24-time murderer This gruesome serial killer still haunts Germany today
A reconstructed cell with a photo of the mass murderer Fritz Haarmann is on display at the Lower Saxony Police Museum.
Image: Sina Schuldt/dpa
The photo folder in the Fritz Haarmann murder case: it is the 100th anniversary of the mass murderer's arrest.
Image: Sina Schuldt/dpa
The alleged instrument of the mass murderer Fritz Haarmann.
Image: Sina Schuldt/dpa
Photos relating to the case of mass murderer Fritz Haarmann are on display at the Lower Saxony Police Museum.
Image: Sina Schuldt/dpa
Children once found bones on the leash. This is how Fritz Haarmann's series of murders first came to light.
Image: Wolfgang Stelljes/dpa-tmn
A reconstructed cell with a photo of the mass murderer Fritz Haarmann is on display at the Lower Saxony Police Museum.
Image: Sina Schuldt/dpa
The photo folder in the Fritz Haarmann murder case: it is the 100th anniversary of the mass murderer's arrest.
Image: Sina Schuldt/dpa
The alleged instrument of the mass murderer Fritz Haarmann.
Image: Sina Schuldt/dpa
Photos relating to the case of mass murderer Fritz Haarmann are on display at the Lower Saxony Police Museum.
Image: Sina Schuldt/dpa
Children once found bones on the leash. This is how Fritz Haarmann's series of murders first came to light.
Image: Wolfgang Stelljes/dpa-tmn
100 years ago, the criminal was arrested in Hanover and sentenced to death around ten months later for the murder of at least 24 boys and men. What traces remain today?
No time? blue News summarizes for you
- Fritz Haarmann is the best-known German serial killer.
- He murdered 24 young men in a bestial manner.
- He was initially only arrested on June 22, 1924 because he got into an argument with a teenager at the main train station.
- Haarmann received the death penalty and was beheaded in April 1925.
One hundred years after the arrest of the notorious serial killer Fritz Haarmann in Hanover, interest in the gruesome criminal case remains high. Among other things, the police museum in Nienburg houses a replica of a police custody cell in Hanover during the Weimar Republic.
Haarmann was imprisoned there after his arrest on June 22, 1924. Visitors can also see a cleaver which, according to legend, was owned by the criminal. It is important to museum director Dirk Götting that the exhibition is presented objectively.
The case
"Haarmann was a paedophile serial killer," emphasizes Götting. It is a strange phenomenon that murderers from history sometimes acquire a "harmless touch" over time. In Hanover, the criminal with the cleaver appeared as a figure on an Advent calendar.
Between 1918 and 1924, the criminal, who was known to the police, murdered at least 24 boys and young men aged between 10 and 22. Haarmann strangled his victims and, according to his own statement, bit their throats out. Many were runaways and were not initially missed. He dismembered the bodies with a hatchet and took them to the river Leine. When children found bones on the banks of the Leine in the spring of 1924, these were the first clues to the series of murders.
In the period after the First World War, Haarmann provided the police with information from the red-light district. He was initially only arrested on June 22, 1924 because he had got into an argument with a youth at the main railway station. When his apartment was searched, the police found evidence of the crimes. The methods used by police officers to force a confession, such as physical abuse, were already illegal at the time, said Götting.
According to the museum director, the court case against the "vampire", as Haarmann was also known, was even reported on in the USA. Haarmann received the death penalty and was beheaded in April 1925. His head, preserved in formalin, was stored in Göttingen's forensic medicine department for decades and was only cremated and buried anonymously in 2014.
Haarmann as material for artists
The unprecedented criminal case has been a recurring theme for historians and artists. Götz George played Haarmann in the award-winning film "Der Totmacher" in 1995, and there was a musical at Schauspiel Hannover.
Many files relating to the case are stored in the Lower Saxony state archives. According to the authority, they are still in high demand and are now only available digitally for users in the reading room. The Haarmann case has also been repeatedly adapted into literature, including graphic novels. In Hanover, there are guided tours of the city in the footsteps of the notorious criminal.
dpa