Monsters. It’s a concept we’re all familiar with, both through real life and make believe. When we’re little, we are frightened of the boogeyman under the bed, and as we grow older, we learn of all different types of monsters created through the ages to scare and even entertain. Then as we grow even older, we see the horrors of the real world.
We learn that sometimes it’s the acts of a single person that can leave a true lasting mark on the lives of so many. Murderers, rapists, violent robbers, kidnappers, arsonists, these are the monsters of our daily lives, these are the monsters that stalk the real world every day right under our noses.
Today we meet a monster who covers both categories and everything in-between. The subject of this article is perhaps one of the most demented, sadistic, monstrous, depraved, and literally bloodthirsty individuals ever covered in true crime. Before the vile rampages of Lopez and Shipman, before the infamous horror of the Big Four that were Bundy, Dahmer, Ridgeway, and Gacy, this psychotic brute was perhaps the most sinister serial killer since Jack the Ripper.
This is a man who preyed on the innocent women of Germany for his own sick and twisted sexual satisfaction, leaving a trail of blood a mile long in his wake. A true monster of the real world with a name bestowed on him worthy of the tales of our childhood nightmares, this is the story of Peter Kürten — The Vampire of Düsseldorf.
A World Full of Miseries, and Woes, and Troubles
Let’s set the stage for the carnage to come. Peter Kürten was born on May 26th, 1883, in Mülheim, Cologne, Germany, at the time known as Mülheim am Rhein. He was the oldest of 13 children, though at least two of them passed away while still very young, and all of them lived with their parents in a tiny single room apartment.
As seems typical for most serial killers, Kürten’s father was an absolute and utter shitbag. The man was a raging alcoholic and was prone to beat Kürten and his siblings whenever he felt they stepped out of line. On more than one occasion his father, while smashed off his skull, would order his wife and all of his children to assemble in front of him before forcing his wife to strip in front of their children. Then, whether his wife was 100% willing or not, he would start having sexual intercourse with her right in front of his kids without any concern about how something like that would affect them mentally going forward.
Being the oldest, Peter was the most frequently targeted of the children for his father’s cruelty, so much so he would refuse to come home from school and run away on multiple occasions. He would wander the streets for days, even weeks, all the while becoming accustomed to the darker side of human life. Spending much of his time with other outcasts and petty criminals, he was very quickly introduced to the life of crime early on all in the name of feeding and clothing himself while on the streets.
It was while on the streets that Kürten made the acquaintance of a local dogcatcher who lived in the same building as his family. The two became close and the dogcatcher would begin letting Peter join him on his rounds about town, looking for any strays wandering the street. Kürten seemed to have all the rotten luck when it came to older male role models as while spending time with this man, he was shown acts of utter cruelty. He was taught how to torture and even kill many of the dogs they had captured, the older man even going so far as to show young Peter how to properly perform bestiality on the poor defenceless animals.
All this evil, everything he’d been forced to experience and endure, it had already started to take its toll on Kürten, and eventually this little man simply accepted that the world he lived in was a cruel one, one where the strong survive, one where you take what you want, and one where life is a fragile thing, one he could manipulate. He soon put that to the test, and the test was successful. When he was only 9-years-old, Peter Kürten claimed his first two souls.
While out on a raft with a pair of other children, Peter suddenly forced the head of one of the boys under the water and held it there. The boy struggled for his life under the water while the other boy leapt into the water to try and help his friend — only to meet the same fate. The police were called, they investigated — and deemed the whole ordeal an accident.
No Man Knows till He Experiences It
Eventually Kürten’s father was arrested and jailed in 1897 after raping Peter’s 13-year-old sister. While he was behind bars, his mother got a formal separation order, soon remarrying and moving the whole family to Düsseldorf. Now with his father out of the picture, you’d think that perhaps there would be room for Kürten to grow properly as a person, right? Well — no.
Sadly the putrid apple doesn’t fall far from the rotting tree. Taking a cue from his horrible father, Peter soon began raping his sister, the same one his father had raped prior, all under his mother’s nose.
Peter’s sexual nature continued to twist and distort within him as he grew older and older. Eventually he began a relationship with a girl in school of the same age. This might have had the chance to be good for him, the first real relationship with a woman in his life, but sadly it only further sent him spiraling into the darkness.
While the young lady allowed Peter to undress and fondle her, every time he attempted anything explicitly sexual, she denied him outright. Being a pent-up teenage boy with sexual urges is something most can understand and sympathize with, however few would go to the lengths Kürten did in order to find his sweet release. Sneaking into the nearby stables, the young degenerate would end up satisfying himself with sheep, goats, and pigs.
It’s here that the monster would escalate yet again, and in doing so would unlock what would be his main source of pleasure for the remainder of his life. While doing the snu snu with the poor unfortunate livestock, Kürten pulled out a knife and drove it directly into the jugular of the poor creature. Blood sprayed and dripped out of the open wound as the defenseless creature cried out in pain. At the sight of the crimson essence pouring out of the animal and its life fading away with every pump of its heart, Kürten felt a rush of pleasure and elation he had never felt before, achieving a massive orgasm.
Hematolagnia is a sexual fetish where one gets aroused and achieves climax at the sight of blood. This can be heightened by the act of licking or drinking said blood, but usually the simple sight of it will do the job.
This revelation only furthered Kürten’s descent into depravity. He would more frequently visit the stables, each time viciously raping the animals, all the while plunging his knife into their bodies again and again with increasing ferocity. The more blood that was spilt, the more powerful the release he felt, and the extreme violence more than likely aided in the amplification of his twisted pleasure.
Kürten left school in 1897 at the age of 14 and two years later in 1899, he ran away from home and relocated to the city of Koblenz after stealing all the money he could find at his household as well as about 300 marks from his employer at the time. It was there that he began a relationship with a prostitute 2 years his senior, one who he would later state was up for every sexual perversion his dark imagination could conjure. It didn’t last long though, as he was arrested a month later and charged with breaking and entering as well as theft. Sentenced to a month in jail, he was released in August of that same year.
It was during the year of 1899 that Peter Kürten attempted his first kill as an adult. He claimed while speaking to the police years later that he picked up an 18-year-old girl and persuaded her to accompany him to the Hofgarten. Before anyone asks, the Hofgarten is a well-known public park in Düsseldorf.
If Kürten is to be believed, he and the girl had sex in the park and, after finishing, he strangled her until she passed out and he left her laying there, believing he had killed her. This claim is dubious at best as there was no report of a murder or assault during that time, so it’s more than likely if his story is true, the girl survived, and simply decided not to report the attack. Regardless, Peter claimed that it was with this single act that his belief was set in stone in his mind, that to achieve the greatest pleasure on earth, he had to hurt people.
More than that — he had to kill people.
We’ve All Become God’s Madmen, All of Us
It didn’t take long for Kürten to once again end up behind bars. The next year in 1900, he would be arrested for fraud, not once but twice. The thefts he’d perpetrated against his family and employer the year prior along with the attempted murder of a young woman with a firearm were added to his charges, and he was convicted of all of it, spending four years in prison in Derendorf, a borough of Düsseldorf.
By the summer of 1904, Kürten was a free man once more, but he didn’t remain so for long. Almost as soon as he was set free, he was drafted into the Imperial German Army. Apparently Peter didn’t think so either, as after he was deployed to the city of Metz in Lorraine to serve in the 98th Infantry Regiment, he promptly deserted.
It is now that we come to what would be the final mark on our serial killer checklist. In the autumn of that year, Kürten started lighting fires. Acts of arson, much like the killing of animals and prior trauma at the hands of awful parents, are very much in character for most serial killers as it gives a sense of power, the power to kill and destroy at the monster’s fingertips, the power to hurt and burn anyone and anything in their path.
Setting barns and haylofts ablaze, Kürten would look on from a distance, an evil smile plastered on his face, as he watched his handiwork consume all in its path, chuckling as emergency services did their best to extinguish the inferno. In his later confessions to the police, he confessed to have set a total of 24 fires after he deserted the military before he was caught that New Year’s Eve. Smiling the whole time, he confessed to doing so in order to gain sexual arousal at the thought of perhaps having burnt a few homeless people to ashes.
Because of his desertion, Kürten was tried in military court. He was convicted of desertion in addition to multiple counts of arson, robbery, and attempted robbery. He served his sentence between 1905 and 1913 in the independent city of Münster where he spent most of his time in solitary confinement due to multiple incidents of insubordination.
It was during this long stint in prison that everything fully came together for this abomination against mankind. While behind bars, stuck in solitary, Kürten’s rage against society and humanity as a whole increased, as did his need for destruction and bloodshed. Being in a military prison, he was exposed to extreme forms of disciplinary punishment, and with this new revelation, everything gelled together in one horrifically macabre package.
The erotic fantasies he’d created for himself while assaulting women and molesting animals, mixed with the need to see the spraying scarlet viscera at the edge of his knife, expanded into the want and need to stalk poor unfortunate souls in the dark streets, like a predator ready to pounce. The deaths of the masses, their screams in his ears and their blood seeping through his fingers, they became the ever forefront thoughts in his mind from that moment on, at times causing him to spontaneously ejaculate simply from lingering on these demented and perverted fantasies for too long.
Peter Kürten was released from prison in 1913 and from there, he moved to Mülheim am Rhein. His crimes to this point had been horrible and damning, but if only the army had known the atrocities that were to come, they might never have let him go. For now, Peter Kürten was free, and he was ready to act on every last one of his deranged fantasies, bringing about a coup de grace on his life of crime in the most insane and blood drenched way possible. Night had fallen over Germany — and The Vampire was on the hunt.
The Blood is Life… and It Shall Be Mine!
Kürten was back on the streets once more and it didn’t take long for him to get back to his old ways. While it’s clear that one of the main purposes for prison is rehabilitation, sometimes there’s just no changing a monster.
On May 25th, 1913, Kürten broke into a tavern in his neighborhood late at night in order to burgle the place. While prowling the residence, he made his way to the inn portion of the establishment where the owners lived, and he came across little Christine Klein, the 9-year-old daughter of the tavern and inn owner, asleep in her bed. Face to sleeping face with the young girl, all those devilish erotic fantasies bubbled up to the surface of his mind.
Barn animals and prostitutes weren’t enough anymore — he needed more. Without any further hesitation, Peter Kürten pounced on the sleeping child, wrapping his hands around her throat, and strangling her. As soon as she was unconscious, he pulled out a pocket knife from his pants and, without any remorse or questioning, he sliced her throat open in two swift strikes.
Blood splattered over his hand and dripped onto the floor, causing this depraved beast to climax instantly.
“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 pocketknife 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.”
A young life snuffed out. An innocent soul, stolen. And sadly, she was only the first. The next day, Kürten returned to the scene of the crime — not to the tavern itself, but to one across the way.
He sat, a smile on his face, as he overheard the distraught and disgusted comments of the patrons around him. The news of the death of little Christine had gotten out and the outrage was palpable, all to the delight of The Vampire. The cherry on top? Christine Klein’s uncle had recently gotten into a pretty heated argument with her father, and now with her dead, he became the number 1 suspect.
Eventually the poor man was cleared of suspicion, but to see him squirm put a huge grin on the face of the actual killer. A true sociopath, finding amusement in the suffering and misery of others.
Two months later, The Vampire struck again. Another break in, another burglary attempt, and Peter Kürten came across his next victim. Sound asleep in her bed was 17-year-old Gertrud Franklin, and the monster wasted no time. Leaping upon the bed, he wrapped his hands around her throat as her eyes shot open, and he throttled her savagely.
As she slipped into unconsciousness, blood began to spurt from her mouth as the force of his grip, causing Kürten to finish once more. His business finished, he actually left poor Gertrud alive, escaping much like the first time, totally undetected.
No One but a Woman Can Help a Man
Mere days after the near miss on Gertrud Franklin’s life, and with all the intent in the world to continue painting the town red, Kürten was once more arrested. No, not for the killing of a young girl and the brutal assault of another, he wasn’t even close to the suspect list at that point. No, this time it was for arson and burglary once again, and once again he was found guilty. Sentenced to 6 years behind bars and imprisoned in a military prison in the town of Breig, his constant instances of insubordination landed him an additional two years to his sentence.
Released from prison in April of 1921, the walking pile of waste moved in with his sister in the city of Altenburg. It was during his time here and with his sister’s assistance that Peter struck up a romance with one Auguste Scharf, a shop proprietor and former prostitute 3 years his senior. Darkness must attract darkness because Auguste didn’t have the most squeaky-clean record either.
Not so much for her history as a street walker, but because she’d previously been convicted and imprisoned for gunning down her fiancé — a match truly made in the deepest depths of Hades. Posing as an ex-prisoner of war, Kürten swept this woman off her feet, the two marrying only 2 years later. It’s to be noted that while the two did engage in sexual intercourse, Kürten was only able to get it up and actually perform by fantasizing about brutally slaughtering another woman all the while.
The pathetic sod wouldn’t even attempt to consummate their marriage on their wedding night until she actually invited him to bed.
In 1925, Kürten and his bride relocated back to Düsseldorf. The marriage was clearly not a happy one up until that point, but as soon as they got themselves settled, Kürten almost immediately started an affair with not one, but two different women, the servant girl Tiede and the housemaid Mech. Kürten even managed to work in partial strangulation whenever he took either of them to bed.
Auguste eventually found out about the affairs, and she was not pleased to say the least. She wasn’t mad at the two mistresses though, blaming everything on her husband, and it was on her suggestion that both Tiede and Mech instantly dropped Kürten like a bad habit and reported him to the police. Tiede reported that he seduced her while Mech cried full blown rape.
For some reason, the rape charge was dropped, but the seduction charge was carried out along with one for threatening behavior, Kürten being slapped with an 8-month sentence for his trouble. He was released after just 6 months under the condition he leave Düsseldorf, but he somehow managed to appeal that condition.
The Children of the Night! What Music They Make!
Almost as soon as he was released from prison, The Vampire of Düsseldorf struck once more. On February 3rd, 1929, an elderly woman by the name of Apollonia Kühn was walking the streets of Düsseldorf, unaware that she was being watched from the shadows. As soon as she was partially obscured by the bushes, a figure suddenly leapt at the old woman, grabbing her violently by her coat. Average height with a round face complete with a double chin, neatly combed dark hair, and a rather distinctive shit-stain mustache, he looked like the unholy offspring of Adolf Hitler and Pumpkinhead.
“No row! Don’t scream!” Kürten cried. Dragging her into the undergrowth, the monster proceeded to stab the helpless woman a total of 24 times with a sharpened pair of scissors, injuring her horribly, but she was able to survive.
The same couldn’t be said for his next victim. Five days later on February 8th, Kürten strangled 9-year-old Rosa Ohliger until she lost consciousness. He then proceeded to absolutely annihilate the poor girl, stabbing her multiple times with the same pair of scissors in the stomach, temple, genitals, and heart, killing the poor child, climaxing as he did so. As if he wasn’t depraved enough, this ghoul of a man then took his fiendish finish and proceeded to inseminate the corpse with his fingers.
He then did his best to hide the body, dragging her into a hedge before returning later on with a kerosine canister, setting the body ablaze as he once more climaxed to the putrid burning smell. What was left of her was found several days later.
Five more days passed before The Vampire attacked once more. This one was different from his prior victims for the simple fact that this victim was a man, namely 45-year-old mechanic Rudolf Scheer. Kürten stabbed him up to twenty times in the head, back, and eyes, killing him. His body was discovered several days later, to which Kürten returned to the scene to observe the investigation, the police none the wiser.
Between March and July of 1929, Kürten attempted to strangle a total of four women, though none of them actually died during said attacks. His next murder occurred on August 11th. This was Maria Hahn, an attractive looking young lady who Kürten had met only 3 days beforehand.
Gaining her interest, this horrid hobgoblin suggested taking her out on a date to the Neandertal valley that Sunday, which Maria agreed. Luring her into the meadow that day, Kürten proceeded to strangle the young woman as she pleaded for her life. He ignored her of course, continuing to throttle her as she begged and screamed, stabbed her multiple times in the head and chest.
It took poor Maria up to an hour to die, undoubtedly filled with fear and pain the whole way through. He would later return to the body to burn it, intending to crucify the remains to a tree to disgust and disturb the general public, but her body proved to be too heavy, so he simply laid underneath her burnt and decomposing body, caressing it gently, feeling, as he put it, “filled with satisfaction.”
Three months after the murder of Hahn, The Vampire wrote to the police. He anonymously confessed to the killing of poor Maria, told them her body was buried in a field, as well as supplying them with a detailed map to the body. Very Jack the Ripper-esque.
After that, Kürten kicked it up a notch. In the early morning of August 21st alone, Kürten attacked and stabbed three separate people, an 18-year-old girl, a 30-year-old man, and a 37-year-old woman. Each time he used a knife, each victim was severely wounded, and each victim said the same thing: the attacker simply walked up to them and began stabbing them, not uttering a single word. It was totally random, making it ever more terrifying.
Three days later on August 24th, foster sisters Luise Lenzen and Gertrude Hamacher, ages 14 and 5 respectively, were walking together at a fairground in the suburb of Flehe when they were approached by Kürten. He offered Luise 20 pfennig if she would run and grab him a pack of cigarettes, promising to look after her sister as she did so. Luise did, and as soon as he was given the chance, Kürten lifted the 5-year-old up by the throat, strangling her viciously until she fainted before slicing open her throat and discarding her body in a bush. As soon as Luise returned, Kürten attacked her.
She attempted to escape, but it was no use. Kürten strangled her, stabbed her in the torso, one puncture cutting her aorta. He then lived up to his nickname, biting into her throat and sucked the blood from the open wound.
A day later, he approached Gertrude Schulte, a 27-year-old housemaid, demanding sex from her. Obviously, she turned him down flat, to which the depraved beast shouted, “Well, die then!” He proceeded to stab her in the head, neck, shoulder, and back. She survived, but whether it be from the shock of it all or the blood loss she suffered, she wasn’t able to provide a substantial description to the police.
Two more attempted murders occurred in September before The Vampire ditched his trusty knife in favor of a hammer. In the evening hours of September 31st, Kürten attacked 31-year-old servant girl Ida Reuter after luring her to a cafe. Taking a walk through the local Hofgarten close to the Rhine River, he struck her viciously in the skull with a hammer, raped her, then hit her over and over again, killing the girl. 11 days later on October 11th, Kürten proceeded to do the same thing to another servant girl, this time 22-year-old Elizabeth Dörrier.
Luring her to a cafe before taking her for a walk along the Kleine Düssel river, he attacked her with his hammer, striking her hard in the temple. He then proceeded to rape her before striking her repeatedly in the head and both temples. He left her for dead and she was found the following morning, dying in hospital the following day.
Peter Kürten’s final fatal attack occurred on November 7th, 1929. This was 5-year-old Gertrude Albermann. Persuading the young child to follow him to an isolated area, he strangled the poor dear before stabbing her once in the temple with a pair of scissors. Even though she was clearly dead at this point, he then proceeded to stab the body of the child a total of 34 times in the temple and chest before dumping her corpse in a nearby pile of nettles.
All this carnage, all this bloodshed and misery, all of this occurred within a single year. So many dead, so many wounded and traumatized, all the while the demon who caused all of it walked free and without a care. The Vampire ended all their lives for his own grotesque satisfaction, but all that would soon come crashing down.
A Smile that Judas in Hell Might be Proud of
Through the entirety of our journey, there’s been a question that’s been buzzing around: Where in the hell were the police? The short answer: Chasing their damn tails. The public were in a panic as 1929 was coming to a close.
So many girls had been either killed or almost killed, and the police had no clue where to start. The biggest issue during most of the investigation is the simple fact that the authorities were strictly of the opinion that given all the victims were of varying ages, it made all the sense in the world to them that it was the work of multiple murderers, not the handiwork of a single madman. Rudolf Scheer, Kürten’s only male murder victim of that year, wasn’t even linked to him until he’d personally confessed to it.
The police were going around in circles, the pressure of public outcry on their shoulders, all while Kürten wasn’t even close to their suspect list.
Ernst Gennat was the chief inspector of the Berlin Police at the time of Kürten’s murder spree. With a career spanning over 30 years, he was one of the first to realize that it was crucial to preserve the crime scene as it was found in order to find proper evidence. The homicide division thrived under his guidance, successfully solving about 95% of all cases that came their way. It was because of him, along with a rather arrogant mistake by the monster haunting their streets that the police were put on the right track.
Two days after his final murder, Kürten created and sent a map to a local communist newspaper revealing the location of the body of Maria Hahn. In his arrogance, he also felt the need to mark where he’d left the body of little Gertrude Albermann. Not only did this clearly link the murder of those two victims together, but it was because of this overconfident gloating that the police now had a sample of the killer’s handwriting.
After careful examination, it was clear as day that the creator of this map was also the author of the nameless letters they’d been receiving for months. Every letter Kürten had written and sent to the police and media were investigated further, all concluded to be written by the same hand. Gennat was over the moon, they finally had a break in the case: All these murders, no matter how improbable it seemed to the naked eye, were committed by the same monster.
And just like that, the net had started to slowly close over The Vampire, and it would be one final mistake that would end his reign of terror for good.
The Good God Fashioned Her for a Purpose
1930 came around and several more attacks were reported to the police. Each was a woman, each was struck with a hammer, and their attacker attempted to strangle them before running off, leaving them bloody and gasping for breath. The police now had a more concrete description of the attacker, and the hunt continued in earnest.
That now brings us to one Maria Budlick, a 20-year-old unemployed woman who resided in Düsseldorf at the time of the attacks. She was looking for employment as well as a more stable place to live when she was approached by a stranger while at Düsseldorf station. Learning the pretty young lady was in search of a job and a place to lay her head, the stranger suggested that she follow him as he had the perfect place in mind. As the man began leading Maria towards a wooded park area, she became apprehensive and the two got into a bit of a tiff.
That’s when a new man came to the rescue of Maria, scaring the creep away. This wonderful savior, of course, was our favorite life-juice leech Peter Kürten.
Just as Count Dracula preyed upon Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra, Kürten knew exactly what he wanted from Maria as soon as he laid eyes on her. Originally inviting her to his residence at Mettmanner Straße, to which she refused, he instead led her to the Grafenburg Woods where he raped the poor woman and tried to strangle her. This is where The Vampire makes his one fatal mistake: he let her go. Yes, for some unfathomable reason, after Maria swore that she did not remember what Kürten’s home address was, he released his grip and let her leave, fortunately sparing her life.
Now Maria didn’t go to the police right away, instead venting her fears and frustrations to a friend in a letter. A clerk received the letter and, seeing the postage was wrong, took it upon himself to open it, contacting the police shortly after reading it. That same letter made it all the way to Chief Inspector Gennat, who set to interview Maria immediately, suspecting the man who attacked her was the monster he’d been hunting for the last year.
Maria told him everything that happened, including the address of her assailant. Speaking with the landlady of the apartments, she confirmed the address as well as its occupant: Peter Kürten.
Realizing he’d been caught, Kürten fled. His identity was now known to the police, he knew he’d been fingered as a suspect of the murders over the past year. He confessed to his wife about all his rapes and went into hiding. When he finally returned home on the 23rd of May, he broke down and told her everything.
Whether he saw the writing on the wall or not, he told her about all of his crimes, the murders included. He told her to turn him in and to claim the money on his head, perhaps the one true loving thing he ever did for her. Auguste did just that, spilling all she’d been told to the police, and that afternoon, The Vampire of Düsseldorf was finally arrested. The year-long night of bloodshed and sorrow was finally over.
At least — sunrise.
Despair Has its Own Calms
While in custody, Peter Kürten admitted to every single atrocity that he had committed, both to the crimes that the police had already suspected him of and to the ones they had no idea he had done. 68 crimes in total, including 9 murders and 31 attempted murders, he told them everything. He made no excuses for his crimes, he made it clear that he did everything for his own monstrous sexual gratification, that the sight of the blood of his innocent victims stimulated him in ways they couldn’t possibly imagine. And even in the end, the sick bastard tried to show he had some morals, making a point to the police that he had never tortured any of the children whose lives he had ended — that he had made it as quick as possible. When talking about how he had apologized to many of his victims before their deaths, he recounted that he would tell them that, “That’s what love is all about.”
He also made clear the fact that he indeed did drink the blood of several victims, each from different wounds. From the body of Hahn, he even claimed to have thrown up from the sheer amount of sanguine he had consumed. A true monster in every sense.
While awaiting trial, Kürten was approached and interviewed by one Dr. Karl Berg. A well learned psychologist, he wanted to get a psychological profile of The Vampire, he wanted to see what made him tick.
Kürten spoke about much, from the changing of weapons being his attempt to throw off the police to the number of stab wounds on each victim signifying how long it would take him to reach a satisfying orgasm, even contradicting these claims by saying it was all in an attempt to strike back at an evil society that had warped and abandoned him. At the end of the day, Dr. Berg and a multitude of other psychologists, perhaps to the shock of many, declared that Peter Kürten was in fact sane.
Sociopathic? Yes. Psychotic?
No question. Insane? No.
He had full control over every deplorable atrocity he committed against all of his victims, he enjoyed every step of it, and he appreciated the calculated criminality of everything he did.
On April 13th, 1931, The Vampire of Düsseldorf finally stood trial. He pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, even after being given a “clean bill of mental health” by the doctors beforehand. When speaking on if he had any remorse for what he’d done, Kürten minced no words: “I 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.”
The prosecution was relentless in their case against Kürten. They brought in all the same doctors who talked on how this bloodsucking vermin was of sound mind when he did what he did. All the evidence pointed out how Peter stalked his victims, he followed them and was cold and calculated in his approach to cornering them. The way he charmed several to follow him to the deserted areas where they would meet their sad ends, it was much like the hypnotic charm of a true to life vampire with the most grim results imaginable.
Presiding Judge Dr. Rose asked Kürten if he believed he had a conscience, and once again, Kürten was quite clear. “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.”
The Angel of Death will Sound His Trumpet for Me
The trial of Peter Kürten lasted all of 10 days. Despite his attempts to convince them of his madness, it’s safe to say the jury didn’t buy a lick of it. They retired to deliberate, and they returned after only two hours. Guilty on all charges, all 9 counts of murder and 7 counts of attempted murder. The Vampire was said to have no expression as his verdict was read, though he attempted to feign remorse in his final address to the court despite all he had previously said.
Judge Dr. Rose looked Peter Kürten directly in the eyes and sentenced him to death — by beheading. Yes, the guillotine was very much still in vogue back in 1930s Germany. Kürten refused to appeal the verdict, though he did seek a pardon from the Minister of Justice.
This was, of course, firmly denied. Upon hearing the news, Kürten simply nodded, took it in stride, and asked for one last request. He asked for a Confessor to be brought to his cell, he had something for him to do. Upon the man arriving, Kürten sat back, calm as can be, and asked the man to pen letters of apology to the relatives of all of his victims.
He also asked for one final letter to be written to his wife, a letter of love and of farewell. These requests were accepted and promptly carried out.
Peter Kürten received his last meal on July 1st, 1931: Wiener schnitzel, a bottle of white wine, and fried potatoes. After finishing, he asked for a second helping, which he received, being shown a touch more humanity in his final moments than he showed to any of the poor souls he’d stolen away. His execution was carried out at 6 o’clock the next morning in the grounds of Klingelputz Prison. He walked up to the guillotine, a neutral look on his pale face, no fuss no muss, flanked by the prison psychiatrist and a priest.
Just as he was leaning down to get into position, The Vampire couldn’t help himself one final time. Turning to the psychiatrist with the sincerest look on his face, he asked one last 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.”
Upon receiving no answer, he simply laid down on his back and waited for the moment to come. Looking up at the large blade glinting in the early morning sun, Peter Kürten couldn’t help — but smile. Drop, shink, thud, splash, thump. And just like that, the nightmare that had hung over all of Germany and her people had finally come to an end. Peter Kürten, The Vampire of Düsseldorf, aged 48, was dead.
The World Seems Full of Good Men — Even if There are Monsters in it
The depraved and disturbed acts orchestrated by Peter Kürten are some of the worst ever documented in criminal history. As the darkness of the shadows leave us behind, we step out into a world of sunlight, a world where The Vampire of Düsseldorf and the memory of his heinous crimes are simply not welcome.
It is here that we must send all positive energy to the memories of all the victims of this awful man. Christine Klein, Gertrud Franklin, Rosa Ohliger, Rudolf Scheer, Maria Hahn, Luise Lenzen, Gertrude Hamacher, Ida Reuter, Elizabeth Dörrier, Gertrude Albermann. Not to mention the two young boys he killed as a child, and every one of the men and women he’d attempted to kill, but managed to survive. This man was a monster, and one can only hope that wherever all these people are after leaving this world, that they are now at peace knowing he didn’t get away with it.
One final piece of information puts a somewhat macabre finish on this grim tale. After his execution, Kürten’s head was cut open and his brain removed in order to examine, the hope to find what truly caused his mental state and the attacks on all those people, sadly to no avail. It was transported to the US and sold to Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
museum in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin shortly after the end of World War II where it remains on display to this very day — the mummified head of a man, a look of momentary pain forever plastered on his vile face, bisected right down the middle, his vacant eye sockets staring out hauntingly. May his soul forever be in painful flux, forced to watch as hundreds of people come to stare at his hideous immortalized head for all of time.
Additional Notes
Every chapter title of this account is a quote or a portion of a quote from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Given the subject matter, it seemed fitting.
While it seems inconceivable that a horrible rampage like the one Kürten went on could be so quickly forgotten, the next few months after his death did just that. Soon after The Vampire lost his head, Hitler completed his rise to power, and everything that came after that overshadowed Kürten’s crimes. Guess it goes to show the only thing that can overshadow a demented madman is an even more demented madman.
The interviews Kürten granted to Dr. Karl Berg in 1930 and 1931 proved to be the first ever psychological study conducted upon a sexual serial killer, truly influential and important stuff. Dubbing Kürten “the king of the sexual perverts,” Berg used these interviews to form the basis of his book titled The Sadist.
A stage play called Normal: The Düsseldorf Ripper premiered in August 1991 at Edinburgh’s Pleasance Theatre. As one could surmise, it focuses on the case surrounding Peter Kürten and there’s even a movie from 2009 based on the play.
Sadly, Peter Kürten wasn’t the only monster loose in the world at the time of his rampage. Just as he was terrorizing the populace of Germany in the mid-1920s, across the pond in America, the shadows of the states were haunted by the beast simply known as Albert Fish. The Vampire and The Werewolf reigned together — the past truly, undisputedly, was the worst.
Key Takeaways
- Peter Kürten, known as ‘The Vampire of Düsseldorf,’ was a German serial killer who murdered at least 9 people and attempted to kill 31 others between 1913 and 1929.
- Kürten developed hematolagnia—a sexual fetish for blood—after stabbing animals during bestiality as a teenager, later escalating to human victims for gratification.
- His 1929 murder spree in Düsseldorf included stabbing, strangling, and drinking victims’ blood, with attacks on men, women, and children of varying ages confusing police.
- Kürten was finally caught after survivor Maria Budlick reported him, and his wife Auguste turned him in; he was executed by guillotine on July 2, 1931.
- Psychologist Dr. Karl Berg’s interviews with Kürten became the first psychological study of a sexual serial killer, forming the basis for his book ‘The Sadist.’
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Peter Kürten born?
Peter Kürten was born on May 26th, 1883, in Mülheim, Cologne, Germany, at the time known as Mülheim am Rhein.
What childhood trauma did Peter Kürten experience?
Kürten’s father was a raging alcoholic who beat him and his siblings, forced his wife to strip and have sex in front of the children, and Kürten was also introduced to animal torture and bestiality by a local dogcatcher. He was the oldest of 13 children living in a tiny single room apartment.
What was Kürten’s first known killing?
When he was only 9-years-old, Peter Kürten drowned two other children while out on a raft. The police investigated and deemed it an accident.
What is hematolagnia and how did Kürten develop this fetish?
Hematolagnia is a sexual fetish where one gets aroused and achieves climax at the sight of blood. Kürten developed this fetish when he stabbed a sheep in the jugular while sexually assaulting it, and at the sight of the blood pouring out, he felt a rush of pleasure and achieved a massive orgasm.
Who was Christine Klein and what happened to her?
Christine Klein was a 9-year-old girl, the daughter of a tavern and inn owner. On May 25th, 1913, Kürten broke into the tavern, found her asleep, strangled her until unconscious, and then sliced her throat open with a pocket knife, climaxing instantly at the sight of her blood.
How did the police finally identify Peter Kürten as the killer?
Kürten was identified after he attacked Maria Budlick but let her go. She wrote about the attack in a letter to a friend; a clerk opened it due to wrong postage and contacted police. Chief Inspector Ernst Gennat interviewed her, she provided Kürten’s address, and his landlady confirmed his identity.
What role did Kürten’s wife Auguste play in his capture?
After Kürten realized he had been identified, he confessed all his crimes to his wife Auguste and told her to turn him in and claim the reward money. She reported everything to the police, leading to his arrest on May 23rd, 1930.
How many crimes did Kürten confess to while in custody?
Peter Kürten admitted to 68 crimes in total, including 9 murders and 31 attempted murders.
What was the outcome of Kürten’s psychological evaluation?
Dr. Karl Berg and multiple other psychologists declared that Peter Kürten was sane, despite being sociopathic and psychotic. They determined he had full control over his actions, enjoyed every step of his crimes, and appreciated the calculated criminality of everything he did.
What was Peter Kürten’s method of execution and what were his final words?
Peter Kürten was executed by guillotine on July 2nd, 1931. His final words were: ‘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.‘
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: Peter Kürten: The Vampire of Düsseldorf
- Hero image source by Adbh266 / openverse, by-sa.
