Fritz Heinrich German serial killer Date of Birth: 25.10.1879 Country: Germany

Biography of Fritz Haarmann

Friedrich Heinrich Karl 'Fritz' Haarmann was born on October 25, 1879, in Hanover, Germany. He was the sixth child of poor parents. As a child, Fritz preferred playing with his sisters' dolls rather than engaging in sports and other activities typically associated with boys. He did not excel in his studies and, at the age of 16, enrolled in a military academy at the insistence of his parents. Although initially there were no complaints about him, Fritz was discharged from the army due to medical reasons after a year. He returned to Hanover and worked at a tobacco factory until he was arrested for molesting children in 1898. Following a psychiatric evaluation, Fritz was sent to a psychiatric hospital. After six months, he escaped to Switzerland, where he worked for two years before returning to Germany under an assumed name and rejoining the army. In 1902, he received a full military pension and returned to his family.

Fritz opened a confectionery shop, selling pastries and meat, which was a common practice at that time. Unfortunately, he eventually went bankrupt. Over the next ten years, he lived a life of petty theft, robbery, and fraud. In 1914, at the start of World War I, Fritz was imprisoned and released in 1918, facing the poverty of the German nation. The new state of Germany provided him with more opportunities to commit his crimes. Unaware of Fritz's psychopathy, the police relied on him as an informant due to his military background. Between 1918 and 1924, Fritz committed at least 24 murders, although he was suspected in 27 cases. His first victim was Friedel Rothe, a 17-year-old gay youth who disappeared in September 1918. Rothe's friends told the police that they had last seen him with Fritz. The police raided Fritz's place, finding him in the company of a partially undressed teenager. However, the teenager was not Rothe. Fritz received a 9-month prison sentence for his "indecent behavior." By that time, Rothe, who had left his mother and was living with Fritz, had already been dismembered by his benefactor.

Most of Fritz's victims were young boys and non-traditionally oriented youths between the ages of 13 and 20. They would travel from the suburbs to the city and back, including deserters and sometimes male prostitutes who frequented the Hanover Central Station, considered the gay center of Germany. Fritz, who had become an unofficial police informant, easily lured them to his apartment, sometimes engaging in sexual activities with them before strangling them, biting their throats, and drinking their blood. Usually, all the victims were dismembered before being dumped into the Leine River.

Together with his young lover and accomplice, Hans Grans, Fritz sold the victims' belongings on the black market, keeping the best items for himself. There are reports that Fritz also sold the meat from his victims, sometimes adding it to sausages, and in 1923, Hans managed to sell human flesh disguised as beef. Eventually, Fritz was arrested when the police found over 500 human bones belonging to 22 victims in the Leine River using a dredger. Suspicion quickly fell on Fritz, who had been convicted of molesting children and was connected to Friedel Rothe's disappearance in 1918. Fritz was arrested while attempting to lure a boy from the train station to his apartment. A search of his apartment revealed bloodstains on the walls, which Fritz claimed were from his illegal meat trade. However, the bloody walls were accompanied by the belongings and clothes of several missing boys. Furthermore, Hans was caught in the act of dismembering a boy's body in the meat shop a few days later.

During questioning, Fritz confessed to raping, killing, and dismembering boys since 1918. His trial, which began on December 4, 1924, became one of the major events for the German media at the time. The term "serial killer" was not commonly used yet, and Fritz was referred to as the "werewolf," "vampire," and "wolfman." The case became even more scandalous when it was revealed that Fritz had been a police informant, and the police had disregarded the fact that some victims had last been seen with him. The trial lasted nearly two weeks, and on December 19, Fritz was found guilty of 24 out of the 27 murders and sentenced to death. On April 15, 1925, he was beheaded by guillotine. Before the execution, Fritz declared, "I repent, but I'm not afraid of death." His lover, Hans Grans, was also charged as an accomplice to the crimes but had his death sentence commuted to only 12 years in prison. After his release, Hans lived in Hanover until his death in 1975.

After Fritz's execution, his head was made available to scientists for the study of his brain structure. However, the reason behind his obsession with consuming the blood of others remained unknown. Currently, Fritz's head is stored at the Göttingen medical school, while four parts of his brain are in Munich. The media at the time claimed that Fritz's head was severed with a sword blessed in a church, not with a guillotine. The remains of Fritz's victims were buried together in a mass grave at Stöckener Cemetery in February 1925. In April 1928, a triptych appeared at the grave, bearing the names and ages of the victims.