in 1974 in Plauen. He strangled a 14-year-old girl, but he succeeded in camouflage as a suicide. On 17 November 2006, Eckert was arrested in Wesseling nearby Cologne, Germany. The police found tufts of hair and pictures of his victims subjected to various tortures in Eckert's truck and in his house. On 2 July 2007, Eckert was found dead in his cell in Germany, after committing suicide. After his death, the police found evidence that Eckert had killed nine women across Germany, France, Spain and Italy. Furthermore, there are strong indications that he killed another four women. In December 2007, the German police closed the file. References[edit] In Spanish Prostitute killer found dead in his cell in Germany – July 2, 2007 Categories: 1959 births2007 deathsGerman serial killersMale serial killersSerial killers who committed suicide in prison custodyGerman people who died in prison custodyPrisoners who died in German detentionPeople from PlauenSuicides in Germany
Christman Genipperteinga From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. (August 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Question book-new.svg This article relies too much on references to primary sources. Please improve this by adding secondary or tertiary sources. (August 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Christman Genipperteinga was a German bandit and serial killer of the 16th century. He reportedly murdered 964 individuals starting in his youth over a 13-year period, from 1568 until his capture in 1581.[1][2] The story of Christman Genipperteinga is contained in a contemporary m 1581. As early as in 1587, just 6 ublication, at least one chronicler included the story as factual.[3] Similar tales circulated about robbers with names such as Lippold, Danniel, Görtemicheel, Schwarze Friedrich, Henning, Klemens, Vieting and Papedöne. The tale of Papedöne is particularly relevant, since a version of that story is contained in a book published in 1578, 3 years before Genipperteinga's alleged death. Contents [hide] 1 Origins 2 Lair 3 Criminal activity and methods 4 Sex slave 5 Downfall 6 Confession, trial and execution 7 Depiction 8 Literary and social context 9 Later folklore 10 Similar robber tales 10.1 Lippold and the Lippoldshöhle 10.2 The robbers Danniel and Görtemicheel 10.3 Schwarze Friedrich, Henning and Klemens 10.4 The robber Vieting 10.5 Papedöne 11 See also 12 References 13 Bibliography Origins[edit] Christman Genipperteinga came from Kerpen,[4] a couple of miles ("zwo Meylen") southwest of Cologne.[5] Lair[edit] For about seven years Christman lived in a cave/mine complex some distance ("ein grosse Meyl") away from Bergkessel (possibly Bernkastel-Kues[4]), in a wooded upland/mountain area called Frassberg.[5] From there, he had a good view over the roads going between Trier, Metz, Dietenhoffen and Lützelburger Landt.[5] The cave complex is described as being very cleverly built, just like an ordinary house inside, with cellars, rooms and chambers, with all the household goods that ought to belong in a house.[5] Criminal activity and methods[edit] Historian Joy Wiltenburg identifies two important, occasionally overlapping, patterns of crime reports relative to serial killers in Early Modern Germany: Reports on robber-killers[6] Reports on witches (for example: mid-wives) or cannibals targeting infants or even fetuses cut out of their mothers' wombs for use of their body parts in feasting and/or in rituals of black magic.
Genipperteinga fits pattern 1, hoarding his ill-gotten gains in his cave.[7] As Wiltenburg further remarks, however:[2] "Christman Genipperteinga was unusual in apparently maintaining the same stationary den throughout his years of serial killing. More often, accounts tell of robbers' traveling, meeting, and congregating with other robbers or with the Devil on their journeys." Furthermore, in contrast with the reports of other robber killers from that time, like those of Peter Nyersch and Jacob Sumer,[2] depictions of supernatural abilities and/or contracts with the devil are absent from the 1581 account of Christman. He is also definitely reported as guilty of multiple infanticides, but the account from 1581 does not connect this with practice of black magic or cannibalism. Christman preyed upon both German and French travelers. It is said that a party of 3, 4 even 5 travellers might not be safe from him.[7] Nor was he averse to double-crossing his own partners in crime in order to get his hands on the whole booty, rather than his "just share". Once they had helped bring the loot to his cave, he served them poisoned food or drink, with rarely anyone surviving beyond 5 hours. He is said to have thrown their bodies into a mine shaft connected with his cave complex.[8] Sex slave[edit] Shortly after he took up residence at Frassberg, Christman met an intended victim, the young daughter of a cooper in Popert. She was traveling to Trier to meet her brother. Struck by her beauty, however, he changed his mind and ordered her under death threats to come and live with him. He made her swear she would never betray him, and for the next 7 years, she served his sexual wants. Whenever he went out to find new victims, he bound her with a chain so that she could not escape. He fathered 6 children with her[7] but at birth he killed them, pressing in their necks (original: "hat er den Kindern das Genick eingedrückt").[9] Christman used to hang up their bodies, and stretched them out (orig: "aufgehängt und ausgedehnt"). As the wind made the little corpses move, he said: "Tanzt liebe Kindlein tanzt, Gnipperteinga euer Vater macht euch den Tanz" ("Dance dear, little children, dance, Gnipperteinga your father is making the dance for you")[8] Downfall[edit] Christman finally relented to the woman's repeated pleadings that she might be allowed to meet other people, and granted her expressed wish to visit Bergkessel under condition of a renewed oath not to betray him. But once there, seeing the little children running about in the streets, she had a breakdown, and went down on her knees in lamentation:[8] Allmächtiger Gott dir ist alle ding wohl bewusst auch mit welch Eid ich mich verpflicht habe dass ichs keine Menschen wölle offenbaren so will ichs jetz und diesem (Stein[10]) klagen mein anligen und not denn ichs jetzt und in das siebende Jahr erlitten habe und auch an meinem eignen Fleisch und Blut täglichen muss sehen (All mighty God! You know of all matters, including the oath I am bound to concerning what I should not reveal to any human. So now I will wail over my condition (to this stone[10]) and despair that I for the seventh year have suffered, and what I have had daily to witness upon my own flesh and blood) [11] And she began to wail and weep bitterly. Many commiserated with her, but when anyone asked her about what her troubles were, she refused to reveal them. Brought before the mayor, she was urged to tell her story, and assured by many learned men, by reference to Scripture, that if it was a matter of life and the soul, then she ought to confess. She then confessed everything she knew. In order to catch Christman off guard, the following scheme was hatched:[11] She was given a sack of peas, and with these, she marked the way to the cave complex.[12] On 27 May 1581, 30 armed men set out to capture him. He was asleep when they came, because she had made him relax with gentle words while she deloused his hair. As the armed men barged in, Christman cried out: "Oh, you faithless betrayer and whore, had I known this, I would have strangled you long ago".[12]
Within Christman's cave complex, an immense amount of booty was found, in the form of wine,[5] dried and/or salted meat,[5] suits of armour, firearms and other weaponry,[5] trade goods,[7] coin and other valuables.[7] The value was estimated as exceeding 70,000 Gulden.[2][7] The author of the 1581 Herber account notes that one might well have made a full year's market out of the booty found in Christman's cave.[7] Confession, trial and execution[edit] Woodcut print showing a breaking wheel similar to the type used on Genipperteinga Christman kept a diary in which he detailed the murders of 964 individuals, as well as a tally of the loot gained from them. The diary was found among his possessions.[5] In addition to this evidence Christman readily admitted to the murders, adding that if he had reached his goal of a thousand victims, he would have been satifisfied with that number.[2][4][7] On June 17, 1581,[13] Christman Genipperteinga was found guilty,[12] and was condemned to death by the breaking wheel. He endured nine days on the wheel prior to expiring, kept alive in his sufferings with strong drink every day, so that his heart would be strengthened.[12] Depiction[edit] Front page of Caspar Herber's 1581 account of Christman Genipperteinga The primary source regarding Christman Genipperteinga is a pamphlet published by Caspar Herber in 1581, Erschrรถckliche newe Zeytung Von einem Mรถrder Christman genandt ("Terrible, new tidings about a murderer named Christman"). The publisher of the pamphlet is credited on the title page[13] to come from Lochem an der Mussel. Bergkessel is referred to as "our town" ("unsere Stadt") in the text.[5] At the time of the pamphlet's end of writing, the loot from Christman's cave as well as his woman were kept at a certain location, the fates of both undecided.[12] The tale was reprinted in full, with some editing and modernizing of language, by the antiquarian Johann Scheible in 1847.[10] Literary and social context[edit] The historian Joy Wiltenburg, in her (2012) "Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany" performs a close study of the popular crime reports from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Her primary aims are to investigate where and how such works were produced, who had authored them, who read and collected such reports, and what particular crimes were principal concerns in these works, and how such questions may have had different answers for different times. Only tangentially does she seek to probe the authenticity of the individual, conserved crime reports, that is, resolving the problem of how the discourse of crime accurately, or inaccurately, portrayed actual crime on the local scale. As noted by her,[2] concerning Early Modern Germany It was in the 1570s that reports of robber bands multiplied, reaching a peak in the 1580s. Furthermore, she observes:[14] Economic conditions for the poor (...) worsened notably after about 1570. At the same time that inflation cut increasingly into real wages, climatic change brought a period of unusually harsh weather. In the Little Ice Age that started in the 1570s and continued into the first decades of the seventeenth century, harvest failures caused severe hunger and disease. Reports of crime, such as witchcraft, reached their height during this period of most intense social dislocation. The story of Christman Genipperteinga belongs therefore, in a literary and social context in which such reports were particularly frequent, relative to immediately preceding or succeeding periods, and should be interpreted with that in mind. For example, as Wiltenburg points out, the peak in report survival from the 1580s is partially explained by the 1588 death of report collector Johann Wick, whereas the historical context from other sources does not yield evidence for a comparable decline of crime in the 1590s relative to the 1580s.[14] A contemporary witness who confirms the large increase in such reports was the preacher Leonhard Breitkopf. In a sermon from 1591, he wrote:[15]
When I was still young, forty or fifty years ago, there was not so much known about all the horrible deeds of murder, such as nowadays are described every year in all sorts of papers Although Wiltenburg acknowledges that there may well have been an increase in crime in the latter quarter of the sixteenth century, she cautions a framing and delimiting of that increase, with respect to murders in particular, relative to the immediately preceding 16th century, rather than stretching it much further back in time. In particular, one cannot say, with any degree of certainty, that there were more homicides committed in the Early Modern Age than in Late Medieval times. For example, she states:[14] The late Middle Ages may well have been the heyday of homicide. One important reason behind this discrepancy, apart from those connected with how new printing methods enabled more reports on crime to be published relative to earlier periods, is the new role of the Early Modern State in actively pursuing, publicizing and punishing crimes, rather than the passive role of the Medieval State, content with arbitration or mediation between aggrieved parties. If no one actively accused another person for a given injury/crime, then no crime existed in the eyes of the medieval authorities. This passive, accusation-dependent system of justice was gradually replaced with the more active, independently investigative and inquisitorial system of justice in the Early Modern period.[14] Comparing Genipperteinga's time with earlier times, Wiltenburg makes the following pertinent observation relative to the changes in the social composition of the archetypically presented lawless/violent men of previous eras to those from the latter quarter of the 16th century:[2] A particular urbanite concern in the High/Late Middle Ages were the depredations caused by lawless/feuding nobles: (...) discussion of crime appeared (...) notably in urban chronicles, a late medieval genre with its own distinctive aims. Beginning in the fourteenth century and into the sixteenth, members of urban elites produced such records, for various purposes, but mainly to serve the political interests of the semiindependent imperial cities. Most paid scant attention to the crimes committed by ordinary people, focusing instead on crimes with political significance. This raised the profile of violent nobles as a dangerous class and contributed to late medieval criticism of feuding. When compared with the picture of crime that emerged in later popular print, they show how differences in genre as well as change over time could shape perceptions of crime. The 16th century contrast to this earlier picture of "the lawless noble" is borne out by the following observations of Wiltenburg: In popular crime publications of the sixteenth century, however, the nobility is largely tamed—a sign of both historical change and a shift in genre. While chronicles served the purposes of the urban authorities, and reformers' critiques might address mainly the very elites they hoped to reclaim, popular printing about crime had a far more miscellaneous clientele. Here, respect for social superiority was very much the norm. The few nobles who appear in crime accounts of the sixteenth century are mainly on the right side of the law, protecting the weak and ensuring that justice is carried out. They figure among the admirable authorities who track down criminals and defend public security. If the nobility was depicted as mostly harmless or even beneficial, this was not true of another traditional source of danger: the rootless poor. (...) Outsiders and vagrants, already recognized as potentially disruptive, were increasingly demonized. (...) Many worried that loose and ungoverned elements would foment crime, and vagrants were frequently arrested for theft and other offenses that most modern societies deem petty. They were also more likely to be executed than were settled residents. Thus, the report of Christman Genipperteinga appeared at a time when particular fears of the savage Outsider in the Wild were at their most acute, and when people generally regarded the Criminal as coming primarily from the idle, roaming poor, in contrast to previously primary concerns of haughty, predatory nobles, their brutal, willing henchmen and corrupt magistrates who chose to ignore the crimes committed by the former.
However, Wiltenburg cautions against a general, facile dismissal of sixteenth century tales of murder and mayhem (to which genre Genipperteinga's story belongs) as if they merely were to be considered as literary fictions or as pieces of state propaganda:[2] The topical crime accounts that flowed from the early presses were not fiction. Although some sloppily borrowed language from accounts of similar crimes elsewhere, very few seem to have been wholly invented.(...) Nevertheless (...) they both mirrored and altered the picture of actual crime (...) Partly by selection and partly by their modes of representation, they reshaped events to reflect cultural conceptions. This process did not necessarily request conscious manipulation, rather, it flowed naturally from the selection of, and reaction to, the crimes considered most worthy of attention. That being said, it cannot be denied that it was, at this time, a definite trend of sensationalism, and that some wholly untrue stories were produced and sold. In the words of the 19th century German historian Johannes Janssen:[16] In order to keep a up a constant supply of fresh news, ... the most frightful crimes were invented, and so little fear was there of investigation that they even printed in Augsburg "horrors said to have happened at Munich, but of which nobody there had heard a word" ... In a document signed with the Munich town seal the council replied that the whole report was a deliberate lie Nor is it only modern historians like Janssen and Wiltenburg who display a measured, if not necessarily wholesale, skepticism towards the actual veracity of crime reports from this time. Already 40 years prior to Genipperteinga's supposed death, in his 1538 Chronica, the humanist and historian Sebastian Franck laments:[17] Whereas, nowadays, it is, alas! permitted to everyone to lie, and the world shuts its eyes and nobody takes any notice, or asks how or wherewith money has been got of the public, or what is said, written or printed, it has at last come to this, that when writers have no more money they invent some wonderful tale that they sell as a true story ... The consequence is that historians can no longer be sure that what they may hand on as truth, for among all the books floating about there is no warrant for their trustworthiness Later folklore[edit] Whatever actual truth value attaches to the account of Genipperteinga as related by Caspar Herber, the fact that the pamphlet was published in the same year as Genipperteinga is to have been executed, necessitates the view that Herber's account is among the earliest sources for the story about him in particular. Furthermore, within just a few years after the publication of the story in 1581, it was included as factual in calendars and annals, like those of Vincenz Sturm and Joachim von Wedel. Herber's account is, however, not the only telling of the tale that has circulated, and in this section a review will be given how the story has mutated throughout time, by noting deviations in them, relative to Herber's. Christian Gnipperdinga In Vincenz Sturm's (1587) continuation of Andreas Hondorff's "Calendarium Sanctorum et historiarum", in his entry for 17 June, the verdict of the murderer Christian Gnipperdinga is recorded as one of those significant events happening on that date. Some minor variant details occur relative to Herber, like the murderer's name, that "Burgkessel" was "zwo Meylen" distant from Cologne, that the booty was on 7000 Gulden (rather than 70.000), and that the maiden is said to be from Burgkessel, rather than from Boppard, and was on her way to Cologne, rather than to Trier when Gnipperdinga met her. Apart from that, Sturm's account is merely a condensation of the pamphlet, which he notes was printed in Mainz.[18] Christoff Grippertenius Joachim von Wedel[19] was a Pomeranian gentleman who wrote the annals of the most significant events in Pomerania of his time. He saw fit, however, to include sufficiently remarkable events from elsewhere. In his entry for 1581, a short notice of Christoff Grippertenius is included, with no geographical details given, but asserting that the 6 infants killed were in addition to the 964, an interpretation not forbidden by Herber's account, but not directly cited from it.[20] Christoff Gnippentennig
In his 1597 manuscript, Julius Sperber[21] noted that Christoff Gnippentennig at Bergkesel murdered 964 people in addition to six of his own children.[22] Christmann Gropperunge, the cannibal Johann Becherer, in his (1601) "Newe Thüringische Chronica", is an early source on cannibalism, stating that Christman Gropperunge von Kerpen ate the hearts of his infants. That feature is absent from Herber's account. Furthermore, "Frassberg" has become "Frossberg", and from the height above his lair, Christman is said to be able to view the roads to Saarbrücken, Zweybrück, Simmern, Creutzenach and Bacharach, in addition to those mentioned by Herber.[23] Martin Zeiller, in his 1661 "Miscelllania" has Becherer as explicit source for his own brief notice, rather than Herber.[24] In his 1695 account, von Ziegler und Kliphausen[25] repeats Becherer's account, including the eating of the infants' hearts, lacking from Zeiller.[26] Christman Gnippertringa In the 1606 continuation of Johannes Stumpf's "Schweytzer Chronick", it is noted that over a period of 30 years, a Christman Gnippertringa had killed a total of 964 people (no mention of cannibalism). [27] Christman Grepperunge In this 1606 publication by Georg Nigrinus[28] and Martin Richter, it is noted that the woman made the decision to betray Grepperunge, in revenge for her dead children, the moment she managed to get free of him (no cannibalism noted).[29] The arch-cannibal is born In this 1707 publication, Christian Gnipperdinga (or Gropperunge) is, for the first time credited with eating his victims in general, not only his own children. It is said that over a great area, he had hidden away his lair with great rocks, so that nobody would ever think anyone could live in that rock desert. In the city, the girl is promised by the authorities to receive a pension for life, if she betrays Gnipperdinga. It is further stated that she brought back from Bergkessel a bottle of extremely strong wine, and Gnipperdinga falls asleep, as planned, from drinking that wine.[30] "Murderers!", the cannibal screamed Johann Joseph Pock, in his (1710) "Alvearium Curiosarum Scientiarum" furnishes basically a mixture of earlier accounts (including the eating of his infants' hearts), although he states that the young maiden wanted to visit friends in Trier, rather than her brothers. The most significant new element occurring in Pock is that with his dying breath, Christian Gnipperdinga screamed that he was murdered.[31] Christmann Gopperunge In this publication from 1712 by Johann Gottfried Gregorii,[32] averring as its source is Becherer (1601), a strangely merciful execution is meted out, namely beheading, rather than being broken on the wheel.[33] Christian Gropperunge Referring to a recent French case of a highwayman found guilty of 28 murders, the author of the 1731 "Schau-Spiegel europäischer Thaten oder Europäische Merckwürdigkeiten" offers a batch of similar cases, including that of Christian Gropperunge (without any of the exotic details already circulating, just the numbers and general locations)[34] A filthy, stinking cave In his 1734 "Seraphisch Buß- und Lob-anstimmendes Wald-Lerchlein", Klemens Harderer basically follows the 1707 account, interspersing it with digressions of cannibals in general, and the sin of drinking wine. Adding to his source document, he says the cave was stinking from human flesh, filled with human bones, and the girl (here called Amarina) is force-fed human flesh herself.[35] A nameless cannibal's cave In an oblique reference in this 1736 publication, the details of year, location and numbers are getting rather hazy, and what is rememberd is that the cave contained lots of weapons, along with human bones and skulls.[36] Dorothea Teichner and Gnippordinga
By the nineteenth century, more polished fairy tales had developed in the Rhineland area about the terrible murderer who once roamed there. One of those tales is about the pious maiden Dorothea Teichner, who is unlucky enough to meet the murderer Gnippordinga. Much conversation is added relative to the original in Herber. She cannot understand how she can be his wife, because there is no priest present. Gnippordinga merely laughs, and says the green woods are priest good enough. Years go by, and even more infant skeletons fill up the branches of an old tree. And Dorothea weeps every time when the wind moves them clattering about, while Gnippordinga taunts her and says: "What are you whining about? Our children are dancing and playing, so stop crying!" One day, when he comes back severely wounded, he sends her off to Burgkastel, to fetch medicine. She breaks down in front of a statue of Mother Mary, and bemoans all the horrors she has endured. She is insensible of the people gathering around her, so she didn't consciously break her vows to Gnippodinga. Once he is lying on the wheel, his bones all broken and dangling from the wheel, his cries of pain when the wind moves them are met with the executioner's scornful words: "What are you whining about? Your bones are dancing and playing, so stop crying!"[37] Gniperdoliga, practitioner of the Black Arts In none of the above given versions is there any mention of Genipperteinga making contracts with the devil, or having magical powers. However, the story of "Christman Gniperdoliga"/"Groperunge aus Kerpen" is also the basis of a "Moritat", or "Murderer's Ballad", typically performed at inns, fairs and markets. The content within that ballad, as retold by Kirschlager[38] do include such points as well, in that Gniperdoliga's cave was originally made by the dvarwes, and that he could make himself invisible by means of the Black Arts. In addition, the Moritat says Gniperdoliga was apprenticed under contemporary serial killer Peter Niers, having been his companion for 2 years. Finally, the Morität says that the booty from Gniperdoliga's was divided between a hospital and the poor, his erstwhile "mistress" receiving a share as well. Similar robber tales[edit] A number of other fairy tales and folksongs are concerned, however, with the theme of the robber living in a cave shaped like a house, who kept a fair maiden captive, but who eventually escapes and betrays him. This section reviews some of these tales. Many of the tales reviewed in this section were written down long after the account of Christman Genipperteinga published in 1581, but a version of the tale about the robber Papedöne is attested in a work published in 1578, three years prior to the stated death of Christman Genipperteinga. Lippold and the Lippoldshöhle[edit] About 2 km southwest of Brunkensen, now in the town Alfeld in Lower Saxony, lies a cave that at least from the mid-17th century has gone by the name Lippoldshöhle.[39] Writing in 1654, Martin Zeiller notes that there, "several hundred years ago", a robber named Lippold and his band had created their home, having made both a kitchen and stable there. Amongst other atrocities, they were rumoured to have kidnapped several young women, and strangled at birth the children they had with the women.[40] Another version of the tale identifies Lippold as a Count Lippold of Wrisberg, who at one point assaulted a wedded couple, killed the man and kidnapped the bride, and kept her as a slave for several years. At one point, she was allowed to go to Alfeld, bemoaned her fate at a stone at the council house, and this led eventually to Lippold's downfall.[41] According to yet another telling, the stone at the council house was originally red, but turned dark blue when she told the stone her harrowing tale. The stone is, reputedly, still there, and is depicted in the Alfeld's weapon shield. In this rendering, there was a hole in the roof of Lippold's cave, so that after he had fallen asleep in the maiden's lap while she was delousing him, the citizens let down a rope with a noose through the hole. The maiden fixed the noose around Lippold's neck, and he was strangled as the citizens pulled the rope up. Another version of his death is also given here, that the girl did not return at all, and that the citizens drowned Lippold by pouring water down the hole.[42] Apart from the connotation of the Lippoldshöhle as having been the den of a terrible murderer, some have pointed out that in the 13th and 14th century, the cave lay in the territory of the Rössing family of nobles, many of them having as their first name Lippold.[43] The robbers Danniel and Görtemicheel[edit]
Wolfgang Menzel (1858) furnishes a number of other folktales similar in content to the pamphlet concerning Christman Genipperteinga in his chapter "Fairy tales concerning the long suffering maidens".[44] The robber Danniel, whose brother was a smith and had helped him build his cave, was fond of abducting fair maidens. One of them had to live with him for seven years, but managed to flee, and was clever enough to distribute peas along the road, so that he was, eventually, caught. The robber Görtemicheel abducted a maiden, had seven children with her. She betrayed him on an errand to town, confessing her woes to a stone, and chose to mark the trail to the cave with peas. When returning, however, her tears suddenly flowed, and the robber understood that she betrayed him. As vengeance, he chose to decapitate their children, and hang the woman from a tree. Schwarze Friedrich, Henning and Klemens[edit] In 1661, the robber Schwarze Friedrich (Frederick the Black) met his fate close to Liegnitz, nowadays Legnica. The elements of the murdered children and the song are lacking, but yet again, a maiden is held captive, marks the way to the robber's cave by peas, and confess her woes to a stone.[45] The same basic scheme is found concerning the tales of robber Henning, whose reputed lair, the Henningshöhle,[46] close by Treffurt in Thuringia which until the 1960s could be visited, but is now collapsed.[47] Close by the town Pritzwalk, the robber Klemens is to have had his lair and a captive maiden. She has also been extracted a vow never to betray him, but unbeknownst to her, when she bewails her fate to an oven, somebody who had hidden himself within it overheard her, and Klemens was caught.[48] The robber Vieting[edit] First attested in 1670 by Michael Cordesius,[49] a robber called Vieting is to have lived in the cave Vietingshöhle, in the Sonnenberg forest[50] close to Parchim. In order to alert himself whenever potential victims passed along the road through the forest, Vieting had devised a clever contraption with a thread, so that whenever anyone walked upon it, a small bell, just outside his cave opening would ring. Then, he could sneak himself upon the traveller, and rob and murder him. One day, the bell rang once more, Vieting brought his weapons with him, but when he saw the beautiful maiden Hanna walking along the road, singing to herself, he was smitten with desire, and chose, as Genipperteinga did, to order her to live with him as his mistress. Again, Vieting finally relents to let Hanna go to town to make some errands, after having sworn not to betray him. On her way back, she confesses her woes to a stone (unbeknownst to her, several villagers listen in upon her), and in a distraught manner, some of the peas she brought with her fall to the ground, thereby indicating for the villagers where they can find the murderer who had terrorized the region for so long. Vieting is caught and executed, and Hanna lives happily ever after, once again united with her family and friends.[51] Papedöne[edit] The robber Papedöne, who is to have lived in a cave called Papedöncken-Kuhl close to the village of Utecht[52] near Ratzeburg is also said, like Görtemicheel, to have revenged himself on their common children when he understood he had been betrayed by his woman. He killed their two sons, hung them up in a tree, and as the bodies moved with the wind, he sang: So danzet, so danzet, my levesten Söhne, Dat danzen hat macket ju Vater Papedöne So dance, so dance, my most beloved sons; your father Papedöne has made the dance for you[53] In a version from 1738, Papedöncke kills his children at birth, just like Genipperteinga, has their heads fixed along the rope as he sings his verse.[54] In another version of the Papedöne tale, he is said to have been active from 1314-1322. In this version, he used to hang the skulls of his murder victims from the branches of a tree, and used a rod to strike them to produce a melody, to which he sang the little song cited above. After having murdered six abducted maidens, he grew so fond of the seventh, that he couldn't bear killing her. Taking her once to the city of Lübeck, she recognized her brother in the crowd, but didn't speak out. Instead, she bought a bag of groats, and clandestinely marked the way back to Papedöne's lair, so that he eventually was caught.[55] A 1578 account concerning Papedöne
A work published in 1578, three years' prior to Genipperteinga's death, must hold particular interest. Here, the robber is fond of threading the skulls of his victims on a long rope, and banging them together, create the melody to which he liked to sing his ghastly rhyme. Here again, he kidnaps a young woman, who eventually betrays her secrets to a pier in a nearby church. The author of this work, Christoph Irenäus, says the story has previously been printed in the "Saxonian tongue".[56] Lastly, the following quotation from Ranke (1978), concerning the Papedöne stories, is somewhat noteworthy relative to explaining Genipperteinga's name:[57] "Vielleicht deuten auch lautverwandte Räubernamen auf Einflussnahme unserer Sage: der Knipper-"dähnke" der Oldenburger Fassung scheint mir ebenso wie der Peter "Dönges" (...) mit dem Pape "Döne" unserer Sage zusammenhängen" "Possibly, it might be that robber names that has a similar ring to them suggests an influence from our myth: Pincers[58]-Dähnke from the Oldenburg tradition seems to me, as well as the Peter "Dönges" (...) tradition, to be related to the Pape "Döne" from our myth" In one of these tales from Oldenburg, there is a whole robber band the poor maiden has to serve in their cave situated in the Damme Hills, she gets pregnant every year by them, but her babies are murdered at birth, and the robbers laugh and sing as the tiny bodies and skeletons sway in the wind: [59] Knipperdoehnken, Knipperdoehnken, ei wat tanzt de jungen soehnken See also[edit] Peter Niers, German bandit executed in 1581 for reputedly having killed 544 individuals Franz Schmidt, contemporary executioner for 45 years in Bamberg and Nuremberg, who left a diary detailing his work as executioner. He executed a total of 361 individuals during his career Gesche Gottfried From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Gesche Gottfried (1785–1831) Gesche Margarethe Gottfried, born Gesche Margarethe Timm (6 March 1785 - 21 April 1831), was a serial killer who murdered 15 people by arsenic poisoning in Bremen and Hanover, Germany, between 1813 and 1827. She was the last person to be publicly executed in the city of Bremen. Contents [hide] 1 Psychiatric Profile 2 Modus operandi 3 Gesche Gottfried's victims 4 Arrest, conviction and execution 5 External links Psychiatric Profile[edit] Gottfried was born into a poor family, she had a twin brother, Johann Timm Junior. Her parents, Johann Timm and Gesche Margarethe Timm, always had a preference for her brother. The reasons behind Gottfried's crimes remain unclear and widely debated, but the emotional deprivation she suffered during her childhood and her modus operandi lead to the assumption, that she suffered from 'Munchausen syndrome by proxy', a very common disorder among female serial killers. Gottfried's victims included her parents, her two husbands, her fiancé and her children. Before being suspected and convicted of the murders, she garnered widespread sympathy among the inhabitants of Bremen because so many of her family and friends fell ill and died. Because of her devoted nursing of the victims during their time of suffering, she was known as the "Angel of Bremen" until her murders were discovered. Modus operandi[edit] She used a rat poison called "mouse butter" (in German "Mäusebutter") very common at the time, which consisted of small flakes arsenic mixed in animal fat. She mixed small doses into her victims
food, eventually they started to get sick and Gottfried "friendly, selfless and resignedly" offered to take care of them during their convalescence, while continuing to poison them. During the period of her criminal activity, Gesche Gottfried was considered a model citizen and was well liked in the community. Even after the constant loss of relatives who suffered, it seemed that the friendly, candid and kind Gesche chased a "cloud of misfortune". Her neighbors, moved by the zeal and resignation with caring not only for her family but also her sick friends began to call her "the angel of Bremen". Gesche Gottfried's victims[edit] 1 October 1813: Johann Miltenberg (first husband) 2 May 1815: Gesche Margarethe Timm (mother) 10 May 1815: Johanna Gottfried (daughter) 18 May 1815: Adelheid Gottfried (daughter) 28 June 1815: Johann Timm (father) 22 September 1815: Heinrich Gottfried (son) 1 June 1816: Johann Timm (brother) 5 July 1817: Michael Christoph Gottfried (second husband) 1 June 1823: Paul Thomas Zimmermann (fiancÊ) 21 March 1825: Anna Lucia Meyerholz (music teacher and friend) 5 December 1825: Johann Mosees (neighbor, friend and advisor) 22 December 1826: Wilhelmine Rumpff (landlady) 13 May 1827: Elise Schmidt (daughter of Beta Schmidt) 15 May 1827: Beta Schmidt (friend, maid) 24 July 1827: Friedrich Kleine (friend, creditor; murdered in Hanover) Arrest, conviction and execution[edit] Johann Christoph Rumpff, Gesche's would be twelfth victim, got suspicious after finding small white granules on food she had prepared for him. He confided to his physician, Dr. Luce, who, incidentally, had already attended several of the earlier victims and handed over the substance he had found. Luce was determined that it was arsenic and alerted authorities, but by then Gottfried had already claimed two more victims and had moved to Hannover, where she was withering life of her latest victim, Friedrich Kleine. It was the night of March 6, 1828, the day of her 43rd birthday, when she was arrested. She was sentenced to death by decapitation. She was publicly executed on April 21, 1831. It was the last public execution in the history of Bremen . Gottfried 's deathmask was made to study the facial patterns of criminal women. This is within the field of study of the now obsolete phrenology . External links[edit] Gesche Gottfried in the German National Library catalogue Gesche Gottfried Detention House (German) Gesche Gottfried in Stade (German) Gesche Gottfried's death mask Article about the execution (German) Willibald Alexis / Julius Eduard Hitzig: Kriminalfälle des neuen Pitaval - Gesche Margaretha Gottfried (German) Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 232030731 LCCN: nr99013489 GND: 11869670X Categories: 1785 births1831 deaths1813 crimesPeople from BremenExecuted serial killersExecuted German peopleGerman female serial killersGerman female murderersFilicidesExecuted German womenGerman people convicted of murder19th-century executions by Germany19th-century German criminalsPoisonersPeople executed by Germany by decapitationExecuted people from Bremen (state)Twin people from Germany
Carl Großmann From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Carl Großmann Karl Großmann.jpg Wanted poster Born Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann December 13, 1863 Neuruppin, Germany Died July 5, 1922 (aged 58) Cause of death Suicide by hanging Other names The Berlin Butcher Criminal penalty Death Conviction(s) Assault, child molestation, murder, trespassing, Cannibalism Killings Victims 26–50+ Span of killings 1918–21 August 1921 Country Germany State(s) Berlin Date apprehended 21 August 1921 Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann (13 December 1863 – 5 July 1922), was a German serial killer who cannibalized his victims. He committed suicide while awaiting execution without giving a full confession leaving the extent of his crimes and motives largely unknown. Little is known about Carl Großmann's early life, except that he had sadistic sexual tastes and had several convictions for child molestation. On 21 August 1921 when he was in his mid fifties, Großmann was arrested at his apartment in Berlin after neighbours heard screams and banging noises, followed by silence. The police burst into the apartment, finding on the bed the body of a young woman who had recently been murdered. Großmann was taken into custody and charged with first degree murder. Neighbours reported that he seemed to have had a steady supply of female companions, mostly destitute-looking young women, over the previous few years. Many went into the apartment, but few emerged from it. During World War I, Großmann sold meat on the black market and even had a hotdog stand at a train station near his home. It is believed the meat contained the remains of his victims, their bones and other inedible parts having been thrown into the river. How many lives Großmann took is not known. Only the body of his final victim was found, along with bloodstains in the apartment that indicated at least three other persons had been butchered in the few weeks leading up to his arrest. Some have suggested as many as 50 women entered Großmann's apartment and ended up being murdered, dismembered and eaten by unwitting customers of Großmann's meat business. Carl Großmann was convicted of murder and was sentenced to death. Before his sentence could be carried out, he hanged himself in his own cell.[1] Bibliography[edit] Matthias Blazek (2009), Carl Großmann und Friedrich Schumann – Zwei Serienmörder in den zwanziger Jahren, Ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-8382-0027-9. Horst Bosetzky (2004), Die Bestie vom Schlesischen Bahnhof, Jaron-Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 3-89773-0782. Peter Haining (2005), Cannibal Killers Murderers who kill and eat their victims, chapter: "The Bread And Butter Brides", Magpie Books, UK, ISBN 978-1-84529-792-3.
Maria Tatar (1995), Lustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany, Princeton, NJ (English), ISBN 0691-01590-2. Masters, R.E.L.; Lea, Eduard; Edwardes, Allen, (1963), Perverse Crimes in History: Evolving Concepts of Sadism, Lust-Murder, and Necrophilia from Ancient to Modern Times, NY: Julian Press References[edit] Jump up ^ Blazek (2009), p. 61. See also[edit] Karl Denke Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 101268804 LCCN: no2005086999 GND: 129488135 Stub icon This biographical article related to crime is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Flag of GermanyBiography icon This German biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Categories: 1863 births1922 deathsGerman serial killersMale serial killersPeople from NeuruppinPeople from the Province of BrandenburgSerial killers who committed suicide in prison custodySuicides by hanging in GermanyGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by GermanyGerman people who died in prison custodyPrisoners who died in German detentionGerman prisoners sentenced to deathPrisoners sentenced to death by GermanyPeople convicted of child sexual abuseGerman cannibalsCrime biography stubsGerman people stubs Frank Gust From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living people that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately. Find sources: "Frank Gust" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images (January 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Frank Gust (born May 24, 1969 in Oberhausen) is a German serial killer. He has been dubbed RheinRuhr-Ripper by the media, because his actions show similarities with Jack the Ripper and were mainly committed in the Rhine-Ruhr region in western Germany. Gust is classified as a sexual sadist. At a very young age, he showed a tendency to commit animal abuse. He experienced lust by torturing, killing and gutting animals. At age 13 he broke into morgues to act out his necrophile inclinations. After he was arrested, Gust stated that his greatest desire was to touch the beating heart of a dying woman. Between 1994 and 1998 Gust killed at least four women. His first victim was a 28-year-old hitchhiker from South Africa who lived in the Netherlands and was on a Europe trip. Her decapitated body was found in a forest area near Ede. In 1996 and 1998 Gust killed two prostitutes, whom he had picked up from Essen central station. His presumed last victim was a 47-year-old aunt of his wife. Gust placed the mutilated bodies of his victims in such a way that they could be discovered soon after the murder. However, the body of his aunt-by-marriage has never been found. In 1999 Gust indicated to his mother that he had committed a murder. She told a friend of hers, who informed the police. Gust was arrested shortly afterwards. On September 21, 2000 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing four people. Gust started a therapy which he quit after only six months, stating that he wasn't treatable and would always remain a threat to other people. External links[edit] spiegel.de faz.net
Categories: 1969 birthsLiving people20th-century German criminalsGerman serial killersMale serial killersNecrophilesGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by GermanyGerman prisoners sentenced to life imprisonmentPrisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by GermanyPeople from Oberhausen Fritz Haarmann From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Fritz Haarmann Friedrich Haarmann.jpg Mug shot of Fritz Haarmann, taken after his arrest in June 1924 Born Friedrich Heinrich Karl Haarmann 25 October 1879 Hanover, German Empire Died 15 April 1925 (aged 45) Hanover, Weimar Republic Cause of death Decapitation by guillotine Other names The Butcher of Hanover The Wolf Man The Vampire of Hanover Criminal charge 27 murders Criminal penalty Death Conviction(s) 24 murders Killings Victims 24-27+ Span of killings 25 September 1918–14 June 1924 Country Germany State(s) Province of Hanover, Prussia Date apprehended 22 June 1924 Friedrich Heinrich Karl "Fritz" Haarmann (25 October 1879 – 15 April 1925) was a German serial killer, known as the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover, who committed the sexual assault, murder, mutilation and dismemberment of a minimum of 24 boys and young men between 1918 and 1924 in Hanover, Germany. Described by the judge at his trial as being "forever degraded as a citizen," Haarmann was found guilty of 24 of the 27 murders for which he was tried and sentenced to death by beheading in December 1924.[1] He was subsequently executed in April 1925. Haarmann became known as the Butcher of Hanover (German: Der Schlächter von Hannover) due to the extensive mutilation and dismemberment committed upon his victims' bodies and by such titles as the Vampire of Hanover (der Vampir von Hannover) and the Wolf Man (Wolfsmensch) because of his preferred murder method of biting into or through his victims' throats. Contents [hide] 1 Early life 1.1 Childhood 1.2 Adolescence and first offenses 2 Military service 3 Criminal career 3.1 Police informant 4 Murders 4.1 First known victim 4.2 Acquaintance with Hans Grans
4.3 Subsequent murders 4.4 1924 5 Discoveries 6 Arrest 6.1 Confession 7 Trial 8 Execution 9 Aftermath 10 Victims 10.1 Suspected victims 11 Media 11.1 Film 11.2 Books 12 See also 13 References 14 Cited works and further reading 15 External links Early life[edit] Childhood[edit] Friedrich Heinrich Karl "Fritz" Haarmann was born in Hanover on 25 October 1879, the sixth and youngest child born to Johanna (née Claudius) and Ollie Haarmann.[2] Haarmann's father had little time for his children, whereas his mother spoiled her youngest child.[3] Reportedly, Haarmann's father had married his mother (who was seven years his senior) on account of her wealth. Haarmann Sr. was known to be an argumentative, short-tempered individual who conducted several affairs throughout the duration of his marriage. From his early childhood, Fritz developed a bitter hatred and rivalry towards his father, which would continue until his father's death in 1921. Fritz was a quiet child, with few friends his own age or gender and who seldom socialized with any children other than his siblings outside of school. From an early age, Haarmann's behavior was noticeably effeminate: he was known to shun boys' activities and instead play with his sisters' dolls[4] and dress in their clothes. He also developed a passion for both needlework and cookery. In 1886, Haarmann began his schooling, where he was noted by teachers to be a spoiled and mollycoddled child who was prone to daydreaming. Although his behavior at school was noted to be exemplary, his academic performance was below average and on two occasions, Haarmann had to repeat a school year. On one occasion when he was approximately eight years old,[5] Haarmann was molested by one of his teachers, although he would never discuss this incident in detail. Despite his effeminate traits, Haarmann grew into a trim, physically strong youth. With his parents' consent, he finished his schooling in 1894. Upon leaving school, he briefly obtained employment as an apprentice locksmith before opting, at age 15, to enroll in a military academy in the town of Breisach.[3] His military training began on 4 April 1895. Adolescence and first offenses[edit] Haarmann initially adapted to military life, and performed well as a trainee soldier; however, after five months of military service, he began to suffer periodic lapses of consciousness which would be diagnosed as being "equivalent to epilepsy" in October 1895. The following month, Haarmann discharged himself from the military and returned to Hanover, where he briefly worked in his father's cigar factory. At the age of 16, Haarmann committed his first known sexual offenses; all of which involved young boys whom he would lure to secluded areas—typically cellars—before proceeding to sexually abuse them. He was first arrested for offenses of this nature in July 1896. Following further offenses of this nature, the Division for Criminal Matters opted to place Haarmann in a mental institution in the city of Hildesheim. Although briefly transferred to a Hanover hospital for psychiatric evaluation, he would be certified as "incurably deranged,"[6] and unfit to stand trial by a psychologist named Gurt
Schmalfuss. Schmalfuss ordered Haarmann to be confined at the mental institution indefinitely. Haarmann was returned to the mental institution on 28 May 1897. Seven months later, Haarmann escaped the mental institution. With apparent assistance from his mother, Haarmann fled to Zürich, Switzerland, where he worked for 16 months before he returned to Hanover in April 1899. Early the following year, Haarmann became engaged to a woman named Erna Loewert,[7] who soon became pregnant with his child. (Haarmann's fiancée would later arrange for her first pregnancy to be aborted.) In October 1900, Haarmann received notification to perform his compulsory military service. Military service[edit] On 12 October 1900, Haarmann was deployed to the Alsatian city of Colmar to serve in the Number 10 Rifle Battalion. Throughout his service, Haarmann earned a reputation amongst his superiors as an exemplary soldier and excellent marksman, and he would later describe his period of service with this battalion as being the happiest of his entire life. After collapsing while on exercise with his battalion in October 1901, Haarmann began to suffer dizzy spells, and was subsequently hospitalized for over 4 months. He was later deemed "unsuitable for [military] service and work" and was dismissed from military service in July 1902. Discharged from the military under medical terms, Haarmann was awarded a full military pension (which he would continue to receive until his 1924 arrest for murder).[3] Upon his military discharge, Haarmann returned to live with his fiancée in Hanover, briefly working in the small business his father had established, before unsuccessfully filing a maintenance lawsuit against his father, citing that he was unable to work due to the ailments noted by the military. His father successfully contested Haarmann's suit, and the charges would be dropped. The following year, a violent fight between father and son resulted in Haarmann's father himself unsuccessfully initiating legal proceedings against his son, citing verbal death threats and blackmail as justification to have his son returned to a mental institution. These charges would themselves be dropped due to a lack of corroborating evidence. Nonetheless, Haarmann was ordered to undertake a psychiatric examination in May 1903. This examination was conducted by a Dr. Andrae, who concluded that, although morally inferior, Haarmann was not mentally unstable. With financial assistance from his father, Haarmann and his fiancée opened a fishmongery. Haarmann himself briefly attempted to work as an insurance salesman, before being officially classified as disabled and unable to work[8] by the military in 1904. As a result, his monthly military pension was increased. The same year, his fiancée—pregnant with his child—terminated their engagement. According to Haarmann, this ultimatum had occurred when he had accused his fiancée of conducting an affair. As the fishmongery had been registered in her name,[8] Erna Haarmann simply ordered her husband to leave the premises. Criminal career[edit] For the next decade, Haarmann primarily lived as a petty thief, burglar and con artist. Although he did occasionally obtain legitimate employment, he invariably stole from his employers or their customers. Beginning in 1905, he served several short prison sentences for offenses such as larceny, embezzlement and assault. On one occasion when working legitimately as an invoice clerk, Haarmann became acquainted with a female employee with whom he would later claim to have robbed several tombstones and graves between 1905 and 1913 (he was never charged with these offenses).[9] Nonetheless, Haarmann spent the majority of the years between 1905 and 1912 in jail. In late 1913, Haarmann was arrested for burglary. A search of his home revealed a hoard of stolen property linking him to several other burglaries. Despite protesting his innocence, Haarmann was charged with and convicted of a series of burglaries and frauds. He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for these offenses. Due to compulsory conscription resulting from World War I, Germany saw a shortage of available domestic manpower. In the final years of his prison sentence, Haarmann was permitted to work throughout the day in the grounds of various manor houses near the town of Rendsburg,[10] with instructions to return to prison each evening. Upon his release from prison in April 1918, Haarmann
initially moved to Berlin, before opting to return to Hanover, where he briefly lived with his sister before renting a single room apartment in August 1918. According to Haarmann, he was struck by the poverty of the German nation as a result of the loss the nation had suffered in World War I. Through his initial efforts to both trade and purchase stolen property at Hanover Central Station, Haarmann established several criminal contacts with whom he could trade in contraband property, and he immediately reverted to the criminal life he had lived before his 1913 arrest. Police informant[edit] As a result of the poverty the nation was enduring in the years immediately following World War I, many basic commodities became increasingly scarce and expensive to purchase, fueling an increase in crimes such as theft, assault and murder in addition to a significant increase in black market trading. Due to the peace treaty signed in 1919, Germany had no army, was forbidden to participate in the arms trade, and its police forces—badly paid and overstretched—had limited resources at their disposal. In this environment, police were welcoming of assistance and information from the public. [11] Despite police knowledge that Haarmann was both a known criminal and a known homosexual[12] (then illegal and punishable by imprisonment in Germany), Haarmann gradually began to establish a relationship with Hanover police as an informer, largely as a means of redirecting the attention of the police from himself in his own criminal activities, and to facilitate his access to young males. By 1919, he is known to have regularly patrolled Hanover station,[13] and to have provided police with information relating to Hanover's extensive criminal network. With the cooperation of several police officials, Haarmann devised a ruse whereby he would offer to fence or store stolen property at his premises, then pass this information to police, who would then raid his property at agreed times and arrest these contacts.[14] To remove any suspicion as to his treachery reaching the criminal fraternity, Haarmann himself would be arrested in these raids. Moreover, on numerous occasions, he is known to have performed citizen's arrests upon commuters for offenses such as travelling on forged documents. As a result of these activities, police began to rely on Haarmann as a reliable source of information regarding various criminal activities in the city, and he was allowed to patrol Hanover station largely at will. Murders[edit] Between 1918 and 1924, Haarmann is known to have committed at least 24 murders, although he is suspected of murdering a minimum of 27. All of Haarmann's victims were males between the ages of 10 and 22, the majority of whom were in their mid- to late-teens. The victims would be lured back to one of three addresses in which Haarmann is known to have resided throughout the years he is known to have killed upon the promise of assistance, accommodation, work, or under the pretense of arrest. At Haarmann's apartment, the victim would typically be given food and drink before Haarmann bit into his Adam's apple, often as he was strangled.[15] In many instances, this act would cause the victim to die of asphyxiation, although on several occasions, Haarmann would bite completely through his victims' Adams apple and trachea.[16] (Haarmann would refer to the act of biting through his victims' neck as being his "love bite".)[17] The Leine River, into which Haarmann disposed of many of his victims' dismembered remains All of Haarmann's victims were dismembered before their bodies were discarded, usually in the Leine River, although the dismembered body of his first known victim had simply been buried,[18] and the body of his last victim had been thrown into a lake located at the entrance to the Herrenhausen Gardens. The personal possessions of Haarmann's victims would typically be retained for the personal use of Haarmann or his lover, Hans Grans, or be sold on the black market through criminal contacts both men had established at Hanover Central Station, although the personal possessions of some victims were sold to legitimate retailers. In several instances, both Haarmann and Grans are known to have given possessions belonging to various victims to acquaintances as gifts.[19]
Following Haarmann's arrest, rumors would circulate that the flesh of his victims had been consumed by Haarmann himself or sold upon the black market as pork or horse meat.[20] Although no physical evidence was ever produced to confirm these theories, Haarmann was known to be an active trader in contraband meat,[21] which was invariably boneless, diced and often sold as mince.[22] To the various individuals who questioned where he had acquired the meat, Haarmann would explain he had purchased the product from a butcher named "Karl," although investigators would later note that the stories Haarmann told his acquaintances regarding the origins of this individual varied. First known victim[edit] Haarmann's first known victim was a 17-year-old runaway named Friedel Rothe. When Rothe disappeared on 27 September 1918, his friends told police he was last seen with Haarmann, who at the time of this first known murder resided in a single room apartment at 27 Cellerstraße. Under pressure from Rothe's family, police raided Haarmann's apartment in October 1918, where they found their informer in the company of a semi-naked 13-year-old boy.[23] He was charged with both the sexual assault and battery[24] of a minor, and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. (Haarmann would later state to detectives that at the time they had searched his apartment, the head of Friedel Rothe, wrapped in newspaper, had been stowed behind his stove.)[25] Haarmann avoided serving his sentence throughout 1919. That October, he met an 18-year-old youth named Hans Grans, who had run away from his home in Berlin following an argument with his father on 1 October. Grans had slept rough in and around Hanover station for approximately two weeks before he encountered Haarmann as he (Grans) sold old clothes at Hanover station.[16] Acquaintance with Hans Grans[edit] In his subsequent confessions to police, Grans stated that, although his sexual orientation was heterosexual, he himself initiated contact with Haarmann, with the intention of selling his body, having heard through acquaintances he had established in Hanover of Haarmann's homosexuality. [26] Haarmann himself stated following his arrest that he viewed Grans as being "like a son" to him, adding that he "pulled him [Grans] out of the ditch and tried to make sure he didn't go to the dogs."[27] Shortly after their initial acquaintance, Haarmann invited the youth to move into his apartment, and Grans would subsequently become Haarmann's lover and criminal accomplice.[28] According to Haarmann, although he was smitten with Grans,[27] he gradually became aware the youth manipulated and, occasionally, mocked him. On several occasions throughout the years Grans resided with Haarmann, the youth would be temporarily evicted following heated arguments in which he ridiculed or rebuffed Haarmann's threats or accusations against him, only for Haarmann to shortly thereafter plead with the youth to return to live with him. Despite the manipulation Haarmann endured at the hands of his accomplice, he later claimed to tolerate the capitulation as he craved Grans' companionship and affection,[29] adding: "I had to have someone I meant everything to."[30] Haarmann served the nine-month prison sentence imposed in 1918 for sexual assault and battery between March and December 1920. Upon his release, he again regained the trust of the police and again became an informer. Haarmann initially resided in a hotel, before he and Grans lodged with a middle-class family.[31] Through criminal contacts, Haarmann became aware of a vacant ground floor apartment located at 8 Neue Straße.[32] The apartment was located in a densely populated, old house located alongside the Leine River. Haarmann secured a letting agreement with the landlady, ostensibly to use the property for storage purposes. He and Grans moved into 8 Neue Straße on 1 July 1921. Subsequent murders[edit] Haarmann's subsequent victims largely consisted of young male commuters, runaways and, occasionally, male prostitutes, whom he would typically encounter in or around Hanover's central railway station. The second murder Haarmann is known to have committed occurred on 12 February 1923. The victim was a 17-year-old pianist named Fritz Franke, whom Haarmann had encountered at Hanover Central Station and invited to his Neue Straße residence, where he had introduced the youth to Hans Grans and two female acquaintances (one of whom was Grans' female lover).[33] According to Grans' lover, that evening, Grans had whispered in her ear: "Hey! He's going to be trampled on
today."[34] The following day, both these acquaintances returned to Haarmann's apartment, where they were informed by Haarmann that Franke had travelled to Hamburg. Speculation remains as to Grans' knowledge of Haarmann's intentions towards Franke when he made this comment to the two female acquaintances. According to Haarmann, following this murder, Grans had arrived unannounced at his apartment, where he had observed Franke's nude body lying upon Haarmann's bed. Grans had simply looked at him and asked, "When shall I come back again?"[35] Five weeks after the murder of Franke, on 20 March, Haarmann encountered a 17-year-old named Wilhelm Schulze at Hanover station.[19] Schulze had been travelling to work when he encountered Haarmann. No human remains identified as belonging to Schulze were ever found, although most of his clothing had been in the possession of Haarmann's landlady, Elisabeth Engel, at the time of his arrest. Two more victims are known to have been murdered at 8 Neue Straße before Haarmann vacated the apartment in June: 16-year-old Roland Huch, who disappeared on 23 May after informing a close friend he intended to run away from home and join the Marines; and 19-year-old Hans Sonnenfeld, who disappeared on or about 31 May and whose distinctive yellow overcoat Haarmann is known to have worn after the youth's murder. Police photo of Haarmann's attic room at 2 Rote Reihe, Hanover On 9 June 1923, Haarmann moved into a single-room attic apartment at 2 Rote Reihe. Two weeks after moving into this address, on 25 June, a 13-year-old boy named Ernst Ehrenberg—the son of Haarmann's neighbor—disappeared while running an errand for his father. His school cap and braces would be found in Haarmann's apartment following his arrest.[36] Two months later, on 24 August, an 18-year-old office clerk named Heinrich Struß was reported missing by his aunt (with whom he lived). Many of Struß's belongings would also be found in Haarmann's apartment. Struß's murder would be followed one month later by the murder of a 17-year-old named Paul Bronischewski, who disappeared en route to the city of Bochum, having worked with his uncle in Saxony-Anhalt throughout the summer. Subsequent police enquiries suggested Bronischewski had likely alighted the train at Hanover, whereupon he had encountered Fritz Haarmann. Bronischewski's jacket, knapsack, trousers and towel would all be found in the possession of Haarmann following his arrest. Haarmann is next known to have killed on or about 30 September 1923. The victim was 17-year-old Richard Gräf, who last informed his family he had met an individual at Hanover station who "knows of a good job for me." Two weeks later, on 12 October, a 16-year-old Gehrden youth named Wilhelm Erdner failed to return home from work. Subsequent enquiries by Erdner's parents revealed the youth had become acquainted with a Detective Fritz Honnerbrock (a pseudonym used by Haarmann) shortly before his disappearance. Both Haarmann and Grans subsequently sold Erdner's bicycle on 20 October. Within a week of having sold this bicycle, Haarmann had killed two further victims: 15-yearold Hermann Wolf, who disappeared from Hanover station on 24 October, and 13-year-old Heinz Brinkmann, who was seen by a witness standing in the entrance to Hanover station at 11 p.m. on 27 October, having missed his train home to the town of Clausthal. (Haarmann would deny having killed Hermann Wolf at his trial, and was acquitted of this murder.) On 10 November 1923, a 17-year-old apprentice carpenter from the city of Düsseldorf named Adolf Hannappel disappeared from Hanover station. He was seen by several witnesses sitting upon a trunk in the waiting room. These witnesses also positively identified Hans Grans—in the company of Haarmann—pointing towards the youth, who shortly thereafter was observed walking towards a cafe in the company of these two men. One month later, on 6 December, 19-year-old Adolf Hennies disappeared. He had been seeking employment at the time of his disappearance. None of the human remains recovered were identified as belonging to Hennies, whom Haarmann specifically admitted to dismembering, but denied killing. In subsequent court testimony vehemently disputed by Grans, Haarmann claimed he had returned home to find Hennies's body—missing his signature "love bite"— lying naked on his bed, with Grans and another criminal acquaintance named Hugo Wittkowski stating the youth was, "One of yours." (Neither Haarmann nor Grans were convicted of Hennies's murder due to conflicting testimony.) 1924[edit]
The first victim killed by Haarmann in 1924 was 17-year-old Ernst Spiecker, who disappeared on 5 January. Although subsequent trial testimony from a friend of Spiecker would indicate Haarmann had become acquainted with this youth before his murder, Haarmann stated he would simply have to "assume" this youth was one of his victims due to all his personal possessions being found in his or Grans' possession following his arrest.[37] Ten days later, Haarmann killed a 20-year-old named Heinrich Koch, whom he is also believed to have been acquainted with prior to the youth's murder. The following month, Haarmann is known to have killed two further victims: 19-year-old Willi Senger, who disappeared from the suburb of Linden-Limmer on 2 February, having informed his sister he was to travel with a friend; and 16-year-old Hermann Speichert, who was last seen by his sister on 8 February. Haarmann is not known to have killed again until on or about 1 April, when he is believed to have killed an acquaintance named Hermann Bock. Although cleared of this murder at his trial, Haarmann was in possession of Bock's clothing when arrested, and he is known to have given the youth's suitcase to his landlady; moreover, Haarmann is known to have actively dissuaded several of Bock's acquaintances from reporting the youth missing. One week later, on 8 April, 16-year-old Alfred Hogrefe disappeared from Hanover station, having run away from home in the town of Lehrte on 2 April. Hogrefe's murder would be followed 9 days later by that of a 16-year-old apprentice named Wilhelm Apel, whom Haarmann encountered on his "patrols" of the Hanover-Leinhausen station. On 26 April, 18-year-old Robert Witzel disappeared after borrowing 50 Pfennigs from his mother, explaining he intended to visit a travelling circus.[38] Enquiries by the youth's parents revealed their son had accompanied an "official from the railway station" to the circus. Haarmann himself would later state he had killed Witzel the same evening and, having dismembered the youth's body, had thrown the remains into the Leine River. Two weeks after the murder of Witzel, Haarmann killed a 14-year-old named Heinz Martin, who was last seen by his mother on 9 May and who is believed to have been abducted at Hanover station. All his clothing was later found in Haarmann's apartment. Less than three weeks later, on 26 May, a 17year-old travelling salesman from the town of Kassel named Fritz Wittig, whom Haarmann would later state he had killed upon the insistence of Grans as he had worn a "good new suit" Grans coveted,[39] was dismembered and discarded in the Leine River. The same day Wittig is believed to have been killed, Haarmann killed his youngest known victim, 10-year-old Friedrich Abeling, who disappeared while truanting from school. His murder would be followed less than two weeks later by that of 16-year-old Friedrich Koch, who was approached by Haarmann on 5 June as he walked to college. Two acquaintances of Koch would later testify at Haarmann's trial that, as they walked with Koch to college, Haarmann had approached Koch and tapped the youth on the boot with his walking stick and stated: "Well, boy, don't you recognize me?"[40] Haarmann killed his final victim, 17-year-old Erich de Vries, on 14 June. De Vries had encountered Haarmann at Hanover station. His dismembered body would later be found in a lake located near the entrance to the Herrenhausen Gardens. Haarmann would confess that it had taken him four separate trips to carry de Vries's dismembered remains—carried in the bag which had belonged to Friedrich Koch—to the location he had disposed of them.[41] Discoveries[edit] On 17 May 1924,[42] two children playing near the Leine River discovered a human skull. Determined to be that of a young male aged between 18 and 20 and bearing evidence of knife wounds, police were skeptical as to whether a murder had been committed or whether the skull had either been discarded in this location by grave robbers, or placed there in a tasteless prank by medical students. Furthermore, police theorized the skull may have been discarded in the river at Alfeld, which had recently experienced an outbreak of typhoid.[42] Two weeks later, on 29 May, a second skull was found behind a mill race located close to the scene of the earlier discovery. This skull was also identified as having been that of a young male aged between 18 and 20. Shortly thereafter, two boys playing in a field close to the village of DÜhren discovered a sack containing numerous human bones.
Two more skulls would be found on 13 June: one upon the banks of the Leine River; another located close to a mill in west Hanover. Each of the skulls had been removed from the vertebrae with a sharp instrument. One skull had belonged to a male in his late-teens, whereas the other had belonged to a boy estimated to have been aged between 11 and 13 years old. In addition, one of these skulls also bore evidence of having been scalped. For more than a year prior to these discoveries, rumors had circulated amongst the population of Hanover regarding the fate of the sheer number of children and teenagers who had been reported missing in the city; the discoveries sparked fresh rumors regarding missing and murdered children. In addition, various newspapers responded to these discoveries and the resulting rumors by harking to the disproportionate number of young people who had been reported missing in Hanover between 1918 and 1924. (In 1923 alone, almost 600 teenage boys and young men had been reported missing in Hanover.)[2] On 8 June, several hundred Hanover residents converged close to the Leine River and searched both the banks of the river and the surrounding areas, discovering a number of human bones, which were handed to the police. In response to these latest discoveries, police decided to drag the entire section of the river which ran through the center of the city. In doing so, they discovered more than 500 further human bones and sections of bodies—many bearing knife striations—which were later confirmed by a court doctor as having belonged to at least 22 separate human individuals. Approximately half of the remains had been in the river for some time, whereas other bones and body parts had been discarded in the river more recently. Many of the recent and aged discoveries bore evidence of having been dissected—particularly at the joints. Over 30 percent of the remains were judged to have belonged to young males aged between 15 and 20. Suspicion for the discoveries quickly fell upon Fritz Haarmann, who was known to both the police and the criminal investigation department as a homosexual who had amassed 15 previous convictions dating from 1896 for various offenses including child molestation and the sexual assault and battery of a minor.[24] Moreover, Haarmann had been connected to the 1918 disappearances of Friedel Rothe and a 14-year-old named Hermann Koch (who had disappeared weeks prior to Rothe). Haarmann was placed under surveillance. Being a trusted police informant, Haarmann was known to frequent Hanover Central Station. As he was well-known to many officers from Hanover, two young policemen were drafted from Berlin to pose as undercover officers and discreetly observe his movements. The surveillance of Haarmann began on 18 June 1924. Arrest[edit] On the night of 22 June, Haarmann was observed by the two undercover officers prowling Hanover's central station. He was soon observed arguing with a 15-year-old boy named Karl Fromm, then to approach police and insist they arrest the youth on the charge of travelling upon forged documents. Upon his arrest, Fromm informed police he had been living with Haarmann for four days, and that he had been repeatedly raped by his accuser, sometimes as a knife had been held to his throat. Haarmann was arrested the following morning and charged with sexual assault. Detectives search a stove inside Haarmann's attic room at 2 Rote Reihe Following his arrest. Haarmann's attic apartment at No. 2 Rote Reihe was searched. Haarmann had lived in this single room apartment since June 1923. The flooring, walls and bedding within the apartment were found to be extensively bloodstained.[43] Haarmann initially attempted to explain this fact as a by-product of his illegal trading in contraband meat. Various acquaintances and former neighbors of Haarmann were also extensively questioned as to his activities. Many fellow tenants and neighbors of the various addresses in which Haarmann lived since 1920 commented to detectives about the number of teenage boys they had observed visiting his various addresses. Moreover, some had seen him leaving his property with concealed sacks, bags or baskets—invariably in the late evening or early morning hours.[44] Two former tenants informed police that, in the spring of 1924, they had discreetly followed Haarmann from his apartment and observed him discarding a sack into the Leine River.
The clothes and personal possessions found at Haarmann's apartment and in the possession of his acquaintances were suspected as being the property of missing youths: all were confiscated and put on display at Hanover Police Station, with the parents of missing teenage boys from across Germany invited to look at the items. As successive days passed, an increasing number of items of clothing and personal possessions belonging to missing youths were identified by family members as having belonged to their sons and brothers. Haarmann did initially attempt to dismiss these successive revelations as being circumstantial in nature by explaining he had acquired many of these items through his business of trading in used clothing, with other items being left at his apartment by youths with whom he had engaged in sexual activity. The turning point came when, on 29 June, clothes, boots and keys found stowed at Haarmann's apartment were identified as belonging to a missing 18-year-old named Robert Witzel. A skull which had been found in a garden on 20 May[38] (which had not initially been connected with later skeletal discoveries) had been identified as that of the missing youth. A friend of Witzel identified a police officer seen in the company of the youth the day prior to his disappearance as Fritz Haarmann. Confronted with this evidence, Haarmann briefly attempted to bluster his way out of these latest and most damning pieces of evidence. When Robert Witzel's jacket was found in the possession of his landlady and he was confronted with various witnesses' testimony as to his destroying identification marks upon the clothing, Haarmann broke down and had to be supported by his sister. Confession[edit] Faced with this latest evidence, and upon the urging of his sister,[45] Haarmann confessed to raping, killing and dismembering many young men in what he initially described as a "rabid sexual passion"[45] between 1918 and 1924. According to Haarmann, he had never actually intended to murder any of his victims, but would be seized by an irresistible urge to bite into or through their Adam's apple—often as he manually strangled them—in the throes of ecstasy, before typically collapsing atop the victim's body. Only one victim had escaped from Haarmann's apartment after he had attempted to bite into his Adam's apple, although this individual is not known to have reported the attack to police.[46] All of his victims' bodies had been disposed of via dismemberment shortly after their murder, and Haarmann was insistent that he had found the act of dismemberment extremely unpleasant; he had, he stated, been ill for eight days after his first murder.[47] Nonetheless, Haarmann was insistent that his passion at the moment of murder was invariably "stronger than the horror of the cutting and the chopping" which would inevitably follow, and would typically take up to two days to complete.[48] To fortify himself to dismember his victims' bodies, Haarmann would pour himself a cup of strong black coffee, then place the body of his victim upon the floor of this apartment and cover the face with cloth, before first removing the intestines, which he would place inside a bucket. A towel would then be repeatedly placed inside the abdominal cavity to soak the collecting blood. He would then make three cuts between the victim's ribs and shoulders, then "take hold of the ribs and push until the bones around the shoulders broke."[15] The victim's heart, lungs and kidneys would then be removed, diced, and placed in the same bucket which held the intestines before the legs and arms would be severed from the body. Haarmann would then begin paring the flesh from the limbs and torso. This surplus flesh would be disposed of in the toilet or, usually, in the nearby river. Fritz Haarmann (center) with police detectives, November 1924 The final section of the victims' bodies to be dismembered was invariably the head. After severing the head from the torso, Haarmann would use a small kitchen knife to strip all flesh from the skull, which he would then wrap in rags and place face downwards upon a pile of straw and bludgeon with an axe until the skull splintered, enabling him to access the brain. This he would also place in a bucket, which he would pour, alongside the "chopped up bones" in the Leine River.[21] Haarmann was insistent that none of the skulls found in the Leine River had belonged to his victims, and that the forensic identification of the skull of Robert Witzel was mistaken, as he had almost invariably smashed his victims' skulls to pieces. The exceptions being those of his earliest victims— killed several years prior to his arrest—and that of his last victim, Erich de Vries.[18] Although
insistent that none of his murders had been premeditated, investigators discovered much circumstantial evidence suggesting that several murders had been planned hours or days in advance, and that Haarmann had both concocted explanations for his victims' disappearances and dissuaded acquaintances of his victims from filing missing persons' reports with Hanover police.[49] Investigators also noted that Haarmann would only confess to murders for which there existed evidence against him; on one occasion, Haarmann had stated: "There are some [victims] you don't know about, but it's not those you think." Hans Grans (head bowed) is escorted into court, December 1924 When asked how many victims he had killed, Haarmann claimed, "Somewhere between 50 and 70." The police, however, could only connect Haarmann with the disappearance of 27 youths, and he was charged with 27 murders—some of which he claimed had been committed upon the insistence of Hans Grans, who was charged with being an accessory to murder on 15 July.[50] (In his initial confession to police, Haarmann stated that although Grans knew of many of his murders, and had personally urged him to kill two of the victims in order that he could obtain their clothing and personal possessions, Grans was otherwise not involved in the murder of the victims.) On 16 August 1924, Haarmann underwent a psychological examination at a Göttingen medical school; on 25 September, he was judged competent to stand trial and returned to Hanover to await trial. Trial[edit] The trial of Fritz Haarmann and Hans Grans began on 4 December 1924. Haarmann was charged with the murder of 27 boys and young men who had disappeared between September 1918 and June that year. In 14 of these cases, Haarmann acknowledged his guilt,[48] although he claimed to be uncertain of the identification of the remaining 13 victims upon the list of charges. Grans pleaded not guilty to charges of being an accessory to murder in several of the murders.[51] The trial was conducted behind closed doors,[29] and all permitted to enter the courtroom were thoroughly searched. The trial was one of the first major modern media events in Germany, and received extensive international press coverage as the "most revolting [case] in German criminal history."[39] Varying sensational headlines—in which Haarmann was variously referred to by such titles as the "Butcher of Hanover," the "The Vampire of Hanover," and the "Wolf Man"—continuously appeared in the press. Due to the carnal and graphic nature of the murders, no members of the public were permitted inside the courtroom in the opening days of the trial, as each murder was discussed in detail.[52] Although adamant the ultimate reason he killed was a "mystery" to him,[29] and that he was unable to remember the names or faces of most of his victims, Haarmann—who insisted upon conducting his own defense—readily confessed to having killed many of the victims for whose murder he was tried and to retaining and selling many of their possessions, although he denied having sold any body parts as meat. Haarmann's denial that he had consumed or sold human flesh would be supported by a medical expert, who testified on 6 December that none of the meat found in Haarmann's apartment following his arrest was human.[39] When asked to identify photographs of his victims, Haarmann became taciturn and dismissive as he typically claimed to be unable to recognize any of his victims' photographs; however, in instances where he claimed to be unable to recognize his victims' faces but the victims' clothing had been found in his possession, he would simply shrug and make comments to the effect of, "I probably killed him."[52] For example, when asked to identify a photograph of victim Alfred Hogrefe, Haarmann stated: "I certainly assume I killed Hogrefe, but I don't remember his face."[53] Numerous exhibits were introduced into evidence in the opening days of the trial, including 285 bones and skulls determined as belonging to young men under 20 years of age[54] which had been retrieved from the Leine River, the bucket into which he had stored and transported human remains, and the extensively bloodstained camp bed upon which he had killed many of the victims at his Rote Reihe address.[39] As had been the case when earlier asked whether he could recognize the photographs of any of his victims, Haarmann's demeanour became dismissive upon the introduction of these exhibits; he denied any of the skulls introduced into evidence had belonged to his victims,
stating he had "mashed" the skulls of his victims, and had thrown only one undamaged skull into the river.[55] Several acquaintances and criminal associates of Haarmann testified for the prosecution, including former neighbors who testified to having purchased brawn or mince from Haarmann, whom they noted regularly left his apartment with packages of meat, but rarely arrived with them. Haarmann's landlady, Elisabeth Engel, testified that Haarmann would regularly pour chopped pieces of meat into boiling water and would strain fat from meat he (Haarmann) claimed was pork. This fat would invariably be poured into bottles. On one occasion in April 1924,[20] Haarmann's landlady and her family became ill after eating sausages in skins Haarmann had claimed were sheep's intestines. Another neighbor testified to the alarming number of youths whom he had seen entering Haarmann's Neue StraĂ&#x;e apartment, but whom he seldom observed leaving the address. This neighbor had assumed Haarmann was selling youths to the Foreign Legion;[22] another neighbor testified to having observed Haarmann throw a sack of bones into the Leine River. Two female acquaintances of Hans Grans also testified how, on one occasion in 1923, they had discovered what they believed to be a human mouth boiling in a soup kettle in Haarmann's apartment;[56] these witnesses testified they had taken the item to Hanover police, who had simply replied the piece of flesh may be a pig's snout. (The origins of the contraband meat in which Haarmann had traded were never established.) By the second week of the trial,[57] testimony had begun to focus upon the extent of police knowledge of the criminal activities Haarmann had engaged upon following his 1918 release from prison and issues relating to the trust bestowed upon him.[57] Until Haarmann had been arrested for sexual assault upon Karl Fromm and his apartment had been searched, the police had seemingly never seriously suspected that the individual responsible for the sharp increase in missing person cases relating to boys and young men filed in Hanover in 1923 and 1924, or the discovery of more than 500 human bones in and around the Leine River in May and June 1924, was actually an individual whom they had regarded as a trusted informant, despite the fact some of the victims were last seen in his company, and that he had amassed a lengthy criminal record for various criminal offenses including sexual assault and battery.[58] Haarmann (seated in front of chalkboard sketch of his apartment), during his trial in 1924 The trial lasted barely two weeks, and saw a total of 190 witness called to testify.[48] These witnesses included the parents of the victims, who were asked to identify their sons' possessions. Also called to testify were police officers, psychiatrists and numerous acquaintances of both Haarmann and Grans. On 19 December 1924,[59] court reconvened to impose sentence upon both defendants. Judged sane and accountable for his actions, Haarmann was found guilty of 24 of the 27 murders and sentenced to death by beheading.[60] He was acquitted of three murders which he had denied committing. Upon hearing the sentence, Haarmann stood before the court and proclaimed, "I accept the verdict fully and freely."[61] Grans became hysterical upon hearing he had been found guilty of incitement to murder and sentenced to death by beheading in relation to the murder of victim Adolf Hannappel,[62] with an additional sentence of 12 years' imprisonment for being an accessory to murder in the case of victim Fritz Wittig.[63] Upon returning to his cell after hearing the verdict, Grans collapsed.[64] In the case of Hannappel, several witnesses had testified to having seen Grans, in the company of Haarmann, pointing towards the youth. Haarmann claimed this was one of two murders committed upon the insistence of Grans and for this reason, Grans was sentenced to death. In the case of Wittig, police had found a handwritten note from Haarmann, dated the day of Wittig's disappearance and signed by both he and Grans, in which Grans had agreed to pay Haarmann 20 Goldmarks for the youth's suit. As the note indicated Grans' possible knowledge in the disappearance of Wittig, he was convicted of being an accomplice to Haarmann in this murder and sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment.
Haarmann made no appeal against the verdict;[63] claiming his death would atone for his crimes[65] and stating that, were he at liberty, he would likely kill again. Grans did lodge an appeal against his sentence, although his appeal was rejected on 6 February 1925.[66] "Condemn me to death. I ask only for justice. I am not mad. Make it short; make it soon. Deliver me from this life, which is a torment. I will not petition for mercy, nor will I appeal. I want to pass just one more merry night in my cell, with coffee, cheese and cigars, after which I will curse my father and go to my execution as if it were a wedding."[67] Fritz Haarmann addressing the court prior to his sentencing. December 1924. Execution[edit] At 6 a.m. on the morning of 15 April 1925, Fritz Haarmann was beheaded by guillotine in the grounds of Hanover prison.[68] In accordance with German tradition, Haarmann was not informed of his execution date until the evening prior to his scheduled execution date. Upon receipt of the news, he had observed prayer with his pastor, before being granted his final wishes of expensive cigars to smoke and Brazilian coffee to drink in his cell in his final hours.[69] No members of the press were permitted to witness the execution, and the event was seen by only a handful of witnesses.[69] According to published reports, although Haarmann was pale and nervous, he maintained a sense of bravado as he walked to the guillotine. The last words Haarmann spoke before walking unassisted to the guillotine to be beheaded were: "I am guilty, gentlemen, but, hard though it may be, I want to die as a man."[70] Immediately prior to placing his head upon the execution apparatus, Haarmann added: "I repent, but I do not fear death."[71] Aftermath[edit] Following Haarmann's execution, sections of his brain were removed for forensic analysis. An examination of slices of Haarmann's brain revealed traces of meningitis,[72] although no sections of Haarmann's brain were permanently preserved. Nonetheless, Haarmann's head was preserved in formaldehyde and remained in the possession of the Gรถttingen medical school from 1925 until 2014, when it was cremated.[73] The remains of Haarmann's victims were buried together in a communal grave in Stรถckener Cemetery in February 1925. In April 1928, a large granite memorial in the form of a triptych, inscribed with the names and ages of the victims, was erected over the communal grave.[74] The discovery of a letter from Haarmann declaring Grans' innocence subsequently led to Grans receiving a second trial. This letter was dated 5 February 1925, and was addressed to the father of Hans Grans.[75] In this letter, Haarmann claimed that although he had been frustrated at having been seen as little more than a "meal ticket" by Grans, he (Grans) "had absolutely no idea that I killed". Furthermore, Haarmann claimed many of his accusations against Grans prior to his trial had been obtained under extreme duress, and that he had falsely accused Grans of instigating the murders of Hannappel and Witzel as a means of revenge. Haarmann claimed that his pastor would be informed as to the contents and the authenticity of the letter. Hans Grans was retried in January 1926. He was charged with aiding and abetting Haarmann in the murders of victims Adolf Hannappel and Fritz Wittig. Although Grans had stated in one address to the judge at his second trial that he expected to be acquitted,[76] on 19 January, he was found guilty of aiding and abetting Haarmann in both cases and sentenced to two concurrent 12-year sentences. After serving his 12-year sentence, Hans Grans continued to live in Hanover until his death in 1975. The case stirred much discussion in Germany regarding methods used in police investigation, the treatment of mentally ill offenders, and the validity of the death penalty.[77] However, the most heated topic of discussion in relation to the murders committed by Haarmann were issues relating to the subject of homosexuality, which was then illegal and punishable by imprisonment in Germany. The discovery of the murders subsequently stirred a wave of homophobia throughout Germany, with one historian noting: "It split the [gay rights] movement irreparably, fed every prejudice against homosexuality, and provided new fodder for conservative adversaries of legal sex reform."[78] Victims[edit] 1918
27 September: Friedel Rothe, 17. Encountered Haarmann in a cafe, having run away from home. Haarmann claimed to have buried Rothe in Stöckener cemetery. 1923 12 February: Fritz Franke, 17. Franke was a pianist, originally from Berlin. He encountered Haarmann in the Hanover station waiting rooms. All Franke's personal possessions were given to Grans. 20 March: Wilhelm Schulze, 17. An apprentice writer who last informed his best friend he intended to run away from home. Schulze's clothing was found in the possession of Haarmann's landlady. 23 May: Roland Huch, 16. Huch vanished from Hanover station after running away from home. His clothing was traced to a lifeguard who testified at Haarmann's trial he had obtained them via Haarmann. c. 31 May: Hans Sonnenfeld, 19. A runaway from the suburb of Limmer who is known to have associated with acquaintances at Hanover station. Sonnenfeld's coat and tie were found at Haarmann's apartment.[79] 25 June: Ernst Ehrenberg, 13. The first known victim killed at Haarmann's Rote Reihe address. Ehrenberg was the son of Haarmann's own neighbor. He never returned home after running an errand for his parents. 24 August: Heinrich Struß, 18. A carpenter's son from the suburb of Egestorf. Struß was last seen at a Hanover cinema. Haarmann was in possession of the youth's violin case when arrested. 24 September: Paul Bronischewski, 17. Vanished as he travelled home to the city of Bochum after visiting his uncle in Groß Garz. He was offered work by Haarmann when he alighted the train at Hanover. c. 30 September: Richard Gräf, 17. Disappeared after telling his family a detective from Hanover had found him a job. Haarmann's landlady is known to have pawned Gräf's overcoat.[80] 12 October: Wilhelm Erdner, 16. A locksmith's son from the town of Gehrden. Erdner disappeared as he cycled to work. Haarmann is known to have sold Erdner's bicycle on 20 October. 24 October: Hermann Wolf, 15. Wolf was last seen by his brother in the vicinity of Hanover station; his belt buckle was later found in Haarmann's apartment,[81] although Haarmann would deny having killed Wolf at his trial. Haarmann was acquitted of this murder. 27 October: Heinz Brinkmann, 13. Vanished from Hanover station after missing his train home to Clausthal. A witness would later testify to having seen Haarmann and Grans conversing with Brinkmann in the waiting rooms at Hanover station.[82] 10 November: Adolf Hannappel, 17. One of the few murder victims whom Haarmann readily confessed to killing.[83] Hannappel was seen by several witnesses sitting in the waiting rooms at Hanover station; all of whom would later testify to having seen Haarmann approach Hannappel. Haarmann would himself claim to have committed this murder upon the urging of Hans Grans. 6 December: Adolf Hennies, 19. Hennies disappeared while looking for work in Hanover; his coat was found in the possession of Hans Grans. Haarmann would claim at his trial that, although he had dismembered Hennies's body, Grans and another acquaintance had been responsible for this murder. [17] Haarmann was acquitted of this murder. The communal grave of Haarmann's victims 1924 5 January: Ernst Spiecker, 17. Last seen by his mother on his way to appear as a witness at a trial. Grans was wearing Spiecker's shirt at the time of his arrest. 15 January: Heinrich Koch, 20. Although Haarmann claimed to be unable to recognize a photo of Koch, the youth was known to be an acquaintance of his. Koch's clothing and personal possessions had been given to the son of Haarmann's landlady. 2 February: Willi Senger, 19. Senger had known Haarmann prior to his murder. Although Haarmann initially denied any involvement in the youth's disappearance, police established Haarmann had regularly worn Senger's coat after the youth had vanished.
8 February: Hermann Speichert, 16. An apprentice electrician from Linden-Limmer. Speichert's clothing is known to have been sold by the son of Haarmann's landlady; his geometry kit was given to Grans as a gift. c. 1 April: Hermann Bock, 22. Bock was a labourer from the town of Uelzen, who had known Haarmann since 1921. He was last seen by his friends walking towards Haarmann's apartment. Although Haarmann was wearing Bock's suit when arrested, he was acquitted of this murder. 8 April: Alfred Hogrefe, 16. Ran away from home on 2 April following a family argument. He was repeatedly seen in the company of Haarmann at Hanover station in the days prior to his murder. All of Hogrefe's clothes were traced to Haarmann, Grans, or Haarman's landlady.[84] 17 April: Wilhelm Apel, 16. Disappeared on his way to work; Apel was lured from the HanoverLeinhausen station to Haarmann's apartment. Much of his clothing had been sold by Haarmann's landlady. 26 April: Robert Witzel, 18. Last seen visiting a travelling circus; Witzel's skull was found May 20. The remainder of his body had been thrown into the Leine River. 9 May: Heinrich Martin, 14. An apprentice locksmith from the city of Chemnitz. His leather marine cap, shirt and cardigan were all found in Haarmann's apartment. It is speculated that Martin disappeared from Hanover station while looking for work.[85] 26 May: Fritz Wittig, 17. A 17-year-old travelling salesman from the town of Kassel. According to Haarmann, he had not wanted to kill Wittig, but had been persuaded to "take the boy" by Grans, who coveted Wittig's suit. 26 May: Friedrich Abeling, 10. The youngest victim. Abeling disappeared while playing truant from school. His skull was found in the Leine River on 13 June. 5 June: Friedrich Koch, 16. Vanished on his way to college. Koch was last seen by two acquaintances in the company of Haarmann.[86] 14 June: Erich de Vries, 17. De Vries disappeared after informing his parents he intended to go for a swim in the Ohe River. Following his arrest, Haarmann led police to his dismembered skeletal remains, which he had discarded in a lake located at the entrance to the Herrenhausen Gardens.[18] Footnotes Haarmann was acquitted of three murders at his trial: those of Adolf Hennies, Hermann Wolf, and Hermann Bock. In each instance, strong circumstantial evidence existed attesting to his guilt. In the case of Hermann Wolf, police established that prior to the youth's disappearance, he had informed his father he had conversed with a detective at Hanover station. Haarmann is known to have given many of Wolf's clothes to his landlady in the days immediately following his 44th birthday (shortly after Wolf was reported missing).[81] Moreover, the youth's distinctive belt buckle was found at Haarmann's Rote Reihe address. Haarmann only chose to deny this murder midway through his trial, following heated threats made against him by the father of the murdered youth. Haarmann was acquitted of the murder of Adolf Hennies due to conflicting testimony regarding the circumstances as to whether he or Grans had actually murdered the youth. Although Haarmann admitted at his trial to having dismembering the Hennies's body, he claimed to have returned to his apartment and "found a dead body lying there," to which, he claimed, Grans had simply replied, "One of yours." Grans would deny this claim, and would state that he had bought Hennies's distinctive coat from Haarmann, who had warned him the coat was stolen. Due to this conflicting testimony, and the lack of an actual witness to the murder, neither Haarmann nor Grans were convicted of Hennies's murder. In the case of Hermann Bock, several friends of Bock testified at Haarmann's trial that, prior to his arrest, they had been dissuaded from filing a missing person report upon the youth with police; these witnesses testified that Haarmann was insistent on filing the report himself (he had never done so). Other witnesses testified to having acquired various personal possessions belonging to the youth from Haarmann. In addition, a tailor testified at Haarmann's trial to having been asked by Haarmann to alter the suit. Haarmann repeatedly contradicted himself regarding his claims as to how he had acquired the youth's possessions. It is likely that Haarmann chose to deny this murder due to evidence suggesting the murder had been premeditated, as opposed to being committed in the
throes of passion. He had known the youth for several years prior to his murder, and Bock was known to be heterosexual. Due to his denial of having committed this particular murder, Haarmann was acquitted. Suspected victims[edit] In September 1918,[24] Haarmann is believed to have killed a 14-year-old named Hermann Koch; a youth who disappeared just weeks prior to Friedel Rothe, his first confirmed victim. Haarmann is known to have kept company with Koch; he is also known to have written a letter to Koch's school providing an explanation for the youth's prolonged absence.[87] As had been the case in the disappearance of Friedel Rothe, police had searched Haarmann's Cellerstraße apartment in search of the youth, although no trace of Koch was found and charges against Haarmann in relation to the disappearance were dropped. Koch's father had petitioned in 1921 for Haarmann to be tried for his son's murder; however, his requests were officially rejected.[87] Haarmann is also strongly suspected of the murder of Hans Keimes, a 17-year-old Hanover youth who was reported missing on 17 March 1922[87] and whose nude, bound body was found in a canal on 6 May. The cause of death was listed as strangulation, and the body bore no signs of mutilation. A distinctive handkerchief bearing Grans' name was found lodged in Keimes's throat. Prior to the discovery of Keimes's body, Haarmann is known to have both visited the youth's parents offering to locate their son and to have immediately thereafter informed police that he believed Grans was responsible for Keimes's disappearance. (Hans Grans is known to have been in custody at the time of the disappearance of Keimes.) Two weeks prior to the disappearance of Keimes, Haarmann had returned to his Neue Straße apartment, having served six months in a labour camp for several acts of theft he had committed in August 1921. Upon his return, Haarmann discovered that Grans had stolen much of his personal property and fraudulently obtained and spent his military pension while he had been incarcerated. This resulted in a violent argument between the two men, culminating in Haarmann evicting Grans. Shortly thereafter, Grans and a criminal acquaintance named Hugo Wittkowski had returned to and further ransacked the apartment. It is likely Haarmann committed this murder in an attempt to frame Grans in reprisal for the theft of his property and pension. Haarmann was not tried for the murder of either Koch or Keimes. Officially, both cases remain unsolved. The true tally of Haarmann's victims will never be known. Following his arrest, Haarmann made several imprecise statements regarding both the actual number of his victims he had killed, and when he had begun killing. Initially, Haarmann claimed to have killed "maybe 30, maybe 40"[88] victims. Later, he would claim the true number of victims he had killed was between 50 and 70. Investigators noted that he would only confess to murders for which sufficient evidence existed of his guilt. Of the 400 items of clothing found in Haarmann's apartment, only 100 were ever identified as having belonged to any of his known victims. Poster of Fritz Lang's 1931 film M Media[edit] Film[edit] The first film to draw inspiration from the Haarmann case, M, was released in 1931. Directed by Fritz Lang, M starred Peter Lorre as a fictional child killer named Hans Becker. In addition to drawing inspiration from the case of Fritz Haarmann, M was also inspired by the then-recent and notorious crimes of Peter Kürten and Carl Großmann. The film The Tenderness of the Wolves (Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe) was directly based upon Haarmann's crimes. This film was released in July 1973 and was directed by Ulli Lommel. The Tenderness of the Wolves was both written by and starred Kurt Raab, who cast himself as Fritz Haarmann.[89] German film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder produced the film and also appeared in a minor role as Haarmann's criminal accomplice, Hugo Wittkowski. The most recent film to be based upon Haarmann's murder spree, Der Totmacher (The Deathmaker), was released in 1995. This film starred Götz George as Haarmann. Der Totmacher focuses upon the
written records of the psychiatric examinations of Haarmann conducted by Ernst Schultze; one of the main psychiatric experts who was to testify at Haarmann's 1924 trial. The plot of Der Totmacher centers around Haarmann's interrogation after his arrest, as he is being interviewed by a court psychiatrist.[90] Books[edit] Cawthorne, Nigel; Tibbels, Geoffrey (1993) Killers: The Ruthless Exponents of Murder ISBN 0-75220850-0 Lane, Brian; Gregg, Wilfred (1992) The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers ISBN 978-0-747-23731-0 Lessing, Theodor (1925) Monsters of Weimar: Haarmann, the Story of a Werewolf ISBN 1-897743-106 Wilson, Colin; Wilson, Damon (2006) The World's Most Evil Murderers: Real-Life Stories of Infamous Killers ISBN 978-1-405-48828-0 See also[edit] Capital punishment in Germany List of serial killers by country List of serial killers by number of victims Weimar Republic Erwin Hagedorn From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Forest area where the first victims were found Hans Erwin Hagedorn (born 30 January 1952 in Eberswalde; died 15 September 1972 in Leipzig) was a German child murderer. On May 31, 1969 Hagedorn killed two nine-year-old boys in a forest in Eberswalde with a knife. The bodies were found two weeks later. Extensive investigations were commenced, with a psychological offender profile being assembled and the Ministry for State Security obtaining documents about the case of West German child murderer Jürgen Bartsch. However, first investigations were not successful. More than two years later, on 7 October 1971, Hagedorn killed a twelve-year-old boy in the same area and in the same way he had killed his first two victims. Shortly afterwards the decisive clue came from a boy who reported to have been sexually harassed in the year before the first murders took place. Erwin Hagedorn was arrested on 12 November 1971 and immediately confessed to the murders. In May 1972 Hagedorn was sentenced to death. An appeal for clemency was denied by Head of State Walter Ulbricht. The 20-year-old Hagedorn was executed by a single shot in the back of the neck on September 15, 1972. His body was cremated and buried in a secret place.[1] Documentary Film[edit] Die großen Kriminalfälle: Tod einer Bestie – Der Fall Hagedorn, 2001 (German) Literature[edit] Werremeier, Friedhelm: Der Fall Heckenrose, Bertelsmann, München / Gütersloh / Wien 1975, ISBN 3-570-00492-9. Brückweh, Kerstin: Mordlust. Serienmorde, Gewalt und Emotionen im 20. Jahrhundert. : Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York, NY 2006, ISBN 978-3-593-38202-9. Mittmann, Wolfgang: „Tatzeit. Große Fälle der deutschen Volkspolizei. Band 1 und 2“, Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2000, S. 445-508, ISBN 3-360-00895-2. Fritz Honka From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (November 2012) Click [show] for important translation instructions. [show] This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Fritz Friedrich Paul Honka (31 July 1935 – 19 October 1998) was a German serial killer. Between 1970 and 1975, he killed at least four prostitutes from Hamburg's red light district, keeping the bodies in his flat. At 5 ft 5 in (1.65 m), Fritz Honka was extremely sensitive about his height. He liked his women shorter, and he also liked them toothless, to alleviate his fears of mutilation during oral sex. He found relief with aging prostitutes from Hamburg's red light district, killing at least four of them in his small attic room in the Zeißstraße 74 of Ottensen, Hamburg. Disposal was a problem, given Honka's size and basic laziness. He kept the bodies in his flat, and fortified himself with alcohol against the stench. When neighbours griped about unpleasant smells, he doused the place with quarts of cheap deodorant. On 15 July 1975, the mummified remains were found by firemen after a fire in the house. Honka was not present, being on shift as a night watchman. He was arrested when he returned home. In custody, Honka said he killed the women after they mocked his preference for oral sex over "straight" intercourse. He was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment, significantly milder than the prosecutors recommendations. The court found him guilty of one case of murder and three cases of manslaughter. His habitual abuse of alcohol was considered a mitigating factor, as it has seen as a cause for diminished mental capacity.[1] Honka was released from prison in 1993 and spent his last years under the name of Peter Jensen in a nursing home. He died in a hospital in Langenhorn, Hamburg on 19 October 1998. Legacy[edit] In 1975, German musician Karl-Heinz Blumenberg recorded the black humor single Gern hab ich die Frau'n gesägt ("How I loved to see-saw all those women", a titular reference to the 1920s Schlager Gern hab ich die Frau'n geküßt, "How I loved to kiss all those women", sung by Richard Tauber) under the pseudonym of Harry Horror, in reference to Honka. The song quickly became an underground hit in Hamburg clubs, but Blumenberg's record company RCA Records refused to officially release it due to its controversial theme. German director Andreas Schnaas has said that his film Violent Shit (1989) series is very loosely based on the exploits of Honka, who is mentioned in Violent Shit II, which states he was once cellmates with the fictional serial killer Karl Berger. Joachim Kroll From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Joachim Kroll Born Joachim Georg Kroll 17 April 1933 Hindenburg O.S, Oberschlesien, Nazi Germany Died 1 July 1991 (aged 58) Rheinbach, Germany Cause of death Heart attack Other names The Ruhr Cannibal (Ruhrkannibale) The Ruhr Hunter (Ruhrjäger)
Rollstuhl Funf (Fifth Wheelchair) The Duisburg Man-Eater (Duisburger Menschenfresser) Uncle Joachim (Onkel Joachim) Criminal penalty Life imprisonment Conviction(s) Attempted murder, Murder Killings Victims 14 Span of killings 8 February 1955–3 July 1976 Country Germany State(s) North Rhine-Westphalia Date apprehended 3 July 1976 Joachim Georg Kroll (17 April 1933 – 1 July 1991) was a German serial killer, child molester and cannibal. He was known as the Ruhr Cannibal (Ruhrkannibale), Ruhr Hunter (Ruhrjäger) and the Duisburg Man-Eater (Duisburger Menschenfresser). He was convicted of eight murders but confessed to a total of 14. Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Crimes 2.1 List of victims 2.2 Method 2.3 Capture 2.4 Trial and death 3 References 4 External links Early life[edit] Born the son of a miner in Hindenburg (Zabrze), Province of Upper Silesia, Kroll was the sixth of nine children. He was a weak child and used to wet the bed. His education was poor, only reaching Grade 3 (psychiatrists found he had an IQ of 76). After the end of World War II, during which his father was a prisoner of war, Kroll's family moved to North Rhine-Westphalia. Crimes[edit] He began killing in 1955, after his mother died. Around 1960, Kroll went to Duisburg and found work as a toilet attendant for Mannesmann. Afterwards he worked for Thyssen Industries and moved to 24 Friesen street, Laar, a district of Duisburg. At that time he resumed killing people. List of victims[edit] 8 February 1955 – Irmgard Strehl, 19, raped and stabbed to death. Her disemboweled body was found in a barn in Lüdinghausen. 1956 – Erika Schuletter, 12, raped and strangled in Kirchhellen which is now part of Bottrop. 16 June 1959 – Klara Frieda Tesmer, 24, murdered in the meadows of the Rhine, near Rheinhausen. A mechanic, Heinrich Ott, was arrested for the crime. He hanged himself in jail. 26 July 1959 – Manuela Knodt, 16, raped and strangled in the City Park of Essen. Slices of flesh were carved from her buttocks and thighs. 23 April 1962 – Petra Giese, 13, raped and strangled in Dinslaken-Bruckhausen. Vinzenz Kuehn is arrested and convicted. 4 June 1962 – Monika Tafel, 12, killed in Walsum, slices of flesh carved from her buttocks. Walter Quicker is arrested for the crime. He is released but is driven by neighbors to suicide in October. 3 September 1962 – Barbara Bruder, 12, abducted in Burscheid. Her body was never found.
22 August 1965 – Hermann Schmitz and his girlfriend Marion Veen were attacked as they sat in a car in a lover's lane in Duisburg-Großenbaum. Hermann—Kroll's only male victim—was killed, but Veen escaped. 13 September 1966 – Ursula Rohling, strangled in Foersterbusch Park near Marl. Her boyfriend Adolf Schickel committed suicide after being falsely accused of the crime. 22 December 1966 – Ilona Harke, aged 5, raped and drowned in a ditch in Wuppertal. 12 July 1969 – Maria Hettgen, 61, raped and strangled at Hückeswagen. 21 May 1970 – Jutta Rahn, 13, strangled walking home from a train station. Peter Schay was arrested and eventually released. He confessed to the crime in 1976 after being hounded by his neighbors. 8 May 1976 – Karin Toepfer, 10, raped and strangled in Voerde. 3 July 1976 – Marion Ketter, 4. Parts of her body were in the process of being simmered when Kroll was arrested. Method[edit] Kroll was very particular about where he killed, only killing in the same place on a few occasions years apart. This, and the fact that there were a number of other killers operating in the area at the time, helped him to evade capture. Kroll would surprise his victims and strangle them quickly. Afterward he would strip the body and have intercourse with it, often masturbating over it again. He would then mutilate and cut off pieces to be eaten later. Upon returning home, he would have intercourse again with a rubber sex doll he had for this purpose.[1] Capture[edit] On 3 July 1976, Kroll was arrested for kidnapping and killing a four-year-old girl named Marion Ketter. As police went from home to home, a neighbor approached a policeman and told him that the wastepipe in his apartment building had blocked up, and when he had asked his neighbor, Kroll, whether he knew what had been blocking the pipe, Kroll had simply replied; "Guts". Upon this report, the police went up to Kroll's apartment and found the body of the Ketter girl cut up: some parts were in the refrigerator, a small hand was cooking in a pan of boiling water and the entrails were found stuck in the waste-pipe. Kroll was immediately arrested. Trial and death[edit] He admitted killing Marion Ketter and gave details of 13 other murders and one attempted murder over the previous two decades. Kroll said that he often sliced portions of flesh from his victims to cook and eat them, claiming that he did this to save on his grocery bills. In custody, he believed that he was going to get a simple operation to cure him of his homicidal urges and would then be released from prison. Instead he was charged with eight murders and one attempted murder. In April 1982, after a 151-day trial, he was convicted on all counts and was given life sentence. He died of a heart attack in 1991 in the prison of Rheinbach. References[edit] Stephan Harbort, "Ich musste sie kaputtmachen". Anatomie eines Jahrhundertmörders; Düsseldorf (Droste) 2004 (ISBN 3-7700-1174-0) Dunning, John (1992). "Little Girl Stew". Strange Deaths. City: Mulberry Editions. ISBN 1-873123-13-2. Jump up ^ Dunning, John (1992). Strange Deaths. Mulberry Editions. pp. 218–219. ISBN 1-873123-132. External links[edit] Thomas Meiser; http://www.thomas-meiser.de/tcrime/kroll.htm The Jockel Project by DDV Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 50293079 GND: 12894627X Categories: 1933 births1991 deathsPeople convicted of child sexual abuseGerman serial killersMale serial killersGerman rapistsPeople from ZabrzePeople from the Province of Upper SilesiaGerman cannibalsGerman murderers of childrenGerman prisoners sentenced to life imprisonmentGerman people who died in prison custodyPrisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by GermanyPrisoners
who died in German detentionGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by GermanySerial killers who died in prison custodyGerman sex offenders Peter Kürten From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Peter Kürten Bundesarchiv Bild 102-11502, Polizeiaufnahme eines Massenmörders.jpg Mugshot of Peter Kürten taken in 1931 Born Peter Kürten May 26, 1883 Mülheim am Rhein, Germany Died July 2, 1931 (aged 48) Cologne, Germany Cause of death Decapitation by guillotine Other names The Vampire of Düsseldorf The Düsseldorf Monster Criminal penalty Death Motive Sexual gratification / to "strike back at oppressive society" Conviction(s) Arson Attempted murder Burglary Theft Murder Killings Victims Murders: 9 (or more) Attempted: 20 (or more) Sexual assaults: unknown Span of killings 26 May 1913–7 November 1929 Country Germany State(s) Rhine Province, Prussia Date apprehended May 24, 1930 Peter Kürten (26 May 1883 – 2 July 1931) was a German serial killer known as both The Vampire of Düsseldorf and the Düsseldorf Monster, who committed a series of murders and sexual assaults between February and November 1929 in the city of Düsseldorf. In the years prior to these assaults, Kürten had amassed a lengthy criminal record for offenses including arson, theft and attempted murder. He also confessed to the 1913 murder of a 9-year-old girl in Mülheim am Rhein. Kürten became known as both the The Vampire of Düsseldorf and the Düsseldorf Monster because the majority of his murders were committed in and around the city of Düsseldorf. He was considered a vampire because he drank the blood of a killed swan in December 1929 and he also made attempts to drink the blood of some of his human victims. Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Murders 3 Trial and execution 4 Analysis 5 Cultural references 6 Further reading 7 References
Early life[edit] Peter Kürten was born into a poverty-stricken, abusive family in Mülheim am Rhein, the third eldest of thirteen children. As a child, he witnessed his alcoholic father repeatedly sexually assault his mother and his sisters. He engaged in petty crime from a young age, and he was a frequent runaway. He later claimed to have committed his first murders at the age of nine, when he drowned two young boys with whom he had been swimming. Kürten moved with his family to Düsseldorf in 1894, and from 1899 he received a number of short prison sentences for various crimes, including theft and arson. Kürten progressed from torturing animals to attacks on people. He committed his first recorded murder in 1913, strangling a 9-year-old girl, Christine Klein, during the course of a burglary. He managed to get away undiscovered. His crimes were halted by an eight-year prison sentence for several more burglaries, which kept him out of World War I. In 1921, he was released and moved to Altenburg, where he married two years later. In 1925, he returned with his wife to Düsseldorf, where he began the series of crimes that would end with his capture, trial, death sentence, and subsequent execution. Murders[edit] On 2 February 1929, he assaulted a woman; on 9 February he molested and murdered a nine-yearold girl. On 13 February, he murdered a middle-aged mechanic, stabbing him 20 times. Kürten did not commit another deadly attack for six months, until 11 August when he raped and killed a woman. In the early morning of 21 August he stabbed three people in separate attacks within 15 minutes. Three days later he murdered two girls, aged five and 14, and stabbed another woman on 25 August. On 29 September, he committed rape and murder, brutally beating a servant girl with a hammer in a wooded area outside of Düsseldorf. On 11 October, he attacked a woman with a hammer, raped her and left her for dead. On 25 October, he attacked two women with a hammer; both survived. On 7 November, he murdered a five-year-old girl by strangling and stabbing her multiple times with scissors. Various times he sent a map to a local newspaper or the local police disclosing the location of one of his victims' graves. The variety of victims and murder methods gave police the impression that more than one killer was at large: the police had over 900,000 different names on their potential suspect list. The November murder was Kürten's last, although he did engage in a spate of non-fatal hammer attacks from February to March 1930. In May, he accosted a young woman named Maria Butlies; he initially took her to his home, and then to the Grafenberger Woods, where he raped (but did not kill) her. Butlies led the police to Kürten's home. He avoided the police, but confessed to his wife, knowing that his identity was known by the police. On 24 May, he was located and arrested. Kürten also admitted to drinking the blood of at least one of his victims.[1] Trial and execution[edit] Peter Kürten was charged with nine murders and seven attempted murders. He went on trial in April 1931. He initially pleaded not guilty, but after some weeks changed his plea. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. As Kürten was awaiting execution, he was interviewed by Dr. Karl Berg, whose interviews and accompanying analysis of Kürten formed the basis of his book, The Sadist. Kürten stated to Berg that his primary motive was one of sexual pleasure. The number of stab wounds varied because it sometimes took longer to achieve orgasm; the sight of blood was integral to his sexual stimulation as evidenced by his final words: "Tell me—after my head is chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures." Kürten was executed on 2 July 1931 by guillotine in Cologne.[2] Analysis[edit] Peter Kürten told the legal examiners that his primary motive was to "strike back at oppressive society." He did not deny that he had sexually molested his victims, but during his trials he always claimed that was not his primary motive.
In 1931, scientists examined irregularities in Kürten's brain in an attempt to explain his personality and behavior. His head was dissected and mummified and is currently on display at the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.[3] Cultural references[edit] Fritz Lang's 1931 film M, in which a serial child killer terrorizes a German city, is often said to have been based upon Kürten, but Lang denied that Kürten was an influence. Because of the similarities between Kürten and the film's villain, Hans Beckert, the film was called The Vampire of Dusseldorf in some countries,[4] even though it is set in Berlin. Julius Ševčík filmed a movie Normal (2009) about Kürten. Kürten is played by Slovak actor Milan Kňažko. The first biopic about Kürten was Robert Hossein's The Secret Killer (Le Vampire de Düsseldorf, 1965). [5] Singer/songwriter Randy Newman wrote a song about Kürten titled "In Germany Before the War" for his 1977 album Little Criminals. Playwright Anthony Neilson's work Normal: The Düsseldorf Ripper (1991) is a fictional account of Kürten's life, as told from the point of view of his defense lawyer. It was adapted for the screen as Angels Gone, and was also released under the title Normal. Kim Newman included Kürten as a minor character in his novel The Bloody Red Baron (1995),[6] making the non-veteran Kürten a "batman" (military servant) to Manfred von Richthofen, the World War I flying ace known as the "Red Baron". Doom Metal band Church of Misery released a track in 2013 called "The Düsseldorf Monster", based on Kürten, in their album, Thy Kingdom Scum.[7] The power electronics band Whitehouse recorded an album bizarrely Dedicated to Peter Kürten. Macabre, a death metal/grindcore band from Chicago, included a track called "Vampire of Dusseldorf" in their 1993 album Sinister Slaughter. In British author D.M. Thomas's novel The White Hotel (1981), female protagonist Lisa Edman is strongly affected by Kürten's crimes and subsequent execution. Further reading[edit] The Monster of Dusseldorf: The Life and Trial of Peter Kürten by Margaret Seaton Wagner, 1932. The Sadist by Karl Berg, 1945. Peter Kurten: A Study In Sadism by George Godwin 1938. Der Fall Kürten. Sachdarstellung und Betrachtungen by Otto Steiner (prosecutor) and Willy Gay (chief of Cologne police) 1957. References[edit] Jump up ^ Philbin, Tom; Philbin, Michael (2009-01-01). The Killer Book of Serial Killers: Incredible Stories, Facts and Trivia from the World of Serial Killers. Sourcebooks, Inc. ISBN 9781402241628. Jump up ^ About the decapitation by executioner Carl Gröpler read in detail: Blazek, Matthias, Scharfrichter in Preußen und im Deutschen Reich 1866-1945, Stuttgart 2010, p. 74 f. Jump up ^ Raphael, Lutz; Tenorth, Heinz-Elmar, Ideen als gesellschaftliche Gestaltungskraft im Europa der Neuzeit – Beiträge für eine erneuerte Geistesgeschichte, Ed. 20, Berlin 2006, p. 432. Jump up ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022100/releaseinfo?ref_=tt_dt_dt#akas Jump up ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058922/. Jump up ^ Kim Newman (1995). Anno Dracula. The Bloody Red Baron. London: Titan Books. p. 203. ISBN 978-085-768-0846. Jump up ^ http://www.metalblade.com/us/releases/church-of-misery-thy-kingdom-scum/ Lane, Brian and Gregg, Wilfred (1992). The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. Berkley Books. Fuchs, Christian [1996] (2002). Bad Blood. Creation Books. Cummins, Joseph S. (2001). "Cannibals: Shocking True Tales of the Last Taboo on Land and at Sea." Lyons Press. Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 47565783 LCCN: n88229389 ISNI: 0000 0000 6153 1690 GND: 119173581 SUDOC: 035799617 BNF: cb13337346j (data)
Categories: 1883 births1931 deaths20th-century German criminalsBurglarsExecuted people from North Rhine-WestphaliaExecuted serial killersGerman arsonistsPeople executed by Germany by decapitationGerman murderers of childrenGerman people convicted of murderExecuted German peopleGerman rapistsGerman serial killersMale serial killersPeople convicted of attempted murderPeople convicted of theftPeople executed by guillotinePeople executed by the Weimar RepublicPeople from ColognePeople from the Rhine ProvinceVampirism (crime) Stephan Letter From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Stephan Letter Born 17 September 1978 (age 38) Herdecke, North Rhine-Westphalia Criminal penalty Life imprisonment Conviction(s) Murder, manslaughter Killings Victims 29 or more Span of killings January 2003–July 2004 Country Germany Date apprehended July 29, 2004 Imprisoned at 2006 Stephan Letter (born 17 September 1978) is a German former nurse and serial killer known to be responsible for the killings of at least 29 patients while he worked at a hospital in Sonthofen, Bavaria between January 2003 and July 2004. The acts have been described as Germany's largest number of killings since World War II.[1] Biography[edit] Letter was a nurse at a hospital that treated a large elderly population.[2] During his employment from January 2003 to July 2004, a pattern of more than 80 deaths occurred on his shifts.[3] Officials exhumed the bodies of more than 40 patients, but another 38 had already been cremated. Letter became a suspect after officials learned that large quantitites of drugs, including the muscle relaxant lysthenon, had gone missing from the hospital.[2] Unsealed medication vials were found in Letter's apartment.[4] In February 2006, Letter was brought to trial for the deaths of 29 patients. Charges included 16 counts of murder, 12 counts of manslaughter and one count of killing on request.[5] Most of the patients were older than 75,[6] but they ranged in age from 40 to 94 years old. Letter also reportedly gave an inappropriate injection to a 22-year-old soldier with minor injuries from a fall; she lost consciousness but recovered.[7] He confessed to some of the killings, but insisted that he acted out of sympathy and a desire to end the suffering of sick patients. However, the prosecution indicated that Letter was not the assigned nurse for some of the patients and that some of the patients were in stable condition and due to be released from the hospital.[5] That November, Stephan Letter was found guilty of the murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment.[8] Letter is imprisoned in Straubing. Letter's killings have been characterized as the worst killing spree in Germany since World War II.[1] References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b "Nurse Guilty of Killing 28 Patients". China Daily. Retrieved 24 June 2013. ^ Jump up to: a b ""Angel of Death" Nurse Trial Begins". The Independent. 8 February 2006. Retrieved 24 June 2013. Jump up ^ "Life in Prison for German "angel of death" Nurse". London: Mail Online. 20 November 2006. Retrieved 24 June 2013.
Jump up ^ Pohl, Michael. "German Nurse Convicted In 28 Murders". KSDK. Retrieved 24 June 2013. ^ Jump up to: a b Cleaver, Hannah (8 February 2006). "Angel of Death "Driven by Kindness"". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 24 June 2013. Jump up ^ ""Angel of Death" Nurse Trial Begins". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 24 June 2013. Jump up ^ "German Nurse Charged in 29 Patient Deaths Goes on Proceedings for Murder". Pravda.ru. Retrieved 24 June 2013. Jump up ^ Germany's Angel of Death Sentenced to Life in Prison. Times Online. Retrieved 24 June 2013. External links[edit] BBC news entry. Categories: 1978 birthsLiving peoplePeople from HerdeckeGerman serial killersMale serial killersNurses convicted of killing patientsGerman prisoners sentenced to life imprisonmentPrisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by GermanyGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by GermanyMale nurses Martin Ney From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (February 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions. [show] Martin Ney Born Martin Ney 12 December 1970 (age 45) Bremen, Germany Criminal penalty Life imprisonment Killings Victims 3–5 Span of killings March 1992–April 2004 Country Germany Date apprehended 15 April 2011 Sketch of Ney. Martin Ney (born December 12, 1970) is a German serial killer. He wore a mask while killing 3 and sexually assaulting at least 40 children.[1] References[edit] Jump up ^ "Fahndungserfolg: Verdächtiger im Fall Dennis gesteht Morde an drei Kindern" (in German). spiegel.de. April 15, 2011. Retrieved February 12, 2014. Flag of GermanyBiography icon This German biographical article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Categories: Living people1970 birthsPeople from BremenGerman serial killersMale serial killersGerman rapistsGerman murderers of childrenGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by GermanyGerman prisoners sentenced to life imprisonmentPrisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by GermanyGerman people stubs Marianne Nölle From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Marianne Nölle (born 1938) is a German serial killer from Cologne. She was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993 for seven murders.[1]
Crimes[edit] Nölle was a nurse and between 1984 and 1992 killed patients in her care using Truxal.[1] Police think she killed a total of 17 and attempted 18 other murders, but she was only convicted of seven.[1] She has never confessed to her crimes. Paul Ogorzow From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Paul Ogorzow Born Paul Saga 29 September 1912 Muntowen, East Prussia, German Empire (present-day Muntowo, Poland) Died 26 July 1941 (aged 28) Berlin, Nazi Germany Criminal penalty Death Conviction(s) Murder, rape Killings Victims 8+ Span of killings 1940–1941 Country Nazi Germany Paul Ogorzow (29 September 1912 – 26 July 1941), was a German serial killer and rapist, known as The S-Bahn Murderer, convicted for the killing of 8 women in Nazi-era Berlin between October 1940 and July 1941. During the height of World War II, Ogorzow was employed by Deutsche Reichsbahn, working for the S-Bahn commuter rail system in Berlin. Using the routine wartime blackouts as a result of the Allied bombing of Berlin, Ogorzow committed serial rape and murder against women in the city over a ninemonth period until his arrest by the Kriminalpolizei, and was executed at Plötzensee Prison. Contents [hide] 1 Background 1.1 Early life 1.2 Adult life 2 Crimes 2.1 Early crimes 2.2 Murders 3 Investigation 4 Arrest and conviction 5 Impact of World War II and Nazi society 5.1 War-time conditions 5.2 S-Bahn operations 5.3 State ideology 6 See also 7 References 8 Sources 9 Further reading Background[edit] Early life[edit] Paul Ogorzow was born on 29 September 1912 in the village of Muntowen, East Prussia, German Empire (present-day Muntowo, Poland), the illegitimate child of Marie Saga, a farm worker. Saga's father later filled out his new grandson's birth certificate, marking it with three crosses and the child's birth name: Paul Saga.[1][2] In 1924, the now 12-year-old Saga was adopted by Johann Ogorzow, a farmer in Havelland. He eventually took Ogorzow's surname as his own and relocated to Nauen, near
Berlin. He initially worked as a laborer on his adoptive father's farm and later found employment with a steel foundry in Brandenburg-an-der-Havel.[1] Adult life[edit] Ogorzow joined the Nazi Party in 1931, at the age of 18, and the following year became a member of its paramilitary branch, the Sturmabteilung (SA). After the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, he rose modestly in the Party ranks, and by the time of his capture Ogorzow held the position of ScharfĂźhrer (squad leader) in the SA.[2] In 1934, Ogorzow was hired as a platelayer by the national railroad, Deutsche Reichsbahn, and steadily worked his way up through the organization, eventually working as an assistant signalman at Rummelsburg railway station in the eastern suburbs of Berlin, close to Karlshorst. This was the area where most of his crimes later occurred.[1] In 1937, Paul Ogorzow married Gertrude Ziegelmann, a saleswoman two-years older than himself, with whom they had two children, a son and a daughter. Initially, they lived with Ogorzow's mother in the Laubenviertel section of Berlin, a working class area of allotments, apartment blocks and tenement shacks. The family later moved to another apartment in the suburb of Karlshorst, near to where Ogorzow worked. Ogorzow was remembered for often being seen playing with his children, spending a lot of time in the garden near his home, and also tending a small cherry orchard in the backyard.[1] At his trial, Ogorzow's wife claimed that he often became violent and abusive, obsessively making unfounded claims of her being unfaithful to him.[2] Ogorzow traveled to his job at the rail service daily, either by train, walking or by bicycle. He was generally well regarded by his railway coworkers, and was considered reliable and highly competent, often operating both the light signals and the telegraph simultaneously. Although Ogorzow generally worked in the area of Zobtener Road, he was often dispatched to work at various locations along the S-Bahn, always wearing his uniform.[1] Crimes[edit] Early crimes[edit] After his capture Ogorzow extensively detailed his various criminal activities to police, allowing for a more precise reconstruction of his crimes.[1] In late August 1939, while he and his family were residing in Karlshorst, Ogorzow embarked on a series of violent attacks, randomly sexually assaulting and raping dozens of women in and around Berlin's Friedrichsfelde district. [3] At that time, the neighborhood that was populated mostly by solitary housewives whose husbands had been called up to serve in World War II. It was these vulnerable women who initially served as Ogorzow's primary source of victims, and police documented 31 separate cases of rape and other sexual assaults that occurred in the area, all of which were later connected to Ogorzow. During his attacks, he either choked his victims, threatened them with a knife, or bludgeoned them with a blunt object, and in their statements all the victims mentioned their attacker wore a railway worker's uniform.<refname=germansite#1/>[2] Ogorzow first began attempting to murder some of his victims during this time, however his initial attempts were met with little success. Between August 1939 and July 1940 Ogorzow attacked and stabbed three different women, all of whom recovered and later served as witnesses against him. In August 1940, he savagely bludgeoned another woman after raping her on board the S-Bahn. She survived only because Ogorzow mistakenly believed she had died during the attack while she lay unconscious afterward. Another failed effort in September resulted in the intended victim surviving not only an attempted strangulation, but also being thrown from a moving train by Ogorzow. He soon suffered another setback when he attempted to rape another woman in an S-Bahn station, where her husband and brother-in-law, whom Ogorzow had failed to notice, rushed to her aid after she screamed for help. Ogorzow managed to escape after being severely beaten. In light of this close call, Ogorzow changed his modus operandi, fashioning it into the approach he later employed with more success against most of his subsequent victims.[1] Murders[edit] Ogorzow renewed his series of attacks in October 1940, focusing primarily on the 9-kilometer stretch of railway between the Betriebsbahnhof-Rummelsburg and Friedrichshagen train stations. Wearing his work uniform, Ogorzow lurked aboard empty carriages waiting for potential victims as the train's
passenger cars were not illuminated at the time because of the wartime blackout of Berlin. Ogorzow relied heavily on the fact that lone female passengers would not be suspicious of a uniformed employee of the S-Bahn approaching under the seemingly innocuous pretense of asking for their ticket. Once the women were distracted, Orgorzow attacked, strangling or striking the victim in the head with a 2-inch-thick piece of lead-encased telephone cable. He committed his first murder on 4 October 1940, when he stabbed 20-year-old mother-of-two Gertrude "Gerda" Ditter (whose husband, Arthur, was away in the military) to death in her Berlin home, where they had met for what she had believed to be a tryst. Two months later, Ogorzow claimed his second and third victims, when on the evening of 4 December, he killed S-Bahn passenger Elfriede Franke, crushing her skull with an iron bar before hurling her corpse from the moving train. Less than an hour after he murdered Franke, Ogorzow encountered 19-year-old Irmagard Freese on the street as she was walking home and proceeded to rape her before also bludgeoning her to death. On 22 December, railroad workers discovered the body of a fourth victim, Elisabeth Bungener, discarded alongside the rail road tracks. A medical examination determined she had died as the result of a fractured skull.[citation needed] Six days later the police recovered Gertrude Siewert on the morning after she had been assaulted and thrown from the train by Ogorzow. Suffering from exposure and various life-threatening traumas, Siewert was rushed to the hospital where she eventually died from her injuries on 29 December. This scene repeated itself on 5 January 1941 when the unconscious body of Hedwig Ebauer, who was then five months pregnant, was located near the S-Bahn. Ogorzow had unsuccessfully attempted to strangle Ebauer before throwing her from the train alive, and like Siewert, Ebauer also succumbed to her injuries later that day in the hospital, never regaining consciousness. On 11 February, the remains of Ogorzow's seventh victim, Johanna Voigt, a pregnant mother of three, were found. An autopsy later confirmed what most suspected, that Voigt had died as the result of repeated blows to the head and injuries sustained after being thrown from the train. Given the obvious similarities in the various crimes, all seven deaths were deemed to be the work of the same individual.[1][2] Investigation[edit] Two of Ogorzow's previous victims, who had survived being raped and thrown from the S-Bahn, were able to describe the attack and murder attempt, both confirming to police that their assailant was a railway employee in a black uniform. By December 1940, as other similar crimes were already being reported, and the police began looking for a suspect matching Ogorzow's description.[1][2] However, all domestic news coverage at this time was either controlled or else heavily censored by various agencies within the Nazi government. This was especially true of news items (such as the SBahn murders) that might damage the war-time morale of the German people. The Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party's primary censorship authority, even issued a directive to German journalists regarding limits to be placed on coverage of the S-Bahn murders.[citation needed] The commissioner of the Berlin police and SS officer Wilhelm LĂźdtke, also director of the city's Kriminalpolizei (serious crimes unit), was not able to publicly seek information about the rapes or murders or to warn the population about travelling by rail at night. Instead, LĂźdtke sent out his best detectives to discreetly deal with the case.[1][2] The police operation was underway by December 1940, with 5,000 of Berlin's 8,000 railway workers being interviewed, and police patrols were doubled on the S-Bahn section. The Nazi Party dispatched some of its functionaries to personally protect unaccompanied women who commuted through the area. Female police officers and assistant detectives were used as bait aboard second-class carriages in an attempt to catch the killer once and for all. Other agents were disguised as railway workers, and at each station each commuter was watched.[1] Ironically, Ogorzow himself volunteered for a job of escorting solitary women during the night hours.[2] Despite this effort, the Kriminalpolizei would catch no more than a handful of petty criminals totally unrelated to the case. However, the increased police attention did prompt Ogorzow to become cautiously inactive for nearly five months following his murder of Mrs Voigt in February 1941. He would not re-emerge until 3 July 1941 when he claimed his eighth and final victim, 35-year-old Frieda
Koziol. Characteristically raped and then bludgeoned to death, Koziol had been murdered in the same Friedrichsfelde area where Ogorzow had begun his wave of sex crimes two years before.[1][2] Arrest and conviction[edit] Ogorzow, who often made misogynistic comments to co-workers and talked often of his fascination with killing, was eventually singled out by investigators looking for potential suspects among railroad employees following the murder of Frieda Kozial. A coworker reported to police that Ogorzow often climbed over the fence of the railway depot during work hours. Ogorzow's explanation was that he sneaked out to meet a mistress whose husband was in the Wehrmacht.[1][2] Chief Wilhelm LĂźdtke personally inspected Ogorzow's railway uniforms, all of which were found to feature numerous blood stains, and Ogorzow was arrested by the Kriminalpolizei on 12 July 1941. In an intimidating interrogation, set in a small room under the light of a single light bulb, Paul Ogorzow was confronted with one of his severely injured victims and a tray with the skulls taken from several of his other victims. Before LĂźdtke, Ogorzow willingly confessed his crimes, yet he blamed his murder spree on alcoholism and claimed that a Jewish doctor had treated him incompetently for gonorrhea. Ogorzow was formally expelled from the Nazi Party just days prior to his indictment for murder.[1][2] Ogorzow eventually pled guilty to eight murders, six attempted murders and thirty-one cases of assault which included the rapes. He was promptly sentenced to death on 24 July by the Berlin Kammergericht (regional superior court), with all the evidence and in the presence of eight witnesses.[2] The final charges against him were of criminal violence. Ogorzow was subsequently declared an enemy of the people by the Nazi regime, and was executed by guillotine at PlĂśtzensee Prison on 26 July 1941, just two days after his sentence was pronounced.[1] Impact of World War II and Nazi society[edit] This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) War-time conditions[edit] Historian Roger Moorhouse has suggested that the Kriminalpolizei were hampered in their investigation of the murders by several concurrent obstacles. Firstly, the Nazi government had instituted rigorous program of wartime media censorship in order to not to spread panic and demoralise civilians on the home front. These restrictions meant that there were only cursory details released about each case, which impeded the progress of the investigation. Secondly, due to ongoing Allied bombing raids on the German capital, blackout conditions were necessary to shield strategically important targets from airborne destruction. As a side effect, however, these conditions were conducive to criminal activity. Ogorzow himself exploited the blackouts, using them to stalk and kill his victims and then to escape from possible surveillance under the cover of darkness. S-Bahn operations[edit] The Berlin S-Bahn appears to have had a poor health and safety record at the time, which meant that the Kriminalpolizei had to contend with a surplus of corpses resulting from both from accidental deaths on the rail line and those killed during Allied bombing raids. This resulted in a large forensic backlog that placed the police force and municipal medical services at a further disadvantage. State ideology[edit] The official Nazi ideology of state, which included anti-Semitism, xenophobia and German racial superiority, discouraged investigators from considering the possibility that someone "racially German" (or Aryan) could be responsible for such heinous crimes. Much initial suspicion wrongly settled on foreign forced-laborers (mostly Polish prisoners of war) working in the numerous factories adjacent to the rail network. Local Jews were also targeted unjustly for investigation in connection with the murders, albeit mainly for ideological reasons. In any event, survivor testimony would eventually establish that the suspect was indeed German, and the actual perpetrator was revealed to be a veteran member of both the Nazi Party and Sturmabteilung. See also[edit] Gordon Cummins
Bruno Lüdke 1941 in Germany Spree killer Rudolf Pleil From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (February 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions. [show] Rudolf Pleil Born Rudolf Pleil July 7, 1924 Germany Died February 18, 1958 (aged 33) West Germany Cause of death Suicide by hanging Other names The Deathmaker Criminal penalty Life imprisonment Killings Victims 10-25 Span of killings 1946–1947 Country Germany Date apprehended April 1947 Rudolf Pleil (July 7, 1924 – February 18, 1958) was a German serial killer known as "The Deathmaker". He was convicted of killing a salesman and nine women. He claimed to have killed 25 people. Biography[edit] Pleil was born on July 7, 1924 in Germany. Pleil worked as a border guard after the war and would encounter women who were trying to flee into West Germany from East Germany. For a while Pleil had two accomplices, Karl Hoffmann and Konrad Schüßler, who would help trap the victims. He had an argument with one accomplice after he insisted on decapitating the victim, which Pleil found disgusting. He used various weapons, including hatchets, knives, hammers or stones. Pleil was arrested after murdering a merchant with an axe but was only sentenced to twelve years in prison as it was seen as an impulsiveness act. While in prison, a woman that Pleil had left for dead came forward and told of her encounter with him, which helped to uncover the other murders. Pleil was sentenced to life in prison in 1950. Pleil committed suicide by hanging himself in prison on February 18, 1958. His accomplices were also charged with crimes, including being an accessory to murder. Norbert Poehlke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Norbert Poehlke Born 1951 Germany Died October 1985 Brindisi, Italy Other names The Hammer-Killer Occupation police officer Criminal charge bank robbery, murder Spouse(s) Ingeborg Poehlke Children Adrian and Gabriel Norbert Poehlke (September 15, 1951 – October 22, 1985), the Hammer-Killer (Der Hammermörder), was a German police officer who after he committed suicide in 1985 was found to have committed several bank robberies and related murders. He was tagged as the "Hammer-Killer" for his modus operandi of killing drivers of cars and using a sledgehammer in later bank robberies in which he would use his victims' cars as getaway vehicles. The crimes[edit] On May 3, 1984, 47-year-old Siegfried Pfitzer was found dead, shot in the head, at a highway rest stop in Marbach, West Germany. His car, found a quarter-mile from his body, was linked to a bank robbery the same day in Erbstetten. The assailant had smashed the teller window with a sledgehammer, and taken the money on the other side. On December 21, 37-year-old Eugene Wethey was found shot dead in a rest stop near Grossbottwar. A week later, Wethey's car was used in a bank robbery in Cleebronn by a man wielding a sledgehammer. On July 22, 1985, 26-year-old Wilfried Scheider was found shot dead in a parking lot in BeilsteinSchmidhausen. He was shot with a Walther P5 pistol, a common police issue pistol. The victim's car was found at the scene of a bank robbery in Spiegelberg. Investigation[edit] On September 29, 1985 while searching a Ludwigsburg railway station for bombs, anti-terrorist officers found a police uniform in one of the lockers. The uniform was traced to detective chief superintendent Norbert Poehlke, a veteran officer of 14 years in Stuttgart. Poehlke said it had been left there after a quick change for a family member's funeral. Police became suspicious when they discovered no recent family deaths, but that his daughter had died of cancer in 1984. The investigation was picking up when, on October 14, Poehlke requested, and got, some sick leave. Several days later police went to his home to ask him some questions regarding the murders and robberies. With no one answering, and fearing Poelhke had fled, the police entered the house. What they found was Poelhke's wife shot twice in the head in the bathroom and in one of the bedrooms was his son Adrian, also shot dead. Three days later, October 23, Poehlke and his other son, Gabriel, were found shot dead, a clear murder-suicide, in his car near Brindisi, Italy. Poehlke's pistol was confirmed as the murder weapon in the murders, and the case was closed. References[edit] Fuchs, Christian [1996] (2002). Bad Blood: An Illustrated Guide to Psycho Cinema. Creation Books. ISBN 1-84068-025-3 Wetsch, Elisabeth. POEHLKE, Norbert Hans Serial Killers True Crime Library. Retrieved on 2007-10-03 Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 54951069 GND: 119123606 Categories: 1936 birthsGerman serial killersMale serial killersMurder–suicidesSuicides by firearm in ItalySerial killers who committed suicide1985 deathsGerman police officersPolice misconduct
Heinrich Pommerenke From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Heinrich Pommerenke (July 6, 1937 – December 27, 2008) was a German serial killer. Documentary films[edit] Tom Ockers: Lebenslang weggesperrt … Der Frauenmörder Heinrich Pommerenke, Die großen Kriminalfälle Further reading[edit] Thomas Alexander Staisch: Heinrich Pommerenke, Frauenmörder. Ein verschüttetes Leben. Klöpfer & Meyer, Tübingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-940086-88-4 External links[edit] Bernd Dörries: Mörder Heinrich Pommerenke – Ein Leben hinter Gittern, Süddeutsche Zeitung (German) W. Janisch, M. Oversohl: Längste Strafzeit in Deutschland: Frauenmörder Pommerenke tot nach 49 Jahren Haft, Die Welt (German) Murderpedia Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 77402149 GND: 129737151 Categories: 1937 births2008 deaths20th-century German criminalsGerman serial killersMale serial killersGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by GermanyGerman prisoners sentenced to life imprisonmentPrisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by GermanyGerman people who died in prison custodyPrisoners who died in German detentionSerial killers who died in prison custody Beate Schmidt From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (Redirected from Wolfgang Schmidt (serial killer)) Beate Schmidt Born Wolfgang Schmidt October 5, 1966 (age 50) Lehnin, Brandenburg, Germany Other names Pink Giant The Beast of Beelitz Criminal penalty 15 years in prison and detention in a psychiatric hospital Conviction(s) Murder Killings Victims 6 Span of killings October 24, 1989–April 5, 1991[1] Country Germany Date apprehended August 1, 1991 icon Transgender portal Beate Schmidt (born Wolfgang Schmidt October 5, 1966) is a German serial killer. From October 1989 to April 1991, Schmidt murdered five women and an infant. Schmidt is a transsexual. Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 Serial killer 3 21st century 4 References 5 External links Early life[edit]
Schmidt was born Wolfgang Schmidt on October 5, 1966 in Lehnin, Brandenburg, Germany. Serial killer[edit] Schmidt murdered five women and a three month old baby: Edeltraut Nixdorf, 51, killed on October 24, 1989.[1] Christa Naujoks, 45, raped and strangled to death on May 24, 1990.[1] Inge Fischer, 34, raped and stabbed to death on March 13, 1991 in Beelitz.[1] Tamara Petrowskaja, 44, strangled to death on March 22, 1991. Schmidt struck her son against a tree stump.[1][2] Talita Bremer, 66, strangled to death in April 5, 1991 and corpse was raped.[1] The nickname the "Pink Giant" came from both the killer's size and alleged penchant for pink lingerie. [3] The area where some of the crimes took place led to a second moniker, the "Beast of Beelitz".[3] [4] On August 1, 1991 Schmidt was arrested: two men had found Schmidt masturbating while wearing a bra under a jacket. Schmidt was sentenced to 15 years in prison and detention in a psychiatric hospital.[4] in Brandenburg an der Havel.[5] 21st century[edit] An application for a name change to Beate Schmidt was met by the court in 2001.[5] Since 2009 Schmidt has undergone a hormone treatment for gender reassignment.[5] In 2010, Schmidt was investigated for raping and causing another transsexual inmate to attempt suicide.[6] References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Friedrichsen, Gisela (November 1992). "Ein Ausholen zum Gegenschlag". Der Spiegel (in German) (45). Jump up ^ Becker, Claudia (July 16, 2013). "Der Serienkiller darf sich ein bisschen frei bewegen" (in German). Die Welt. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved 30 March 2014. ^ Jump up to: a b Catherine Lupton (1 January 2012). The Phantom Sanatorium: Beelitz Heilstatten. Solar Books. ISBN 978-0-9832480-4-0. ^ Jump up to: a b Chalk, Titus Henze, Jacob and Malmgren, Sigrid (May 5, 2011). "The haunted sanatorium of Beelitz". Exberliner. Retrieved 30 March 2014. ^ Jump up to: a b c Claus-Dieter Steyer: Beate S. statt „Rosa Riese“: Verurteilter Serienmörder durfte Namen ändern. Tagesspiegel, 7. August 2009. (German) Jump up ^ "Hat der Rosa Riese wieder zugeschlagen?". B.Z. September 9, 2010. Retrieved 30 March 2014. External links[edit] Entry at murderpedia.org Categories: Living people1966 births20th-century German criminalsPeople from PotsdamMittelmarkTransgender and transsexual womenGerman serial killersGerman rapistsNecrophilesGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by Germany Friedrich Schumann From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For the German psychologist, see Friedrich Schumann (psychologist). Friedrich Schumann Born Friedrich Schumann February 1, 1893 Spandau, Germany Died August 27, 1921 (aged 28) Cause of death Execution Other names Terror of Falkenhagen Lake Criminal penalty Death Conviction(s) Murder, rape,
aggravated burglary Killings Victims 6 Span of killings 1918–1920 Country Germany State(s) Berlin Date apprehended 20 August 1920 Friedrich Schumann (1 February 1893 – 27 August 1921) was a German serial killer. He is also known as "Massenmörder vom Falkenhagener See" ("Terror of Falkenhagen Lake"). Schumann murdered six people and raped several women. He was only 28 years old when he was executed in 1921. Contents [hide] 1 Murders 2 Trial and execution 3 References 4 Bibliography 5 External links Murders[edit] On 18 August 1919 Schumann shot 52-year-old forester Wilhelm Nielbock from Spandau. On 20 August 1919 he was arrested in Berlin. The trial against Schumann started on 5 July 1920 in Berlin. Trial and execution[edit] Friedrich Schumann was convicted of murder, and on 13 July 1920 he was sentenced to seven death penalties, one life sentence, ten years hard labour and several other sentences in Berlin. He was therefore sentenced to death.[1] On August 27, 1921, at 6 o'clock in the morning, Schumann was executed in the courtyard of the Plötzensee Prison by Prussian executioner (Scharfrichter) Carl Gröpler, using the axe. The Berlin lawyer Erich Frey recalled later his brief encounter with the executioner: "At the end of the corridor, I had to give way to a broad-shouldered man. He looked like a transportworker, the high-buttoned jacket looked strange (out of place) on him. His closely-cropped skull rested on a plied bullsneck. In spite of the faint light, he looked sun-tanned and healthy. Never before, I had seen executioner Gröpler from Magdeburg. But, as he passed me with a slight bow, I knew, it was him. Anyone who had any business in the Criminal Court of Justice, knew about Gröpler. He had been a horse butcherer before. ... he collected every month a small fixed income, and had in return to be ready with his massive axe and his three skilled assistants, at the demand of the State attourney. He received for every execution, 300 Mark and the extra costs. Gröpler went to see his customers ... 'You can go to him without trouble,' I heard the guard say to Gröpler, 'he has no nerves' (in a Berlin dialect)."[2] References[edit] Jump up ^ Blazek, Matthias, Carl Großmann und Friedrich Schumann – Zwei Serienmörder in den zwanziger Jahren, Stuttgart 2009, p. 123. Jump up ^ Frey, Erich, Ich beantrage Freispruch. Aus den Erinnerungen des Strafverteidigers Prof. Dr. Dr. Erich Frey, Blüchert Verlag, Hamburg 1959, p. 40. Bibliography[edit] Matthias Blazek (2009), Carl Großmann und Friedrich Schumann – Zwei Serienmörder in den zwanziger Jahren, ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-8382-0027-9 (in German) Christopher Berry-Dee (2011), Cannibal Serial Killers: Profiles of Depraved Flesh-Eating Murderers, Amazon Kindle, ISBN 978-1-56975-902-8, p. 204 Erich Hobusch (2003), Wilddieberei und Förstermorde – Originalfassung seiner Bücher aus 1928–31 von Otto Busdorf, edition I-III, Neumann-Neudamm, Melsungen, ISBN 3-7888-0725-3 (in German) Martin Lücke (editor) (2013), Helden in der Krise, Didaktische Blicke auf die Geschichte der Männlichkeiten pt. 2, LIT Verlag Berlin-Münster-Wien-Zürich, ISBN 978-3-8258-1760-2, p. 172 (in German)
Daniel Siemens (2007), Metropole und Verbrechen. Die Gerichtsreportage in Berlin, Paris und Chicago 1919–1933, Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-515-09008-7 (in German) Emil Utitz (1926), Jahrbuch für Charakterologie, Pan-Verlag, Berlin (in German) Richard F. Wetzell (editor) (2014), Crime And Criminal Justice In Modern Germany (Studies in German History), ISBN 978-1-78238-246-1, p. 222 External links[edit] Der Massenmörder vom Falkenhagener See, Märkische Allgemeine, 1 February 2013 Carl Großmann und Friedrich Schumann – Zwei Serienmörder in den zwanziger Jahren, matthiasblazek.eu Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 101268815 GND: 139540393 Categories: 1893 births1921 deathsGerman serial killersMale serial killersPeople from SpandauGerman people convicted of murderPeople convicted of murder by GermanyExecuted serial killers20th-century executions by GermanyPeople executed by Germany by decapitationExecuted German peopleGerman rapists Peter Stumpp From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Peter Stumpp Born Unknown Unknown Died October 31, 1589 Cause of death Execution by breaking Other names The Werewolf of Bedburg of Danvill Criminal penalty Death Killings Victims 18 Span of killings c.1564–1589 Country Holy Roman Empire State(s) Electorate of Cologne Date apprehended 1589 Peter Stumpp (died 1589) (whose name is also spelled as Peter Stube, Pe(e)ter Stubbe, Peter Stübbe or Peter Stumpf) was a Rhenish farmer, accused of being a serial killer and a cannibal, also known as the "Werewolf of Bedburg". Contents [hide] 1 Sources 2 Biography 3 Accusations 4 Execution 5 Background 6 In popular culture 7 References 8 External sources Sources[edit]
The most comprehensive source on the case is a pamphlet of 16 pages published in London during 1590, the translation of a German print of which no copies have survived. The English pamphlet, of which two copies exist (one in the British Museum and one in the Lambeth Library), was rediscovered by occultist Montague Summers in 1920. It describes Stumpp’s life and alleged crimes and the trial, and includes many statements from neighbors and witnesses of the crimes.[1] Summers reprints the entire pamphlet, including a woodcut, on pages 253 to 259 of his work The Werewolf. Additional information is provided by the diaries of Hermann von Weinsberg, a Cologne alderman, and by a number of illustrated broadsheets, which were printed in southern Germany and were probably based on the German version of the London pamphlet. The original documents seem to have been lost during the wars of the centuries that followed. Contemporary reference was made to the pamphlet by Edward Fairfax in his firsthand account of alleged witch persecution of his own daughters in 1621.[2] Biography[edit] Peter Stumpp's name is also spelled as Peter Stube, Peter Stub,[3] Pe(e)ter Stubbe, Peter Stübbe or Peter Stumpf, and other aliases include such names as Abal Griswold, Abil Griswold, and Ubel Griswold. The name “Stump” or “Stumpf” may have been given him as a reference to the fact that his left hand had been cut off leaving only a stump, in German “Stumpf”.[citation needed] It was alleged that as the "werewolf" had its left forepaw cut off, then the same injury proved the guilt of the man. Stumpp was born at the village of Epprath near the country-town of Bedburg in the Electorate of Cologne. His date of birth is not known, as the local church registers were destroyed during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). He was a wealthy farmer of his rural community.[citation needed] During the 1580s he seems to have been a widower with two children; a girl called Beele (Sybil), who seems to have been older than fifteen years old, and a son of an unknown age. During the years before his trial he had an intimate relationship with a distant relative named Katharina Trump (also spelt "Trumpen" or "Trompen").[citation needed] Accusations[edit] During 1589, Stumpp had one of the most lurid and famous werewolf trials of history. After being stretched on a rack, and before further torture commenced,[4] he confessed to having practiced black magic since he was twelve years old. He claimed that the Devil had given him a magical belt or girdle, which enabled him to metamorphose into "the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws." Removing the belt, he said, made him transform back to his human form. For twenty-five years, Stumpp had allegedly been an "insatiable bloodsucker" who gorged on the flesh of goats, lambs, and sheep, as well as men, women, and children. Being threatened with torture he confessed to killing and eating fourteen children, two pregnant women, whose fetuses he ripped from their wombs and "ate their hearts panting hot and raw," which he later described as "dainty morsels."[5] One of the fourteen children was his own son, whose brain he was reported to have devoured. Not only was Stumpp accused of being a serial murderer and cannibal, but also of having an incestuous relationship with his daughter, who was sentenced to die with him, and that he had coupled with a distant relative, which was also considered to be incestuous according to the law. In addition to this he confessed to having had intercourse with a succubus sent to him by the Devil. Execution[edit] Composite woodcut print by Lukas Mayer of the execution of Peter Stumpp in 1589 at Bedburg near Cologne. The execution of Stumpp, on October 31, 1589, and of his daughter and mistress is one of the most brutal on record: he was put to a wheel, where "flesh was torn from his body", in ten places, with red-hot pincers, followed by his arms and legs. Then his limbs were broken with the blunt side of an axehead to prevent him from returning from the grave, before he was beheaded and his body burned on a pyre. His daughter and mistress had already been flayed and strangled and were burned along
with Stumpp's body. As a warning against similar behavior, local authorities erected a pole with the torture wheel and the figure of a wolf on it, and at the very top they placed Peter Stumpp's severed head. Background[edit] There are a number of details of the text of the London pamphlet that are inconsistent with the historical facts. The years during which Stumpp was supposed to have committed most of his crimes (1582-1589) were marked by internal warfare in the Electorate of Cologne after the abortive introduction of Protestantism by the former Archbishop Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg. He had been assisted by Adolf, Count of Neuenahr, who was also the lord of Bedburg. Stumpp was most certainly a convert to Protestantism. The war brought the invasion of armies of either side, the assaults by marauding soldiers and eventually an epidemic of the plague. When the Protestants were defeated during 1587, Bedburg Castle became the headquarters of Catholic mercenaries commanded by the new lord of Bedburg - Werner, Count of Salm-ReifferscheidtDyck, who was a staunch Catholic determined to re-establish the Roman faith. So it is not inconceivable that the werewolf trial was but a barely concealed political trial, with the help of which the new lord of Bedburg planned to bully the Protestants of the territory back into Catholicism. If it had only been just another execution of a werewolf and a couple of witches, as occurred about this time in various parts of Germany, the attendance of members of the aristocracy â&#x20AC;&#x201C; perhaps including the new Archbishop and Elector of Cologne â&#x20AC;&#x201C; would be surprising. Furthermore, the trial remained a singular event.[6] However, this does not mean that the charges were without basis in fact. The execution of a mere Protestant convert would have been deeply unlikely to have drawn the aristocratic attention Stumpp's trial did, and while it was unlikely for the elite to attend to any given werewolf or witch trial, the sheer scale of Stumpp's alleged crimes would have made it more visible to the public at large and the nobility. In popular culture[edit] The U.S. metal band Macabre recorded a song about Peter Stumpp, titled "The Werewolf of Bedburg"; it can be found on the Murder Metal album. In the Pine Deep Trilogy of novelist and folklorist Jonathan Maberry, Peter Stumpp is the supernatural villain Ubel Griswold. Since Griswold is actually one of Stumpp's historical aliases, Maberry decided to use the name of Ubel Griswold instead of openly telling people that the villain was the famous werewolf Peter Stumpp until later on in the third book of the series, Bad Moon Rising. In the Jim Butcher book Fool Moon there are several characters that use enchanted wolf pelt belts to transform into a wolf form, similar to the belt Peter Stump claimed to have. A reference to Peter Stumpp is also in William Peter Blatty's book, The Exorcist. When Father Karras and Kinderman talk about Satanism they say "Terrible, was this theory, Father, or fact?" "Well, there's William Stumpf, for example. Or Peter. I can't remember. Anyway, a German in the sixteenth century who thought he was a werewolf". The direct-to-video Big Top Scooby-Doo!, uses a portion of Lukas Mayer's woodcut of the execution of Stumpp in 1589, though in the movie no mention of Stumpp is made. The portion used depicts a man cutting off a werewolf's left paw (supposedly Stumpp in werewolf form) and a child being attacked by a werewolf. The woodcut scene shown in the film restores the werewolf's left paw and removes the child in the second werewolf's jaws, making it appear as if the swordsman is fighting one of the werewolves while another flees. Journalist and fiction writer J.E. Reich partially based her short story "The Werewolves of Anspach," which was nominated for multiple awards, on the life of Peter Stumpp.[7] The story of Peter Stumpp was also told in Episode 3: The Beast Within podcast of LORE by Aaron Mahnke, released on April 6, 2015. References[edit] Jump up ^ Catherine Orenstein, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale, p. 91, ISBN 0-465-04125-6
Jump up ^ Edward Fairfax, Daemonologica: A Discourse on Witchcraft, p.97, R. Ackrill: Harrogate, 1882. Jump up ^ Edward Fairfax, Daemonologica: A Discourse on Witchcraft, p.97, R. Ackrill: Harrogate, 1882. Jump up ^ Friedrich, Otto (1976). Going crazy: An inquiry into madness in our time (2nd prt. ed.). Simon and Schuster. p. 48. ISBN 0-671-22174-4. Jump up ^ Wagner, Stephen. "The Werewolf of Bedburg". Jump up ^ Sunday Herald, 1 May 2016 Jump up ^ http://littlefiction.com/beta/JEReich_TheWerewolvesofAnspach.html External sources[edit] "The Bogeyman's Gonna Eat You-- Albert Fish, The Vampire of Brooklyn". "America's Serial Killers: Portraits in Evil" Mill Creek Entertainment, 2009. Anon. A True Discourse. Declaring the Damnable Life and Death of One Stubbe Peeter, a Most Wicked Sorcerer. London, 1590. (original English version). Homayun Sidky, Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs, and Disease. An Anthropological Study of the European Witch-Hunts. New York 1997, pp. 234–238. ISBN 0-8204-3354-3. Peter Kremer, "Plädoyer für einen Werwolf: Der Fall Peter Stübbe", in, Ibd., Wo das Grauen lauert. Blutsauger und kopflose Reiter, Werwölfe und Wiedergänger an Inde, Erft und Rur. Dueren 2003, pp. 247–270. ISBN 3-929928-01-9. David Everitt, "Human Monsters: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World's Most Vicious Murderers" New York: McGraw-Hill 1993, pp. 15–18 ISBN 0-8092-3994-9. "El alma está en el cerebro". Eduardo Punset (punto de lectura) 2006 Redes RTVE. Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 107296647 GND: 140621938 Categories: 1589 deaths16th-century executions by GermanyExecuted serial killersExecuted people from North Rhine-WestphaliaGerman cannibalsGerman serial killersGerman murderers of childrenPeople executed by breaking wheelPeople executed by the Electorate of ColognePeople from Rhein-Erft-KreisPolitical and cultural purgesWerewolvesIncestMale serial killers Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus Charlotta ursini.jpg Portrait of Charlotte Ursinus - until 1945 in the Museum of Glatz, now in a private collection Born May 5, 1760 Glatz, Lower Silesia Died April 4, 1836 (aged 75) Criminal penalty Life imprisonment Killings Victims 3 Span of killings September 1796–1803 Country Prussia Date apprehended 1803 Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus (née Weingarten; 5 May 1760 – 4 April 1836) was a German serial killer believed to have been responsible for poisoning her husband, aunt, and lover, and of attempting to poison her servant. Her trial led to a method of identifying arsenic poisoning. Early life[edit] Sophie Weingarten was born in Glatz (now Kłodzko), a city in Lower Silesia, Prussia, the daughter of the secretary of the Austrian legation. Her father having lost his position, at the age of 19 she married
the much older counselor of the Supreme Court Theodor Ursinus. She lived with him in Stendal until 1792 and afterwards in Berlin. Privy Counsellor Ursinus died there, suddenly, on 11 September 1800, a day after celebrating his birthday. His wife came under suspicion for not summoning a doctor, after the medicine she administered to him made his condition worse.[1] During her marriage Sophie had started an affair with a Dutch officer named Rogay, possibly with the consent of her elderly husband. He left Berlin for a time, but later returned and died three years before her husband. At the time his death was attributed to tuberculosis. It was later discovered that shortly before his death Sophie Ursinus had purchased a quantity of arsenic.[1] On 24 January 1801 an aunt of Sophie Ursinus, Christiane Witte, died in Charlottenburg after a short illness, leaving her a large inheritance. It was again later discovered that Sophie Ursinus had purchased a large quantity of arsenic shortly before her aunt had died. At the end of February 1803 Sophie Ursinus's servant, Benjamin Klein, became ill, after having quarreled with her sometime earlier. She gave him an emetic, then soup, which made him worse. He became suspicious and when she gave him some plums, he secretly had them examined by a chemist, who confirmed that they contained arsenic. Autopsies and trial[edit] Sophie Ursinus was arrested and soon came under suspicion of having poisoned her husband. His body was exhumed but at the autopsy the examiners, the chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth and his assistant, Valentin Rose, could not confirm that he had been poisoned with arsenic. But there was a suspicion, from the general condition of the bodily organs and convulsive contraction of the limbs, that arsenic had been used to poison him. She was next charged with murdering her aunt. Again the body was exhumed but this time the examiners, contrary to what the doctors had said at her death, had no doubt that the aunt had died from arsenic poisoning, and that Sophie Ursinus had administered the poison.[1] The trial for murder ended on 12 September 1803. In her attempt to save her life and honour Sophie Ursinus had disputed every point, but was found guilty of the murder of her aunt and the attempted murder of her servant, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. She was allowed a certain amount of comfort while in prison in Glatz, and was even allowed to have parties with guests and dress in fine clothes. After 30 years she was pardoned in 1833 and rejoined the upper-class society of Glatz until her death in 1836.[1][2] The work of Valentin Rose in proving that the victims in this case were actually poisoned showed that the evidence of doctors who were present at death was not sufficient. In 1836 the Marsh test, a highly sensitive method in the detection of arsenic, was developed by the chemist James Marsh.[3] References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b c d Griffiths, Arthur (1900). The history and romance of crime from the earliest time to the present day. London: The Grolier Society. pp. 82–90. Jump up ^ Stephany, C. F. (1866). Charlotte Ursinus die Giftmischerin. Gattin des Geheimenraths Ursinus in Berlin. Enthüllung ihrer Lebenszüge und Schuld (in German). Berlin: Vereins-Buchhandlung (F. W. Gubitz). Jump up ^ With, Ingo (2000). Tote geben zu Protokoll – Berühmte Fälle der Gerichtsmedizin (in German). Bechtermünz Verlag. ISBN 3-8289-0029-1. Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 20454419 GND: 117315591 Categories: 1760 births1836 deaths18th-century German people19th-century German people19thcentury German criminalsGerman female murderersGerman prisoners sentenced to life imprisonmentGerman female serial killersPeople from KłodzkoPeople from PrussiaPoisonersRecipients of German pardonsSilesian-German people Elisabeth Wiese From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Elisabeth Wiese
Born 1 July 1853 Bilshausen, Germany Died 2 February 1905 (aged 51) Hamburg Cause of death Guillotine Other names "The angel-maker of St. Pauli" Criminal penalty Death Killings Victims 5 Span of killings 1902â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1903 Country Germany Date apprehended 1903 Elisabeth Wiese (1 July 1853 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2 February 1905) was a German serial killer from Hamburg, convicted and executed for the killing of five children. Contents [hide] 1 Early life 2 The murders 3 Media 4 Bibliography 5 References Early life[edit] As a young woman she worked as a mid-wife. She already had a daughter, Paula, when she married the tradesman Heinrich Wiese. After being convicted of carrying out illegal abortions she was prevented from carrying out her profession, and money grew scarce. Tensions grew between herself and her husband. She tried to murder him on several occasions, firstly by poisoning his food and then by attempting to cut his throat with a razor while he slept. She was not successful and was sent to prison after being convicted of several crimes.[1] The murders[edit] Upon release from prison she offered her services as a child-carer to women who could not raise their children themselves, or who had illegitimate children. Initially she charged the mothers a onetime fee for handing the children over to adoptive parents, who in turn had to be paid. However, she did not always pay the adoptive parents, who returned the children to her, so they had to be gotten rid of. She then informed the mothers of babies left in her care that she had had the babies adopted by rich families in distant countries. What she actually did was poison the babies with morphine and burn their bodies in a stove in her apartment. However, suspicions grew about the fate of these babies and investigations began.[2] The kitchen in the Uetersen Museum where part of Wiese's life was filmed. As she had to distance herself from dealing in babies, Wiese forced her daughter Paula into prostitution. Paula fled to London, but became pregnant. She returned to Hamburg and gave birth in a cellar. Immediately after the birth Wiese drowned Paula's baby and burnt the body in the stove. When the police started investigating the case they searched Wiese's apartment and discovered her cache of morphine and poisons. As she lived in St. Pauli, a suburb of Hamburg, she became known as "the angel-maker of St. Pauli".[2] On 10 October 1904 Wiese was convicted in court of fraud, living off immoral earnings and the murder of five children. She was executed by guillotine in 1905.[1] Media[edit] In March 2010 the story of Elisabeth Wiese was filmed by NDR in Germany. Bibliography[edit]
Hugo Friedländer: Ein entmenschtes Weib. Die Engelmacherin Wiese. (Friedländer: Kriminalprozesse, p. 250) ISBN 3-89853-151-1 Michael Kirchschlager (Hrsg.): Historische Serienmörder. Menschliche Ungeheuer vom späten Mittelalter bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts. 2007 ISBN 978-3-934277-13-7 Das freie Wort: Frankfurter Halbmonatsschrift für Fortschritt auf allen Gebieten des geistigen Lebens, vol. 7. Neuer Frankfurter Verlag, 1908, p. 194 Baby Farmer must die. – Notorious German Woman Receives Five Capital Sentences. Syndicated (Bulletin Press Association), Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, Wiskonsin (USA), 1 November 1904, p. 4 Zeitschrift für experimentelle Pathologie und Therapie, vol. 2, A. Hirschwald 1906, p. 495 Zeitschrift für Kinderforschung mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der pädagogischen Pathologie, vol. 17, edited by Johannes Trüper together with Dr. G. Anton, Dr. med. Martinak, Chr. Ufer, Dr. Karl Wilker, Langensalza 1908, p. 171 References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b Bahnsen, Uwe (23 January April 2005). "Tod unterm Fallbeil: die Engelmacherin von St. Pauli". Welt Online (in German). Die Welt. Retrieved 6 December 2009. Check date values in: | date= (help) ^ Jump up to: a b Kirchschlager, Michael (2007). Historische Serienmörder (in German). Kirchschlager. ISBN 3-934277-13-6. Categories: 1850 births1905 deathsGerman female serial killersPeople executed by guillotineGerman fraudstersPeople from Göttingen (district)People convicted of fraudExecuted German peoplePeople executed by Germany by decapitationExecuted people from Lower Saxony20th-century executions by GermanyPeople executed by the German EmpireGerman murderers of children Anna Maria Zwanziger From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Anna Margaretha Zwanziger (7 August 1760 – 17 September 1811) was a Bavarian serial killer.[1] She used arsenic, which she referred to as "her truest friend". From 1801 until 1811, Zwanziger was employed as a housekeeper at the home of several judges in Bavaria. She would poison her employers with arsenic, and then nurse them back to health to gain their favour.[1] She poisoned three people, and attempted to poison several others[1] She killed four people, one of whom was a baby.[2] Zwanziger was judged guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Before she was beheaded, she said it was probably a good thing she was to be executed, as she did not think she would be able to stop.[2] References[edit] ^ Jump up to: a b c Dan Norder, Wolf Vanderlinden and Paul Begg, Ripper Notes: Madmen, Myths and Magic, Inklings Press, 2004, p. 17 ^ Jump up to: a b Anna Marie Zwanziger at Serial Killer True Crime Library Authority control WorldCat Identities VIAF: 27904592 GND: 120552140 Categories: 1760 births1811 deathsExecuted German womenExecuted serial killersGerman female serial killersGerman female murderersGerman people convicted of murderPoisonersExecuted German peoplePeople executed by Bavaria19th-century German criminalsPeople executed by Germany by decapitation19th-century executions by GermanyPeople from NurembergExecuted people from Bavaria