Early life
Fritz Haarmann was born on October 25, 1879, the sixth child of poor parents. Fritz was a quiet child who shunned many boys' activities such as sports and preferred to play with his sisters' toys. He was also a poor scholar. At the age of 16, at the urging of his parents, Haarmann enrolled in a military academy at Neu Breisach. He initially adapted to military life, and performed well as a training soldier. After just one year in the academy, however, he began to suffer seizures and was discharged for medical reasons.
Haarmann returned to Hanover and took employment in a cigar factory. He was arrested in 1898 for molesting children, but a psychologist declared Haarmann was mentally unfit to stand trial, and he was sent to a mental institution indefinitely. Six months later, Haarmann escaped and fled to Switzerland, where he worked for two years before he returned to Germany. He again enlisted in the military, this time under an alias, but in 1902, he was again discharged under medical terms. He was awarded a full military pension, and returned to live with his family, and took employment in the small business his father had established. After an argument with his father, Ollie, led to a violent fight between them, Haarmann was arrested, charged with assault and again sent for psychiatric evaluation. This time, a doctor did not diagnose Haarmann as mentally unstable. A court discharged Haarmann and he again returned to live with his family. Shortly afterwards, Haarmann attempted to open a small shop, but the business soon became bankrupt.
Criminal career
For the next decade, Haarmann lived as a petty thief, burglar and con-man. He was frequently arrested and served several short prison sentences. He gradually began to establish a relationship with Hanover Police as an informer, largely as a means of redirecting the attention of the Police from himself, and later admitted that the Police began to view him as a reliable source of information regarding Hanover's criminal network.
In 1914, Haarmann was convicted of a series of thefts and frauds and was imprisoned just as the First World War began. Upon his release in 1918, he was struck by the poverty of the German Nation as a result of the loss the nation had suffered in the Great War. The country was bankrupt. Fritz Haarmann immediately reverted to the criminal life he had lived before he was arrested in 1914. The new state of Germany provided him with even more opportunities to operate on the fringes of the criminal network, and because of the increase in crime as a result of the poverty the nation was enduring, Police again began to rely on Haarmann as an informer.
Crimes
Between 1918 and 1924, Haarmann committed at least 24 murders, although he is suspected of murdering a minimum of 27. Haarmann's first known victim was a 17-year-old youth named Friedel Rothe. When Rothe disappeared in September 1918, his friends told Police he was last seen with Fritz Haarmann. Under pressure from Rothe's family, Police raided Haarmann's apartment, where they were dismayed to find their informer in the company of a semi-naked teenage boy. They had no choice but to charge Haarmann with sexual assault. Sentenced to nine months' imprisonment, Haarmann avoided serving his sentence throughout 1919, and during this time, met a young runaway named Hans Grans, who was subsequently to become his lover, whilst the youngster was selling clothes at Hanover's railway station.
Haarmann served his nine months' imprisonment between March and December 1920. Again, he regained the trust of the Police and became an informer. Shortly after his release, Haarmann moved into a new apartment: number 27 Kellersrausse.Shortly afterwards, Hans Grans moved into Haarmann's apartment.
Haarmann's subsequent victims largely consisted of young male commuters, runaways and, occasionally, male prostitutes who hung around Hanover's central railway station, whom Haarmann would lure back to his apartment and then kill by biting through their throats, sometimes while sodomizing them. All of Haarmann's victims were dismembered before they were discarded, usually in the river Leine. The possessions of several victims were either sold on the black market or retained by either Haarmann or his younger lover, Hans Grans. Rumour also had it that Haarmann would peddle meat from the bodies of his victims as canned black market pork. Although no physical evidence was ever produced to confirm this, Haarmann was known to be an active trader in contraband meat.
Haarmann's accomplice and live-in partner, Hans Grans, sold the possessions of several of the victims cheaply on the black market, and kept other possessions for himself, and Haarmann initially claimed that although Grans knew of many of his murders, and personally urged him to kill two of the victims so he could obtain their clothing and personal possessions, was otherwise not involved in the murders.
Haarmann was eventually apprehended when numerous skeletal remains, which he had dumped into the river Leine, washed up downstream in May and June 1924. The Police decided to drag the river and discovered more than 500 human bones which were later confirmed as having come from at least 22 separate human individuals. Suspicion quickly fell upon Haarmann, who had convictions for molesting children and had been connected to the disappearance of Friedel Rothe in 1918. Haarmann was placed under surveillance and on the night off 22 June, was observed prowling Hanover's railway station. He was quickly arrested after trying to lure a boy to his apartment. His apartment was searched and the walls were found to be heavily bloodstained. Haarmann tried to explain this as a by-product of his illegal trade as a butcher. However, clothing and personal items known to be possessions of several missing youths were also found in his home. Under interrogation, Haarmann quickly confessed to raping, killing and butchering young men since 1918. When asked how many he had killed, Haarmann claimed 'somewhere between 50 and 70'. The Police, however, could only connect Haarmann with the disappearance of 27 youths, and he was charged with 27 murders. It is interesting to note that only a quarter of the personal items found in his apartment were identified as having belonged to any of the victims.
Trial
Fritz Haarmann's trial began on 4 December 1924. Haarmann was charged with the murder of 27 boys and young men who had disappeared between 1918 and June that year. The trial was very spectacular; it was one of the first major media events in Germany. The term "serial killer" had not yet been coined, and the public and press were at a loss for words to describe the case; Haarmann was simultaneously referred to as the "werewolf", a "vampire", and "The Wolf Man". Apart from the cruelty of what Haarmann had admittedly done, even more scandalous - shaking German society to the core - was the involvement of the police in the case: Haarmann was a police informant who frequently gave up other criminals to investigators; until Haarmann was arrested, it had never occurred to police that the serial killer they were looking for was well-known to them and right under their nose, even though some of the victims were last seen in his company. The trial lasted barely two weeks. On 19 December, Haarmann was found guilty of 24 of the 27 murders and sentenced to death. He was acquitted of three murders which he denied, even though the personal possessions of the boys were either in his possession or acquaintances of his at the time of his arrest. He was beheaded with a guillotine on April 25, 1925.
Hans Grans was initially found guilty of enticement to murder in the case of Adolf Hannappel, a fifteen-year-old apprentice carpenter who vanished from Hanover's railway station on November 11, 1923. Witnesses had seen Grans, in the company of Haarmann, pointing to Hannappel, Haarmann claimed this was one of two murders committed upon the insistence of Grans and for this reason, Grans was sentenced to death. The discovery of a letter from Haarmann declaring Grans's innocence later led to a second trial and a 12-year prison sentence for Grans. After serving his sentence, Hans Grans continued to live in Hanover until his death around 1980.
The remains of Haarmann's victims were buried together in a communal grave in Stoekener Cemetery.
After his execution, Haarmann's head was preserved in a jar by scientists to examine the structure of his brain. Haarmann's head is now kept at the Göttingen medical school.
The case stirred much discussion in Germany about the death penalty, the correct approach towards mentally ill offenders, police investigation methods, and homosexuality.
| Name | Age | Date of disappearance | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friedel Rothe | 17 | September 25, 1918 | Haarmann claimed to have buried Rothe in Stoekener cemetery |
| Fritz Franke | 16 | February 12, 1923 | Franke was initially from Berlin |
| Wilhelm Schulze | 17 | March 20, 1923 | Schulze was an apprentice writer |
| Roland Huch | 15 | May 23, 1923 | Student. Vanished from Hanover railway station |
| Hans Sonnenfeld | 18 | May, 1923 | A runaway from the town of Limmer |
| Ernst Ehrenberg | 13 | June 25, 1923 | Disappeared whilst running an errand for his parents |
| Heinrich Strauss | 18 | August 24, 1923 | Haarmann was in possession of Strauss' violin case when arrested |
| Paul Bronischewski | 17 | September 24, 1923 | Vanished on his way to visit his Uncle |
| Richard Graf | 17 | September, 1923 | Disappeared after telling his friends a detective from Hanover had found him a job |
| Wilhelm Erdner | 16 | October 12, 1923 | Disappeared from Hanover station. Haarmann sold Erdner's bicycle |
| Hermann Wolf | 16 | October 24 or 25, 1923 | The victims clothes were traced to Haarmann and his acquaintances |
| Heinz Brinkmann | 13 | October 27, 1923 | Vanished from Hanover station after missing his train home to Clausthal |
| Adolf Hannappel | 15 | November 11, 1923 | An apprentice. Witnesses saw Haarmann approach Hannappel. |
| Adolf Hennies | 19 | December 6, 1923 | Hennies disappeared whilst looking for work in Hanover |
| Ernst Speiker | 17 | January 5, 1924 | Disappeared on his way to appear as a witness at a trial |
| Heinrich Koch | 18 | January 15, 1924 | Koch was known to be an acquaintance of Haarmann |
| Willi Senger | 19 | February 2, 1924 | The victim's clothes were found in Haarmann's apartment after his arrest |
| Hermann Speichert | 15 | February 8, 1924 | An electrical apprentice |
| Alfred Hogrefe | 16 | April 6, 1924 | An apprentice mechanic. All Hogrefe's clothes were traced to Haarmann or Grans |
| Hermann Bock | 22 | April, 1924 | Bock was last seen by his friends walking towards Haarmann's apartment |
| Wilhelm Apel | 15 | April 17, 1924 | Disappeared on his way to work |
| Robert Witzel | 18 | April 26, 1924 | Haarman admitted dumping Witzel's remains in the river Leine |
| Heinz Martin | 14 | May 9, 1924 | An apprentice locksmith. Martin disappeared from Hanoverstation |
| Fritz Wittig | 17 | May 26, 1924 | Haarmann insisted Grans ordered him to commit both this murder and the murder of Hannappel |
| Friedrich Abeling | 11 | May 26, 1924 | The youngest victim. Remains dumped in the river Leine |
| Heinrich Koch | 16 | June 5, 1924 | Vanished on his way to College. Koch was last seen in the company of Haarmann |
| Erich de Vries | 17 | June 14, 1924 | Haarmann led police to Erich's remains after his arrest |
In film
The case of Fritz Haarmann has been the inspiration for at least three films. The classic film M, which starred Peter Lorre and was released in 1931 and directed by Fritz Lang was inspired by the crimes of Fritz Haarmann, as well as those of two other infamous German mass murderers of the early twentieth century:Düsseldorf child killer Peter Kürten and Karl Grossmann).
The film The Tenderness of the Wolves (Die Zärtlichkeit der Wölfe), released in 1973, was directly based upon the crimes of Fritz Haarmann. The film cast Kurt Raab as Haarmann, and also featured Rainer Werner Fassbinder in a minor role.
The most recent film to be based upon Haarmann's murder spree, Der Totmacher (The Deathmaker), was released in 1995. This film starred Götz George as Haarmann. This film focuses on the records of the psychiatric examinations of Haarmann by Erich Schultze, one of the main psychiatric experts in the trial of Fritz Haarmann. The plot of Der Totmacher centers around the interrogation of Haarmann after his arrest, as he is being interviewed by a court psychiatrist.
In other culture
In 2007, the Hannover Tourism Board (Hannover Tourismus) caused controversy by including Haarmann in its cartoon-style advertising calendar, along with other well-known people from the city.The calendar became a best-seller, and the initial print run of 20,000 calendars was expected to run out in November 2007, rather than lasting through Christmas as planned. Allegedly, Haarmann had also featured in the 2006 issue, but the inclusion drew no attention at the time. The 2008 calendar included a new picture of Haarman in handcuffs. According to the Hannover Tourism Office, Haarmann will also be included in 2009.
Kim Newman included Haarmann as a minor character in his 1995 novel The Bloody Red Baron, serving as a "batman" (military servant) toManfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron."
Beton Kopf Media, the record label behind german electro-industrial project :Wumpscut:, uses a picture of Fritz Haarmann as company logo (which has often been mistaken to be a picture of Adolf Hitler due to Haarmann wearing a similar mustache).
Margit Sandemo opted to use Haarmann for the evil character Lynx in her Isfolket book series.
Haarmann has also been the subject of the song "Fritz Haarman [sic] Der Metzger" ("Fritz Haarman the butcher") by death/thrash metal bandMacabre.
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