Children are young and impressionable. They are innocent, and deserve our protection. Many would argue that parents are the first line of defense, while others will point out that some parents aren’t fit to take care of someone so precious. One thing I think both parties will agree with, is that no child should be a victim of sexual exploitation.
Today, sexual exploitation of children is rampant everywhere, from Hollywood to the child trafficking underground. The immediate focus is on the perverts who would buy or pay for a child for express purpose sexual gratification. The thing that is often overlooked, is what about the child? How does a child recover from that? What does that do to a child’s psyche? Well, we do have some examples, one of which just happens to be the case of Peter Kürten, also known as The Vampire of Düsseldorf.
Peter Kürten was born on May 26, 1883 in Mülheim am Rhein, Germany. He was the third of 13 children (two of whom died at an early age) born to poor parents. Not only did they live in poverty, trapped in a 1 bedroom apartment, but childhood was full of varying degrees of abuse. Both of Peter’s parents suffered from alcoholism. His father had a temper, and regularly beat his wife and the children. When he was drunk enough, he would line his children up, and require, or order, his wife to strip naked, where he would engage in intercourse with her, while the children watched. He had eyes for more than just his wife though, in 1894, he moved on to his eldest daughter, who was only 13 at the time, and required her to have intercourse with him. For this, he not only lost his wife, she obtained a separation order and later remarried and moved to Düsseldorf, but he also received a jail sentence of 15 months.
Being the eldest boy, Peter was the target of much of his father’s abuse. This abuse led him to refuse to return home after school, and he often ran away from home, spending days or even weeks on the streets. While he was a good student, the abuse took a toll on his academic performance, though when he ran away, he found a new source of academia, learning from the criminals he often spent time with on the street. They introduced him to various forms of petty crime, which Peter turned to in order to feed and/or clothe himself while he was away from home.
The abuse Peter suffered warped his mind, and by the time he was five years old, he had attempted to drown one of his playmates. Four years later, at the age of nine, he finally had his first human kill when he pushed a friend off of a raft, knowing the boy couldn’t swim. When another boy ran to aid the drowning friend, Peter grabbed hold of his head, holding him under water until he drowned as well. Both deaths were deemed “accidental.”
It didn’t help that Peter had already become active in the killing and torturing of animals after befriending a local dog-catcher who happened to live in the same apartment building as his family. He would often accompany him on his rounds, and together they would torture animals they picked up off the street.
When Peter finally reached his teen years, 13 to be exact, he had finally gotten a girlfriend. She was sweet, and even allowed him to fondle and undress her, but refused any and all attempts at intercourse. His frustration grew to a point where he had to find an outlet for his sexual urges. He tried to rape his sister, the same one his father had molested, but that didn’t go as planned. Rather than raping his girlfriend, he sought sexual satisfaction with the sheep, pigs, and goats in the local stables, engaging in acts of bestiality. At one point, it wasn’t enough though, and during one such act, Peter stabbed an animal just before reaching orgasm. He later reported that stabbing the animal during the act gave him his greatest sense of elation. It was no longer enough to have intercourse with these animals, he had to slash and kill them in the process. This behavior only stopped when he was caught stabbing a pig.
Peter left school in 1897, and got a job as an apprentice molder, at his father’s insistence. This apprenticeship didn’t last long, and after only two years, he stole all the money he could find in his home, as well as 300 marks from his employer and ran away. He moved to Koblenz where he befriended a prostitute. She was only two years older than him, and was willing to submit to any sexual act he requested of her. It didn’t last long though, after only four weeks, he was apprehended and charged with breaking and entering as well as theft. He was sentenced and imprisoned for a month. Upon his release in August 1899, he went back to his old ways, petty crime to get by.
Peter’s first sex-related murder took place in November 1899. He claimed to have “picked up an 18-year-old girl at the Alleestraße”, and persuaded her to accompany him to the Hofgarten. It was there that the two engaged in intercourse before he strangled her to death with his bare hands. It was then that he knew that he could only achieve this height of sexual ecstasy in this manner. There are no records to corroborate the murder of the young woman, indicating that the victim likely survived.
Fortunately, in the year to come, Peter would be removed from the streets for a period of four years. In 1900, he was arrested for fraud, released, and again arrested, this time with additional charges relating to the thefts he had made the previous year in Düsseldorf. Additionally they attached a charge for the attempted murder of a girl, with a firearm.
When he was finally released in the summer of 1904, Peter was drafted into the Imperial German Army and subsequently deployed to the city of Metz in Lorraine to serve in the 98th Infantry Regiment. He had no regard for the rules in the past, and this time was no different. He deserted and later took to committing acts of arson. He took pleasure in setting a fire, often in a barn or hayloft, then watch from a distance as emergency crews attempted to extinguish the fires. Peter would later admit to police that he had started around 24 fires, and that he had done so for his own personal sexual excitement, as well as the hope that he would burn sleeping tramps alive.
Again, the law caught up to him, and Peter was tried by the military court for desertion, and was subsequently charged with multiple counts of arson, robbery, and attempted robbery. This time, he was sentenced to eight years, serving time from 1905 to 1913. Imprisonment didn’t change his blatant disregard for rules, and he found himself in solitary confinement for much of his stay. He later admitted to police that the discipline he received while incarcerated, was the first he had ever encountered. This discipline extended to his sexual deviation where he began to fantasize about killing masses of people. These thoughts would overwhelm him, and during this time, he would find himself spontaneously ejaculating.
Upon his release, he went back to killing. During the course of a burglary at a tavern in Mülheim am Rhein, he came across a nine year old little girl asleep in her bed. Christine Klein was strangled then had her throat cut twice, with a pocket knife. As he stood by he listened while the blood dripped from her wounds and onto the floor. The sound of it caused him to ejaculate. Peter went into more detail during his trial in 1931. “It was on 25 May 1913. I had been stealing, specialising in public bars or inns where the owners lived on the floor above. In a room above an inn at Köln-Mülheim, I discovered a child of about 10 asleep. Her head was facing the window. I seized it with my left hand and strangled her for about a minute and a half. The child woke up and struggled but lost consciousness … I had a small but sharp pocket knife with me and I held the child’s head and cut her throat. I heard the blood spurt and drip on the mat beside the bed. It spurted in an arch, right over my hand. The whole thing lasted about three minutes. Then I locked the door again and went back home to Düsseldorf.”
As he had with the fires, Peter took pleasure in seeing, or in this case hearing the reactions to the murder. He went to a tavern directly opposite from where the little girl had been killed. He listened to the conversation, reactions of the locals, and reviled in the outrage, disgust, and repulsion to his crime. In the weeks to come, he took to traveling to Mülheim am Rhein where Christine had been buried. He would touch, pick up the soil over her grave, and spontaneously ejaculate.
A short two months later, Peter found himself committing another burglary, this time using a skeleton key. There he came across seventeen year old Gertrud Franken. He strangled her and watched as blood spouted from her mouth. Again, the sight of the blood excited him and he spontaneously ejaculated.
Peter was arrested, though not for the murders. He was picked up for a series of arsons and burglaries, and was sentenced to six years imprisonment, which was ultimately extended to eight, courtesy of his insubordination. When he was released in 1921, he moved to Altenburg, where he moved in with his sister. Through his sister, he became acquainted with Auguste Scharf, a former prostitute and the proprietor of a sweet shop. Auguste was no stranger to trouble, she had previously been convicted of the murder of her fiance, whom she had shot to death. A short two years later, Peter and Auguste were married.
Auguste was good for Peter, for a time. She was willing and able to engage in sex as he wished, until they were married. After that, he could only engage in intercourse at her behest. It wasn’t enough for him, and he found that he needed to commit violence against another in order to release.
He obtained a job, even became an active trades union official. In 1925, he took his wife to Düsseldorf. There, where he knew the area, he began affairs with a servant girl named Tiede and a housemaid named Mech. During their intercourse, Peter became accustomed to partially strangling them, telling Tiede once, “That’s what love means.” Auguste caught onto her husband’s infidelity. That’s when Tiede reported him to police with the claim that he had seduced her, and Mech alleged he had raped her. The charge of rape was dropped, but the allegation of seduction was pursued, and once again, Peter was imprisoned, for seduction and threatening behavior. This time he was released early, after serving only six months, he was told he had to leave Düsseldorf, which he later appealed, and did not have to relocate.
By February 1929, Peter was back on the prowl. He came across an elderly woman, Apollonia Kühn on February 3. He stalked her, waiting until she was concealed from view by some bushes to pounce. He grabbed her by the lapels of her coat, shouting “No row! Don’t scream!” Apollonia was dragged into a nearby undergrowth where she was stabbed with a sharpened pair of scissors 24 times. The blows were so brutal that some had even struck bone. Miraculously she survived.
February 8, he found a nine year old girl named Rosa Ohlinger. He strangled her before stabbing her in the stomach, temple, genitals, and even her heart with his sharpened scissors. As he cut her, he ejaculated, and later collected his semen and inserted it into her vagina with his fingers. He tried to hide her body beneath a hedge, but returned several hours later with a bottle of kerosine He set her afire, ejaculating as he watched the flames engulf her. Her body was found the next day.
February 13, he again killed, this time a 45 year old mechanic named Rudolf Scheer. He was stabbed 20 times in the head, back, and eyes. After his body was discovered, Peter returned to the crime scene to speak with the police. He even claimed to have heard about the murder via telephone.
Despite the differences in age and sex, investigators concluded the perpetrator had to be the same person, linking the crimes with the stab wounds and the location, the Flingern district of Düsseldorf. His case was fascinating, as most perpetrators had a pattern, or a signature. Peter was so random, making it difficult to come up with a suspect list.
There were no more murders between March and July, though there had been four attempted strangulations. Peter claimed to have thrown one of these strangulation victims into the Rhine River, though there is no evidence to support this. His next murder wouldn’t happen until August.
On August 8, Peter came across a young woman named Maria Hahn. He described her as “a girl looking for marriage.” He arranged to take her on a date to the Neandertal district of Düsseldorf the following Sunday. On August 11, after spending several hours with the young woman, he lured her into a meadow. Despite her pleas to spare her life, he raped the poor girl before strangling and stabbing her in the chest and head. He sat astride her body and watched as her life faded away. It took approximately one hour after he initially attacked her.
Peter had bloodstains on his clothes, and suddenly feared that his wife would connect those with the murder of Maria. He returned to where he had left her body and buried her in a cornfield. In the following weeks, he returned to her grave improving upon it. Thinking of her lying there filled him with satisfaction. He made plans to return in several weeks, intent to nail her remains to a tree in a mock crucifixion in order to further shock and disgust the public. Unfortunately, the weight of her body was too great, and he could not complete the act, instead returned her to her to the grave. Before she was buried again, he lay under her, embracing and caressing her decomposing body.
Peter didn’t want to get caught, but he enjoyed the reaction to his crimes. Three months after he had killed and buried Maria Hahn, he penned an anonymous letter to the police. There he confessed to the murder, and even drew a crude map indicating where her remains could be found. She was recovered on November 15. He knew that the police were connecting all the murders to a single person because of the murder weapon. He had to change things up, convince them there was another perpetrator. He changed his weapon of choice to a knife.
Early on August 21, just ten days after he had killed Maria, Peter randomly stabbed an 18 year old girl, a 30 year old man, and a 37 year old woman in three separate attacks. Though none had been killed, they all sustained serious injuries. When police inquired, they could not give any detailed information on who had stabbed them. Their assailant had not spoken a word.
This time, just three days later, Peter found two foster sisters, aged 5 and 14, walking from a fairground in the suburb of Flehe. He approached them, and asked the older girl, Luise Lenzen to go purchase cigarettes for him, and in return he would give her 20 pfennig. Once she was gone, he lifted the younger girl, Gertrude Hamacher, off the ground by her neck and strangled her into unconsciousness before cutting her throat and discarding her body in a patch of runner beans. When Luise returned, Peter attacked, strangling her and stabbing her in the torso, one wound piercing her aorta. Afterward he had something different in mind for this girl. He bit her and cut her throat twice before sucking the blood from her wounds.
The list of victims continues.
August 25 he accosted 27 year old housemaid Gertrude Schulte. He had asked her to engage in sex with him, but she rebuffed him. “Well, die then!” he shouted before stabbing her in the head, neck, shoulder, and back. She survived but was unable to provide authorities with a description of Peter, aside from assuming he was around 40 years of age.
In September, he attempted to kill two more victims, one by strangulation, the other by stabbing. He then changed his weapon of choice to be a hammer.
On September 30 at Düsseldorf station, Peter encountered Ida Reuter, a 31 year old servant girl. He persuaded her to accompany him to a café, and then a walk through the local Hofgarten, close to the Rhine River. Here, he moved to strike her in the head several times both before and after he raped her. She pleaded with him to spare her life, and in response he hit her in the head a few more times with the hammer.
On October 11 he met Elizabeth Dörrier, a 22 year old servant girl, outside a theater. He asked her to accompany him for a drink, and at the café and she obliged. The two took a train to Grafenburg, with intentions of taking a walk alongside the Kleine Düssel river. There he struck her once across her right temple with the hammer. He raped her then proceeded to strike her repeatedly across both temples and left her for dead. Elizabeth was found at 6:30am the following morning. She had not been dead, rather she was in a coma. Taken to the hospital, she succumbed to her injuries the following day.
October 25, he attacked two women with his hammer, both survived. They got lucky; Peter’s hammer broke during the attack.
On November 7, Peter came across 5 year old Gertrude Albermann in the Flingern district of Düsseldorf. He was able to get her to accompany him to a section of deserted allotments. Once there he grabbed her by the throat and strangled her before stabbing her once in the left temple with a pair of scissors. She “collapsed to the ground without a sound,” and he moved to stab her 34 more times in the temple and chest. Her body was left among a pile of nettles up against a factory wall.
The murders carried out by Peter Kürten were receiving a great deal of both national and international attention. He was dubbed “The Vampire of Düsseldorf.” As he had planned, thanks to the variety of assaults and murders, and varying murder weapons, police concluded that they had been the work of more than one perpetrator. By the end of 1929 police had received more than 13,000 letters from the public.
Düsseldorf Police sought the help of surrounding police forces, and together they interviewed more than 9,000 individuals, 2,650 clues were pursued, and a suspect list of 900,000 names was compiled. Just two days after the murder of Gertrude Albermann, a local paper received a map revealing not only the precise location where Gertrude had been left, but also the location of the grave of Maria Hahn – something he had previously sent to police. Though Gertrude’s body had been found earlier that day, the map described exactly how they would find her corpse, face down among bricks and rubble.
Handwriting analysis matched the map sent to the newspaper to that sent to the police in October. Peter had, over time, sent letters to various news agencies. These, too, were given to the handwriting expert, who was able to ascertain that the killer was a single person. There were no other perpetrators.
Although Peter moved on to attack a number of other people by strangulation and hammer, he was never successful in killing another person. 10 of these victims were maimed, and all were able to describe their attacker to the police. On May 14, 1930 a 20 year old woman named Maria Budlick was approached by an unknown man at Düsseldorf station. She had just arrived from Köln and was in need of lodging and employment. The man offered his services and she agreed, following him until he tried to lead her through a sparsely populated park. They began to argue, and fortunately for Maria, another man came to her rescue, asking her if she was being pestered by the man. She nodded, and the unknown man walked away. The man who came to her rescue was none other than Peter Kürten.
Peter invited her to his apartment on Mettmanner Straße for food and drink. Maria quickly deduced his intentions, and quickly told him she wasn’t interested in engaging in sex with him. He was kind, and agreed to lead her to a hotel. She had been saved by Peter, only to be lured into the Grafenburg Woods, where she was raped and strangled. She was able to let out a scream, and he released his hold on her, allowing her to leave.
Maria did not report the attack to the police, instead described the ordeal in a letter to a friend. Whether intentional or not, she had addressed the letter incorrectly, and a post office clerk opened the letter on May 19. The letter was then forwarded to the Düsseldorf police. Chief Inspector Gennat believed it was a slim chance her attacker was the man he was looking for, but opted to interview her anyway. Maria recounted her attack, and added that the only reason she had been allowed to leave was because she was unable to remember his address. That was a lie however, and she agreed to lead the police to his home. The landlady of the building allowed the inspector and Maria into the room, and she was able to confirm that it was, in fact, the room of her assailant. The landlady was able to confirm to the chief inspector that the tenant was Peter Kürten.
Knowing the police knew who he was, Peter confessed to his wife that he had raped Maria Budlick and believed that, because of his previous convictions, he would receive a 15 year penal labor sentence. With his wife’s consent, he found lodging in the Adlerstraße district of Düsseldorf. It wasn’t until May 23 that he returned home to his wife, and confessed that he was the Vampire of Düsseldorf. With this information, he urged his wife to contact authorities and claim the considerable reward that had been offered for his capture.
Auguste contacted the police the following day, and explained that although she knew her husband had been repeatedly imprisoned in the past, she had not been aware of his culpability in any of the crimes he was being suspected of. Then she added that he had confessed to her his involvement in the Düsseldorf murders, and that he was willing to confess to police. Additionally, he was to meet her outside St. Rochus church later that day. He was arrested that very afternoon.
Peter Kürten admitted to all the crimes that had been attributed to the Vampire of Düsseldorf, in addition to the murders of Christine Klein and Gertrud Franken in 1913. In all, he admitted to 68 crimes including 10 murders and 31 attempted murders. He made no excuses for his actions, only justified them based upon what he felt were injustices endured during his life. He admitted that the sight of his victim’s blood was enough to bring him to orgasm, and also that if he had ejaculated in the process of strangling a woman, he would immediately apologize and proclaim, “That’s what love is all about.” To the assertion that he was a vampire, he admitted to having drunk blood from the throat of one victim, from the temple of another, and to have licked the blood from a third victim’s hands. He drank so much blood from Maria Hahn that he vomited. Additionally he admitted to having decapitated a swan in the spring of 1930 in order to drink the blood from the neck of the animal, which also helped him achieve orgasm.
As he awaited trial, Peter was extensively interviewed by psychiatrist Dr. Karl Berg. It was during these interviews that his motive was laid out. He was just looking for sexual pleasure. He associated sexual excitement with violent acts, which extended over time to the sight of blood. He confided that although he had occasionally raped/penetrated his female victims, he had only done so to feign the act of coitus as a motive for the crime. Additionally, those who had survived his attacks had only done so because he had achieved orgasm early in the assault and he no longer needed them.
His trial began on April 13, 1931 where he was charged with nine counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder. He pleaded guilty by reason of insanity. Throughout the duration of his trial, when he wasn’t delivering testimony, he was surrounded by a heavily guarded shoulder high iron cage, crafted for the sole purpose of protecting him from the enraged families of his victims.
When he was asked by the judge why he had continued to commit acts of arson throughout 1929 and 1930, Peter explained, “When my desire for injuring people awoke, the love of setting fire to things awoke as well. The sight of the flames excited me, but above all, it was the excitement of the attempts to extinguish the fire and the agitation of those who saw their property being destroyed.”
When the judge asked him whether he possessed a conscience, he replied, “I have none. Never have I felt any misgiving in my soul; never did I think to myself that what I did was bad, even though human society condemns it. My blood and the blood of my victims must be on the heads of my torturers … The punishments I have suffered have destroyed all my feelings as a human being. That was why I had no pity for my victims.”
Several days into the trial, Peter made the decision to change his plea from guilty by reason of insanity, to guilty. Addressing the court, he proclaimed, “ have no remorse. As to whether recollection of my deeds makes me feel ashamed, I will tell you [that] thinking back to all the details is not at all unpleasant. I rather enjoy it.”
Professor Franz Sioli testified to Peter’s motivation. He claimed his motivation was the desire to achieve the sexual gratification he demanded, and that this satisfaction could only be achieved by acts of brutality, violence and Peter’s knowledge of the pain and misery his actions caused to others. Dr. Karl Berg testified that his motive in committing murder and attempted murder was 90 percent sadism, and 10 percent revenge relating to his perceived sense of injustice for both the neglect and abuse he had endured both as a child and the discipline he endured while incarcerated.
The trial lasted only 10 days, and on April 22 the jury deliberated for just under two hours before reaching a verdict. Peter Kürten was found guilty and was sentenced to death for the nine counts of murder. He was also found guilty of the seven counts of attempted murder. As the sentence was passed, Peter showed no signs of emotion. In his final address to the court, he said that he now saw his crimes as being “so ghastly that [he did] not want to make any sort of excuse for them.
Peter sought permission to write letters of apology to the relatives of his victims, as well as a final farewell letter to his wife. His request was granted.
On July 1, 1931, he received his last meal, consisting of Weiner Schnitzel, fried potatoes, and a bottle of white wine. He ate the entire meal and requested a second, which was granted.
On July 2, he walked unassisted to the guillotine, flanked by the prison psychiatrist as well as a priest. Just before his head was placed on the guillotine, he turned to the psychiatrist and asked the question, “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.” When asked if he had any last words to say, he smiled and said, “No.”
Peter Kürten was beheaded by guillotine at 6 in the morning. His head has since been bisected and mummified. His brain was removed and subjected to forensic analysis in an attempt to gain insight as to his personality and behavior, though the examinations revealed no abnormalities. The autopsy conducted on his body concluded that aside from having an enlarged thymus gland, he did not suffer any physical abnormality.
Shortly after World War II, Peter Kürten;s head was transported to the United States where it is currently on display at the Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.
Was The Vampire of Düsseldorf created from the circumstances surrounding his childhood? Did his exposure to sexual acts and abuse at a very young age contribute to what he had become? What can we do to save our children?
Up Next: Mercy Brown: The Last New England Vampire
