The Great War decimated Germany, leaving its citizens impoverished and its infrastructure in shambles. On the margins of this rotting society lived Fritz Haarmann, a petty thief and con man making a living on the black market that flourished post-World War I.
Haarmann gladly took advantage of the wretched state of his nation, but he also worked as a police informant, providing authorities with information for two selfish reasons: (1.) to keep police off his back, as he was a known criminal, but also (2.) because Haarmann was a homosexual and a rapist, and his role as informant gave him access to and pseudo-authority over scores of young, vulnerable men.
Haarmann’s primary location of interest was Hanover’s main train station. He would patrol the station, selling black market goods, ratting to police on fellow criminals, and, eventually, searching for murder victims.
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Fritz Haarmann’s life had always been filled with conflict and upheaval. He was born the youngest of 6 children in 1879 to a railroad worker and his wife. From a very young age, Haarmann quarreled with his father, and their conflict did not dissipate with time. The young man tried to stick to the straight and narrow, but his rapacious sexual urges landed him in trouble as a teenager. At only 16 years old, Haarmann committed his first known sexual offense. The success of this first attack led to a number of assaults on young men before he was arrested in July 1896. Doctors placed Haarmann in a mental institution, and he was deemed “incurably deranged.” He was supposed to spend the rest of his life in the institution; however, only 7 months later he escaped, fleeing to Zurich, Switzerland. There he hid out for 16 months, until he felt safe to return to his hometown of Hanover.
Once he was back in Germany, Fritz Haarmann made efforts to lead a normal life. He attempted to complete his required military service, but was discharged in July 1902 because he suffered extreme dizzy spells that required hospitalization. Haarmann got engaged to a woman and returned once again to Hanover. He worked a number of different jobs, until, in 1904, he fought with his pregnant fianceé over an alleged affair she was having, and she left him. Haarmann ceased his attempts to lead a life within society’s rules, beginning in earnest his pursuit of crime.
From 1905 onward, Haarmann was in and out of jail for various minor crimes, until, in 1913, he was sent away for burglary. Due to World War I, when Fritz Haarmann was released in 1918, he entered into a different Germany than the one he had lived in five years before. All of a sudden (it seemed to him), people were desperate for food and money. Haarmann capitalized on the country’s dire situation by reverting back to his criminal ways. And, sensing an opportunity to play both sides, he also became a police informant. He began to inhabit a legal gray area that gave him opportunity to act on his murderous predilections.
Beginning in 1918, young men began to disappear from Hanover at an alarming rate. Runaways, male prostitutes, and everyday youngsters vanished into thin air, many of them from Hanover’s central train station. It was no coincidence that these disappearances started when Fritz Haarmann returned to the streets of Hanover. Haarmann used his role as a police informant to lure young men back to his apartment under the pretense of a citizen’s arrest for forged documents. Once back at his apartment, he murdered the men and dismembered their bodies. The various body parts all ended up in the nearby Leine River. Haarmann later admitted that his preferred killing method was to bite through his victims’ Adam’s apples and tracheas until they died. Haarmann called this maneuver his “love bite.” It also gave him his nickname: The Vampire of Hanover.
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Haarmann’s 6-year reign of terror came to an abrupt end in 1924. Skulls and bone fragments were found in the Leine River, and the police ordered the river be dredged. Over 500 more bones were discovered, and authorities realized they had a serial killer on their hands. Attention quickly focused on Haarmann due to his criminal past, his being linked to two of the missing young men, and his frequent presence at the train station – the epicenter of the disappearances.
Hanover police asked two Berlin policemen to act as undercover agents to observe Haarmann’s movements. The undercover cops witnessed Haarmann arguing with a young man at the train station. Haarmann then approached police officers at the station and demanded the young man be arrested for traveling with forged documents. The young man, 15-year-old Karl Fromm, told police that he had been staying with Haarmann for 4 days, and that the older man had repeatedly raped him at knifepoint. Fritz Haarmann was arrested, and police searched his apartment.
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Haarmann’s residence had extensive bloodstains on the walls and bedding, and the police found many items that they believed belonged to some of Hanover’s missing young men. Haarmann initially tried to deny the accusations, but he eventually broke down and confessed. He was put on trial and found guilty of 24 murders on December 19, 1924. Haarmann admitted that the true number of victims could have been as high as 70. On the morning of April 15, 1925, 45-year-old Fritz Haarmann was executed by guillotine. A memorial to Haarmann’s 27 known victims stands today in Hanover, a reminder of the grim legacy of the man who terrorized that city’s streets.
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