The Killing Of Emma Gross

by Damien Seaman

  All the English language accounts of Kürten’s crimes published since the 1930s are best taken with a pinch of salt, especially those to be found on the internet. Most – if not all – of them are hack jobs involving no original research. Some of them mistakenly place the February murder of Rosa Ohliger in March, while others claim that the 3rd February attack on Frau Kühn took place on 8th February. The Ohliger mix up seems to be the result of a typo in Karl Berg’s book which has been copied over and over ever since by those in too much of a hurry to check their facts.

  Having read as many contemporary accounts as I could, I believe the timeline that follows is the most accurate version of events published in English since the first translation of The Sadist appeared in 1938. If any readers know differently I’d be happy to hear from them.

  Incidentally, although Kürten is well known to true crime hounds today as the ‘Vampire of Düsseldorf’, none of the accounts dating from the time of the case mention this, suggesting that this touch of melodrama was added later.

  Peter Kürten timeline

  Sun 3 Feb 1929

  Frau Kühn attacked at around 9pm on ‘lonely road’ in the south-western Flingern district of Düsseldorf. According to Kühn’s statement, her attacker passes by and says good evening before grabbing her coat lapels in one hand and demanding she keep quiet. He then stabs her repeatedly. Kühn does not see the weapon, nor can she describe her attacker; her memory of the attack is hazy. Medical exam reveals twenty-four flesh wounds to head, arms and torso.

  Sat 9 Feb 1929

  Construction gang discovers fully clothed corpse of young girl at 9am. Body lies under a fence surrounding the building they’re working on in Kettwigerstrasse, Flingern district. Body is partially burned and smells of kerosene: underclothes still smoulder. There are bloodstains and stab marks in the clothing. Autopsy reveals up to thirteen stab wounds on the left torso and left temple and concludes that internal bleeding from these wounds caused the girl’s death. Bloated and livid appearance of girl’s face indicates congestion in the head; suggests the girl was also strangled before death. Burn patterns are limited to upper thighs, neck, chin and hair; lack of soot in lungs suggests the body was burned after death. Microscopic exam of girl’s underwear and genitalia reveals semen stains not visible to the naked eye. Medical examiner concludes coitus was not the aim of the attacker, but that he probably ejaculated and then inserted a semen-smeared finger under the child’s panties. Stomach contents indicate a time of death between 6pm and 7pm on Friday 8th Feb. Police soon ID the girl as eight-year-old Rosa Ohliger. Girl’s mother confirms Rosa ate lunch at 2pm on the 8th before visiting a friend. The friend confirms Rosa leaving for home at 6pm. Police find no witnesses to the crime.

  Local press picks up on these crimes and starts name-checking Jack the Ripper in its reports, implying a link between the attacks.

  Weds 13 Feb 1929

  Corpse of forty-five year-old disabled mechanic Rudolf Scheer discovered 8am, again in the Flingern district. Autopsy finds twenty stab wounds to the neck and back. This, along with absence of defensive wounds, suggests Scheer was stabbed from behind. Examiner deduces time of death between 11pm and midnight the night before.

  At this point there have been three attacks in ten days. The press warms to its Jack the Ripper musings.

  Forensic experts involved in case agree similarities:

  1) all three victims attacked in isolated areas of the Flingern district;

  2) the use of a stabbing instrument, perhaps the same one in each case;

  3) absence of common motive such as robbery or rape;

  4) attacks came at dusk or later; numerous stabs of same type executed rapidly and always including at least one stab to the temple.

  Karl Berg MD is one such expert. He performed the Ohliger autopsy and writes later: ‘All these factors, taken together, make inevitable the conclusion that the same criminal committed the crimes and, furthermore, the abnormal character of the criminal.’

  Tues 2 Apr 1929

  Sixteen-year-old Erna Penning attacked on way home. Attacker throws rope noose around her neck. Penning struggles to get away but attacker closes in and attempts to tighten the noose with one hand while throttling her with the other. According to her statement, Penning prevents the man from tightening his noose and pinches his nostrils together so he can’t breathe. This causes him to step back and remove the noose. Penning takes her chance and flees.

  Weds 3 Apr 1929

  Frau Flake attacked on ‘ill-lit’ street after leaving her workplace in northern Düsseldorf. According to her statement, she hears and then sees a man walk quickly behind her. She slows down to let him past. Instead, he flings his noose around her neck, drags her into a field by the side of the road and tries to stuff a handkerchief into her mouth. Flake resists and the man tells her to open her mouth while tightening the noose. Witnesses stumble on the scene and observe the attacker fleeing.

  April 1929

  Police ID the would-be strangler as twenty-year-old Johann Stausberg, a man variously described as an ‘imbecile’ and a ‘cretin’, with either a ‘cleft palate [and] hare lip’ or a simple ‘speech impediment’, according to whose account you are reading. Police arrest and interrogate Stausberg who confesses to the noose attacks on Penning and Flake. According to Berg: ‘Naturally, nothing was simpler than to accuse Stausberg of the three February attacks…He knew so many details that he could not have known from the newspapers, being an illiterate. So it came about that he was suspected of having committed these crimes, and this despite certain grave doubts.’ In short, Stausberg confesses to the murders of Rudolf Scheer and Rosa Ohliger, and the attack on Frau Kühn. His confessions are convincing, albeit hazy on the details. Stausberg suffers from epilepsy, so detectives explain away the inaccuracies by pointing to the fact that many epilepsy sufferers have poor memories, particularly after suffering an epileptic seizure. Also, Stausberg’s mother tells police that her son told her he’d murdered Rosa Ohliger on 9th February, when the case first hit the press. Stausberg’s prosecution is stopped under paragraph 51 of the German criminal code – which allows for diminished responsibility in cases of questionable sanity – and he is taken to an asylum.

  Tues 30 July 1929

  Emma Gross, thirty-five year-old prostitute, found murdered in a hotel near Düsseldorf’s central train station; her body has been strangled and left naked on a divan. She has not been stabbed and her body bears no wounds other than bruising around the neck. Police take a relaxed view towards tracing the killer and seem to regard such attacks as an occupational hazard. Although Kürten will confess to this murder shortly after capture, he later retracts the confession. No evidence ever links him to the crime and the real perpetrator is never caught. Berg: ‘There was nothing about this case to incline me to the view that it was another committed by the same unknown as in the previous cases under investigation.’

  Sun 11 Aug 1929

  Domestic servant Maria Hahn disappears during an afternoon off work. Hahn having recently resigned, her employer assumes Hahn has left before working out her notice and therefore doesn’t think to notify police. Hahn’s body will turn up in November.

  Weds 21 Aug 1929

  Frau Mantel accosted near church square in the western Lierenfeld suburb of Düsseldorf. A stranger asks Frau Mantel if he can accompany her to the country fair being held in the area; he then stabs her in the back. A little later, in the same area, Anna Goldhausen is stabbed between her ribs by a stranger, the stab piercing liver and stomach. Within an hour, Heinrich Kornblum is stabbed in the back while sitting on a park bench. All three victims survive their attacks. The knife cuts through Kornblum’s leather braces, from which medical examiners determine the dimensions of the blade. Investigators see no evidence to contradict their prosecution of Stausberg for the stabbings and stranglings earlier in the year. Berg: ‘On these data I came to the conclusion that the knife used in this case was not that used in the case of the Ohliger chi
ld or that of the man Scheer. This seemed to be one more ground for suspecting someone other than Stausberg.’

  The German press dusts off its Jack the Ripper cuttings. Panic begins to spread in Düsseldorf.

  Sun 25 Aug 1929

  Bodies of five-year-old Gertrude Hamacher and fourteen-year-old foster sister Louise Lenzen are found on allotments 200 metres from their home in the Flehe district of Düsseldorf. The girls had gone missing the previous evening after attending a fair in the market place. Aware of Jack the Ripper reports in the press and fearing the worst, family and friends had been searching for the girls most of the night. Hamacher’s body lies on a patch of runner beans. Lenzen’s body lies 17 metres away on a bare patch of earth. Locals report hearing children's cries in the area at 9.15pm on the 24th, which detectives interpret as the time of death. Autopsy confirms this conclusion. Footprints at the scene and the wounds on the bodies are the only physical evidence of the crime. From these, detectives and medical examiners piece together the girls’ last moments. The Hamacher girl is strangled until she loses consciousness. Lenzen probably calls out for help – the cries that the passersby later reported. The killer strangles Lenzen, cuts her throat and stabs her in the back. Still alive but weakened, Lenzen tries to flee but collapses due to blood loss. Footprints indicate the killer walks back from Lenzen’s body, probably to cut Hamacher’s throat.

  Later that Sunday afternoon, in the village of Oberkassel near Düsseldorf, twenty-six year-old domestic servant Gertrud Schulte accepts a stranger’s offer to escort her to the nearby outdoor market at Neuss. The stranger introduces himself as Fritz Baumgart. According to Schulte’s statement, when they come to a meadow near the market, Baumgart forces Schulte to the ground and attempts to remove her panties. Schulte tells him she’d rather die, to which he replies, ‘Well die then,’ and stabs her several times before fleeing. A group of youngsters hear Schulte’s cries and take her to hospital. Medical exam reveals 13 stab wounds and the point of the blade used in the attack lodged in Schulte’s back. Schulte describes Baumgart to police, putting him in his mid-thirties.

  End of Aug 1929

  Based on the August attacks, Düsseldorf Kriminalpolizei (Kripo) conclude the following:

  1) Fritz Baumgart is likely the same man who attacked Frau Mantel, Anna Goldhausen and Heinrich Goldblum on 21st August;

  2) despite lack of semen or other evidence of sexual violation, the killings of Hamacher and Lenzen were likely lust murders, either for the thrill of the kill itself or with the unconsummated intention of sexual violation;

  3) Baumgart was not the same man who killed Hamacher and Lenzen. They are looking for at least two criminals.

  Writing later, Berg says: ‘We had formed the opinion that a sadist who had satisfied his sexual appetite on Saturday by the murder of two children would not have troubled to tackle a victim capable of offering a stout resistance already by the following Sunday…strangulation, a characteristic common to all the other crimes, was here absent.’

  The press goes big on the attacks and begins to criticise Kripo for lack of progress.

  Mon 30 Sept 1929

  Body of domestic servant Ida Reuter found at 7am in meadows on Düsseldorf outskirts. The girl's underwear and handbag are missing and the body lies with bare legs parted and genitals exposed. The head bears a circle of bruises which Karl Berg in his initial exam of body believes to be the marks of hammer blows; this conclusion is confirmed via detailed examination of victim's skull during autopsy. Autopsy yields 2 ccm of sperm from Reuter's dissected vagina. From this, the digestive state of stomach contents and the body's complete rigor mortis on discovery, Berg assumes a time of death of before midnight on the 29th.

  Due to use of new weapon, Düsseldorf Kripo now suspects a third killer has entered the scene.

  Weds 2 Oct 1929

  Düsseldorf Kripo requests consultation with the Berlin homicide department, at this time the only specialised homicide detective unit in Germany. Düsseldorf Kripo has been operating under the common system of assembling temporary murder commissions to solve specific murders. Since formation in 1925 under leadership of Chief Inspector Ernst Gennat, Berlin homicide has had an average annual clean up rate of around 97%. With Gennat's expert advice, Düsseldorf Kripo concludes that it is now looking for up to four different sex killers.

  Sat 12 Oct 1929

  Elisabeth Dorrier, unemployed servant girl, found wounded and unconscious in Flingern district at 6.30am. Crime scene shows Dorrier was attacked and then dragged to the spot where she was found, similar to the Reuter crime scene. Dorrier also bears similar bruises to Reuter on the left temple. Her attacker has torn her vagina and left the imprint of his finger nails in the mucous membrane.

  Sun 13 Oct 1929

  Dorrier dies without recovering consciousness. Karl Berg performs autopsy: 'After comparison of the head wounds I came to the following conclusions: the wounds of Reuter and Dorrier conform to such an extent that it is necessary to presume the same criminal and the same instrument of murder in both cases.'

  Fri 25 Oct 1929

  Frau Meurer, thirty-four, attacked on way home. Stranger accosts her at 8pm while she walks along the Hellweg in Flingern. According to her statement the man asks, 'Aren't you afraid? Quite a lot of things have happened here already.' She ignores him and he attacks her. An hour later some passersby bring her into hospital. She is unconscious and her forehead and right ear bear oval wounds 2cm in diameter which are deep enough to expose her skull. She regains consciousness but with no memory of the attack itself. Two weeks later she is well enough to leave hospital. Berg later says her wounds could have come from hammer blows and points out: 'This episode was important because two weeks earlier in that same place Dorrier had been killed by similar wounds.'

  Later that evening, prostitute Frau Wanders is approached in the Hofgarten by a stranger she takes for a potential client. They negotiate prices for sex before the man knocks her out with a blow to the head. Wanders regains consciousness soon after and, being a good citizen, goes to the police to give a statement before going to hospital in search of treatment. Doctors treating her find four head wounds. Later, Karl Berg examines her. He finds 'a square depression fracture' over the left ear and 'two smaller depression fractures' on the crown and the right temple: 'They were square hammer impressions.'

  According to Margaret Seaton-Wagner, author of The Monster of Dusseldorf: the Life and Trial of Peter Kurten (1932), police try to avoid leaking too much information to the press about these last two attacks: 'Not only were the police at a dead end; they were the subject of embittered press attacks...' She mentions that local Communist newspaper Freiheit has been the most consistent critic of the police investigation so far. It is the only paper publicly to claim Johann Stausberg's innocence of the February murders.

  Thurs 7 Nov 1929

  Last sighting of five-year-old Gertrud Albermann, at 6.45pm in Flingern. Press goes big with the story, stoking what Seaton-Wagner calls 'mingled feelings of wrath, terror, and the sense of being fooled by a maniac of almost supernatural powers.'

  Sat 9 Nov 1929

  Gertrud Albermann's body found among brick rubble and nettles, lying against a wall surrounding the factory yard of a firm called Haniel and Lueg in the Düsseldorf outskirts. Body lies face down, legs parted. On removing the girl's coat, police find that her killer removed her clothes to expose her bottom, tearing her underwear in the process. Berg performs the autopsy and writes later: '[Albermann's] body...was discovered in so typical a position that she must have been killed and sexually violated where she was found. The position, with the knickers torn up behind, arouses the inevitable suspicion that the child had been put in this position in order to rape her from behind.' Autopsy reveals facial congestion and thumb marks indicative of strangulation, two stab wounds in the left of the head and thirty-four stab wounds in the breast. From stomach contents and details of meals eaten at 2pm and 4pm on the 7th, Berg estimates a time of death of 7pm on t
he 7th, some fifteen minutes after Gertrud was last sighted. Rainfall on the 7th and 8th washed most blood from the crime scene; the girl's clothes absorbed the rest. Berg concludes that the killer strangled the girl at the place her body was found, until she passed out and fell to the ground. The killer then stabbed her through her coat. He removed the coat and arranged her so he could rape her, only to change his mind and replace the coat without following through.

  A few hours after police discover Gertud's body, the Freiheit newspaper receives a letter posted on the 8th and purporting to be from the killer. The letter includes a sketch map showing the location of Gertrud's body which tallies with the crime scene. The outer edge of the map shows some forest and a cross, along with the words: 'Murder at Pappendelle. In the place marked with a cross a corpse lies buried.' Police headquarters receives a similar letter and is forced to go public with the murder, since Freiheit already has the information. Unfortunately the letter casts more bad light on the investigation. As Berg comments: 'Once already, on the 14th of October 1929, the police had received a peculiar communication describing the interment of a body at the edge of the woods and containing a plan on which the burial place was marked.' According to Seaton-Wagner, the earlier letter mentions a 'big flat stone' which supposedly indicates the exact spot of the murder. Berg neglects to add why police did not follow up on the October letter, but Seaton-Wagner says that police treated such previous letters as 'hoaxes'.