The execution of Peter Kürten, the Düsseldorf Vampire.
On 2 July 1931 the 48-year-old German serial killer Peter Kürten, was executed by Carl Gröpler in the Cologne prison, Klingelpütz, with a guillotine. Here we can see Kuerten who had a sort of Hitler moustache even before Hitler made it popular. This man has been described himself as the Vampire of Düsseldorf or the Dusseldorf Ripper. At least three films have been made about him, the first of which was the 1931 Fritz Lang production M which starred Peter Lorre who was later to become famous starring in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. .
Peter Kürten was not the world’s first serial killer. He was however the first person to be called a serial killer, as far as I can tell, the term was coined because of his crimes.
He owed his nickname "Vampire of Düsseldorf" to his report that he had killed a swan chick by cutting its neck and sucking the blood from the wound. According to the court and police files did the same to two, possibly three human victims. It would seem that Kuerten also gained sexual satisfaction from seeing the blood of his victims fall to the ground.
He was arrested on 24 May 1930. He offered no resistance to the arrest. Two surviving victims identified him in a lineup, whereupon Kürten made a full confession that same day. In addition to the crimes that could clearly be attributed to him, in his confession he accused himself of three further murders and four attempted murders in the Altenburg area, which later turned out to be false.
Kürten retracted his confession in June 1930 and denied all crimes resulting in death, but stood by his confessions to those crimes in which the victims had survived and also admitted to arson. He justified his earlier confession to his wife by saying that he wanted to help her get the reward offered for the capture of the murderer.
After confronting other witnesses and finding items hidden from the murdered girls and some of the murder weapons, he returned in August 1930 to make a comprehensive confession to all of the crimes.
The authorities attempted to understand the mind of a serial killer. He was sent to the Bedburg-Hau Provincial Hospital and Nursing Home for eight weeks and examined by the director of the hospital, Raether, and other doctors, who submitted over 1,000 pages of examination reports. The Bedburg hospital doctors and other court and hospital doctors who were consulted unanimously confirmed that there were no symptoms of any kind of mental illness . They confirmed that Kürten had sadistic tendencies and was fully responsible for his actions.
The jury trial against Kürten began on 13 April 1931. The charges against Kürten were nine murders and seven violent robberies.
The defense attorney was Alex Wehner from Düsseldorf. Kürten's questioning took place behind closed doors, but members of the press were allowed to attend. Kürten repeated his confession in court. His lawyer pointed out that the defendant had grown up in a difficult age, but also admitted that Kürten had dug his own grave with his actions. In his closing statement, Kürten tried to place some of the blame on his victims, saying they had "made it very easy" for him, but also admitted that he could not escape the death penalty and asked the victims' relatives for forgiveness.
On 22 April 1931, the Düsseldorf jury sentenced him to death for nine counts of murder , as well as to 15 years in prison for the seven attempted murders. An alleged killing of two boys on the in Mülheim in 1893, to which Kürten had also confessed, was not taken into account in the verdict due to lack of evidence.
While Kürten had clearly enjoyed the preliminary investigation and the trial, as there was great interest in him, he was upset after the verdict was announced as interest in him passed. He was a normal prisoner and no one paid any attention to him anymore.
He thad his lawyer submit a petition for clemency .
Meanwhile, the guillotine that was sent from Magdeburg, had not been used for five years and so might not have been in the best condition. Obviously it had to be transported in sections and the executioner Carl Gröpler had to put it together.
International interest in the case was such that even Time reported on it. The following is a direct quotation from the issue of Time for the 13 July 1931:
"Herr Groepler, a stolid individual whose profession forces him to lead a rather unsocial existence, left his cosy home in Magdeburg last week with a bag of tools and a coil of new rope. He took the train to the Prussian State Prison at Klingelpuetz, near Cologne. In the prison yard he disappeared into a dusty, dilapidated shed. Prisoners tense in their cells heard him hammering, hammering, filing metal all day long."
The Prussian government rejected Kürten's request for clemency on 30 June. On 1 July, Kürten was transferred to the Klingelpütz prison in Cologne's Altstadt-Nord district .
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