A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin
Page 24
2 Stephan Harbort, quoted in Gabi Schlag and Benno Wenz, Tatort Berlin—Der S-Bahn-Mörder von Rummelsburg, TV documentary program, original airdate November 26, 2012, broadcast in Germany by Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting (rbb).
3 Thomas Krickstadt and Mike Straschewski, joint e-mail to author, February 20, 2013.
4 Frank Pfeiffer, e-mail to author, March 17, 2013.
5 Frank Pfeiffer, e-mail to author, March 16, 2013.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1 Sunrise time from http://www.world-timedate.com, accessed on March 29, 2013.
CHAPTER TWENTY
1 “Ueberfälle in S-Bahnzügen,” Das 12 Uhr Blatt (Berlin), January 7, 1941.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
1 Manfred Woge, quoted in Gabi Schlag and Benno Wenz, Tatort Berlin—Der S-Bahn-Mörder von Rummelsburg, TV documentary program, original airdate November 26, 2012, broadcast in Germany by Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting (rbb).
2 Wilhelm Lüdtke and Georg Heuser, “Die Berliner S-Bahn-Morde,” Kriminalistik 16, Issue 5 (May 1942), 52.
3 Ibid., 50.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1 “Frauen wurden aus der S-Bahn-Zügen geworfen,” Der Westen (Berlin), February 14, 1941. The original misspelled the victim Voigt’s last name. I corrected it in this translation.
2 Professor Laurenz Demps, quoted in Gabi Schlag and Benno Wenz, Tatort Berlin— Der S-Bahn-Mörder von Rummelsburg, TV documentary program, original airdate November 26, 2012, broadcast in Germany by Berlin-Brandenburg Broadcasting (rbb).
3 Manfred Woge, quoted in Schlag and Wenz, Tatort.
4 “Das Spiel ist aus—Arthur Nebe: Glanz und Elend der deutschen Kriminalpolizei,” Der Spiegel, January 26, 1950, 24.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1 “Das Spiel ist aus—Arthur Nebe: Glanz und Elend der deutschen Kriminalpolizei,” Der Spiegel, January 26, 1950, 24.
2 Wilhelm Lüdtke and Georg Heuser, “Die Berliner S-Bahn-Morde,” Kriminalistik 16, Issue 5 (May 1942), 52.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
1 Wilhelm Lüdtke wrote that the prints were men’s size 39.5. Some other reports have them at size 40.
2 “Impression and Pattern Evidence,” National Institute of Justice, http://www.nij.gov/topics/forensics/evidence/impression/impression.htm, January 2, 2013, accessed on January 25, 2013.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
1 This list was put together after Ogorzow was arrested as a suspect and consists of items that were taken from him and his home while he was under interrogation. Berlin Kripo Homicide Division Koziol, July 22, 1941. This list was received and certified on July 25, 1941.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
1 Wilhelm Lüdtke and Georg Heuser, “Die Berliner S-Bahn-Morde,” Kriminalistik 16, Issue 5 (May 1942), 68.
2 Ibid., 70.
3 Ibid., 68.
4 Ibid.
5 “Der Berliner S-Bahn-Mörder gefaßt!,” Berliner Morgenpost, July 18, 1941.
6 Ibid., quoted and translated into English in Todd Herzog, Crime Stories: Criminalistic Fantasy and the Culture of Crisis in Weimar Germany (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), 145.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
1 Robert Gellately, Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002), 79 and endnote 56.
2 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Translation: First Letter to All Judges,” Holocaust Encyclopedia, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007911, accessed on January 30, 2013, letter dated October 1, 1942. USHMM translated “Letter to All Judges—Announcement of the Reich Minister of Justice—Nr. 1,” in Heinz Boberach, ed., Richterbriefe: Dokumente zur Beeinflussung der deutschen rechtsprechung 1942–44 (Boppard am Rhein, Germany: Harold Boldt Verlag, 1975), 9–10.
3 Confession of Paul Ogorzow, July 1941. Kriminalpolizei file on the criminal investigation into the S-Bahn murders. Landesarchiv Berlin, A.Pr. Br. Rep. 030-03 Tit. 198B Nr. 1782–1789.
4 Some documents have this doctor’s last name spelled “Schwarenbach.”
5 Confession of Paul Ogorzow, July 1941.
6 Ibid.
7 Addendum to the Confession of Paul Ogorzow, July 1941.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
1 For more on the legal structure of the special courts, see, e.g., Andrew Szanajda, The Restoration of Justice in Postwar Hesse, 1945–1949 (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007), 24–27.
2 Ibid., 26.
3 Indictment of Paul Ogorzow on July 23, 1941. Kriminalpolizei file on the criminal investigation into the S-Bahn murders. Landesarchiv Berlin, A.Pr. Br. Rep. 030-03 Tit. 198B Nr. 1782–1789.
4 Ibid.
5 Chief of Police in Berlin, press release, “Accusation of the Karlshorst Murderer,” newspaper/print, Berlin Local Announcements, July 23, 1941, number 174.
6 “Im Namen des Deutschen Volkes!”: Special Court of Berlin, judgment against Paul Ogorzow, July 24, 1941, 1.
7 US Army, “The Statutory Criminal Law of Germany: With Comments,” Department of the Army Pamphlet, 31-122 (Washington, DC: War Department, 1946), 44.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid., 45.
11 Special Court of Berlin, judgment against Paul Ogorzow, July 24, 1941. Kriminalpolizei file on the criminal investigation into the S-Bahn murders. Landesarchiv Berlin, A.Pr. Br. Rep. 030-03 Tit. 198B Nr. 1782–1789.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid.
17 Ibid.
18 Wilhelm Lüdtke and Georg Heuser, “Die Berliner S-Bahn-Morde,” Kriminalistik 16, Issue 5 (May 1942), 70.
19 Chief of Police in Berlin, press release, “Ogorzow Found Fully Accountable,” newspaper/print, Berlin Local Announcements, July 24, 1941, number 175.
CHAPTER THIRTY
1 Alex Small, “3 Nazi Traitors and 2 Slayers Die on Guillotine: Spy and Mass Murderer Among Five Executed,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 26, 1941.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Geoffrey Abbott, What a Way to Go: The Guillotine, the Pendulum, the Thousand Cuts, the Spanish Donkey, and 66 Other Ways of Putting Someone to Death (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007), 139.
6 Kee D. Kim, M.D., associate professor, chief, spinal neurosurgery, Department of Neurological Surgery, UC Davis School of Medicine, e-mail to author, September 14, 2012.
7 Ibid.
8 Anne Nelson, Red Orchestra: The Story of the Berlin Underground and the Circle of Friends Who Resisted Hitler (New York: Random House Digital, Inc., 2009), 177.
EPILOGUE
1 Chief of Police in Berlin, press release, “Karlshorst S-Bahn Murderer Executed,” newspaper/print, Berlin Local Announcements, July 26, 1941, number 178.
2 Todd Herzog, Crime Stories: Criminalistic Fantasy and the Culture of Crisis in Weimar Germany (New York: Berghahn Books, 2009), 145. In making this assessment, Professor Herzog refers to Joachim Linder and “his excellent study of Nazi crime fiction and the figure of the serial killer.”
3 The information in this chapter on Wilhelm Lüdtke’s life after the S-Bahn Murderer case comes primarily from the CIA files on him and his denazification file. His CIA file includes copies of his denazification paperwork, such as his Fragebogen. National Archives, Washington, D.C., RC Box #082, Location (RC) 230/86/23/05, “Ludtke Wilhelm.” Note that the file name is missing the umlaut.
4 Ibid. Fragebogen Number N. 5042.
5 Ibid. Letter to Chief of Foreign Division “M,” dated March 2, 1951.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid. Letter to Chief of Foreign Division “M” from Chief of Station Karlsruhe, dated July 17, 1951.
8 Ibid.
9 CIA, “Research Aid: Cryptonyms and Terms in Declassified CIA Files—Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Disclosure Acts,” June 2007, 12.
10 Ibid.
11 Wilhelm Lüdtke’s CIA file.
12 Ibid.
13 Katharsis, Gemeinschaft für Philosophie und Geschichte e.V., Autorengruppe, Geheimnisse deutscher und allgemeiner Geschichte, Volume 1 (Frankfurt, Germany: Verlag West-Ost Renaissance, 2000), 27.
14 For details on Georg Heuser’s crimes and trial, see Jürgen Matthäus, “No Ordinary Criminal: Georg Heuser, Other Mass Murderers, and West German Justice,” in Patricia Heberer and Jürgen Matthäus, eds., Atrocities on Trial: Historical Perspectives on the Politics of Prosecuting War Crimes (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2008), 187–209.
15 Dietrich Strothmann, “Die gehorsamen Mörder,” Die Zeit (Hamburg, Germany), June 7, 1963.
16 Götz Aly, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross, Cleansing the Fatherland: Nazi Medicine and Racial Hygiene (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 222.
17 Entlang der Gleise, “Berliner Stellwerke 2,” http://www.entlang-der-gleise.de/stellwerke-berlin2.html, accessed on March 3, 2013.
INDEX
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. To find the corresponding locations in the text of this digital version, please use the “search” function on your e-reader. Note that not all terms may be searchable. Page numbers in italic indicate maps.
accidents due to blackouts, 62
accidents handled by Orpo, 71, 97
addiction to violence, 59
aerial bombardment of cities, 36–39, 63
affairs by Ogorzow, 29, 195–196, 213, 232
“after the fact” (ex post facto) laws, 244
air raid warning system, 36, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 63–65
air-to-ground radar, 37
“Alex, the” (Alexanderplatz) building, 119, 175, 187
alibis, Ogorzow, 158, 160, 190, 208, 209, 213
allotment gardens, garden area, 1, 6, 7
Alt, Axel, 251
Alt Fanger, Germany, 15
American Journal of Psychiatry, 30
amnesty for imprisoned Nazis, 210, 236–237
Amt I, III, IV, V, VI, VII (RHSA), 115–118
Anglo-Soviet Agreement, 209
Anhalter Bahnhof, S-Bahn station, 63
animal torture, serial killers, 30
antibiotics, 233
appearance of Ogorzow, 1–2, 3, 29, 149, 210, 219–220, 241
Aryan ideal, 115, 143
asphyxiation signs, 73
assaults to rapes to murders, 140–141
astronavigation used by British, 37
Atlas of Forensic Medicine (Weimann), 262
attack method developing by Ogorzow, 17, 49, 89, 90, 102–103, 129, 165, 169
“Attacks on the S-Bahn” article, 174–175
attention of authorities (avoiding), Nazi Germany, 79
Austria, 33
authoritarian state, 126
autopsies. See Weimann, Waldemar (forensic pathologist and psychiatrist)
“auxiliary signalman,” Ogorzow, 52–53, 78, 158, 160
Axis Powers, xx
Axmann, Artur (Hitler Youth leader), 252–253, 260
background events (August 1939–July 1941), xix–xx
back-to-back criminal offenses as unusual, 142
Barth, Gertrude, 70, 80. See also Ditter, Gertrude “Gerda” (murder victim)
Battle of the Atlantic, xix
Bautze, Amalia (Lüdtke’s wife), 120
BECRIPPLE-2 (cryptonym for Lüdtke), 255–256
bed-wetting (enuresis), serial killers, 30
Belarus, 260, 261
Belgium, xx, 48, 49
Bendorf, Elizabeth (attempted murder victim), xiii, xxi, 90–100, 101, 102, 103, 107, 109, 110, 135, 161, 170, 182
Berlin, Germany. See also Blackout Regulation; garden area murders; Nazi Germany; S-Bahn; S-Bahn Murderer
air raid process, 64–65
bombed by Great Britain, xx, 35–36, 37–38, 39, 46, 63, 65–66
East Berlin, 223
maps, xiii, xiv–xv
women with husbands away in military, 7, 23, 29, 67–68, 91, 145, 196, 213, 228
Berliner Morgenpost, 227
Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), 52
Berlin-Friedrichsfelde, 67, 73, 81, 84
Berlin Special Court (Sondergericht), 229, 236–238, 239, 241–244, 250
Berlin Wall, 262
BESMIRCH-2 (cryptonym for Lüdtke), 255
Betriebsbahnhof Rummelsburg S-Bahn station, xiii, xv, xvii, 141, 151
bicycle with dynamo light, Ogorzow, 217
bill for execution sent to Ogorzow’s wife, 248
“blackout killer,” 122–123
Blackout Regulation, 35–47
accidents due to blackouts, 62
conditions during blackouts, 2, 11, 18, 35–47, 50, 93, 106, 162, 164, 165, 177, 178, 209
crimes committed during blackouts, 45–46, 61, 188, 193, 205, 223, 229–231, 237
“Decree Against Public Enemies” (Volksschädlingsverordnung), 45–46
Eighth Regulation Implementing the Air Protection Act, 40–42
propaganda posters, 43–44
blackouts used by Ogorzow, 7–8, 9, 13, 20, 22, 34, 69, 70, 81, 122–123, 126, 141, 149, 150, 154, 163, 166, 174, 187, 229, 235
Blitz, xx, 36
blood found on Ogorzow’s uniform, 213–215
blows to the head of victims, Ogorzow, 4, 11–12, 24, 25–27
blunt object (iron rod, rebar) used by Ogorzow, 102, 103–104, 107, 110, 111, 130, 166, 170, 171, 179, 180, 197
blunt object (lead cable) used by Ogorzow, 26, 89, 90, 94, 95, 96, 98–99, 108, 110, 138, 225–226
bodies of victims (never concealing), Ogorzow, 197
Bohemia, 258
Bohm, Auguste (Herlitz’s girlfriend), 78, 87
Bormann, Martin, 259
Braun, Konrad, 70–71, 74
break-in committed by Ogorzow, 210
British. See Great Britain
Brownshirts (SA), 31–33, 34, 102, 103, 154, 165, 178, 208, 209, 220, 222, 224, 228, 234, 244
Budzinski, Lina (attempted murder victim), xiii, xxi, 11–13, 17–18, 34, 49, 95, 156–157
Bulgaria, xx
Büngener, Elisabeth (murder victim), xiii, xxi, 165–167, 168–169
Busch, Gerda, 122
BVG (Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe), 52
carotid artery, 57, 69, 73
CAUTERY-4 (cryptonym for Lüdtke), 255
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 254–256
Chicago Daily Tribune, 246
childhood of Ogorzow, 2, 29–31
child welfare, Nazi Germany, 69–70, 71
Christmas celebration, Nazi Germany, 165
chronology of background events (August 1939–July 1941), xix–xx
Churchill, Winston (Prime Minister of United Kingdom), 36
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 254–256
Ciano, Galeazzo, 76
“city fast train” (Stadtschnell-bahn), 50–51. See also S-Bahn
“city train” (Stadtbahn), 51
“clap, the” (gonorrhea), 232–233
cleaning skulls of victims by Weimann, 221
climbing a fence to ditch work, Ogorzow, 207–208, 209, 211, 213
Cold War, 254
“collapse, the” (Zusammenbruch), 253
colloidal silver, 233
“colonies,” garden area, 5–6
color scheme used by S-Bahn, 47, 50
“Commencement and Du
ration of the Blackout,” Blackout Regulation, 41
commuter train line in Berlin, 19. See also S-Bahn
“compromise,” intelligence community, 256
conditions during blackouts, 2, 11, 18, 35–47, 50, 93, 106, 162, 164, 165, 177, 178, 209
confessions
Heimann, 204–205
Ogorzow, 220, 221–227, 256
connecting the garden and train attacks, 132–142, 148–150, 213, 226
consciousness (loss of) and guillotines, 247–248
control cars, S-Bahn, 153
control of information in Nazi Germany, 108, 123, 124, 125–126, 127, 174, 176, 177, 227
coward, Ogorzow, 94
crimes committed during blackouts, 45–46, 61, 188, 193, 205, 223, 229–231, 237
Criminal Police. See Kripo
Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony, 127
curfews in Nazi Germany, 144, 147
Czechoslovakia, 75
Dalüge, Kurt (Chief of the Orpo), 114
dangerous gambit (trap set) by Lüdtke, 192–199
Das 12 Uhr Blatt (12 O’Clock Journal), 174–175
daylight bombing, 37, 63
death on the train, 101–105. See also Franke, Elfriede (murder victim)
Death Rode the Train (Der Tod fuhr im Zug) (Alt), 251
death sentence, Nazi Germany, 205, 223, 228, 229, 238, 239, 245, 246
decoys used by Lüdtke, 151–156, 164–165, 170
“Decree Against Public Enemies” (Volksschädlingsverordnung), 45–46
defensive wounds (lack of), 73–74
Demps, Laurenz, 7, 81, 190
denazification questionnaire (Fragebogen), 253, 254
Denmark, xix, 48
Der Westen (newspaper), 185–187
descriptions of Ogorzow, 82, 85–86, 98, 140, 145, 149, 161, 175, 186, 188, 209, 219–220
desensitized to violence, Ogorzow, 32, 34, 103
detective novels based on German Police, 251–252
detectives. See Heuser, Georg Albert; Lüdtke, Wilhelm
detectives on train stations, 151, 154, 157, 184
Deutches Kriminalpolizeiblatt (Reich Criminal Investigation Department newspaper), 83–84
Deutsche Bundesbahn, 262
Deutschen Telephonwerken, 99
Diagnose Mord (“Diagnosis Murder”), Weimann, 262
dictatorship, 113
dissection of Ogorzow, 248
ditching work, Ogorzow, 157–160, 207–208, 209, 211, 213