Fritz Haarmann was a German serial killer. He was born in Hanover on 25 October 1875. At school, he was a low-ability student. At the age of 15, Fritz was sent to a military academy but he was soon discharged after showing symptoms of epilepsy. Fritz then worked in his father’s cigar factory.
Haarmann began luring boys to secluded places then sexually abused them. He was soon arrested but he was diagnosed as ‘incurably deranged’. He was detained in a mental asylum but in 1897, he escaped to Switzerland. He returned to Hanover in 1899.
He was conscripted into the army in 1900. He later claimed that he enjoyed his time in the army but he was discharged from the army on medical grounds as he had mental health problems.
He was awarded a pension but it was not enough to live on. So Haarmann turned to stealing.
In 1914 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison but he was released in 1918. Despite his criminal record, he became a police informer.
He also became a murderer. His first victim was a 17 year old boy named Friedel Rothe who was killed in October 1918. Later Haarmann the police caught Haarmann in bed with a 13 year old boy. He was sentenced to 9 months in prison.
On his release in 1919 he met a man named Hans Grans. The two began a relationship and Grans later became an accomplice.
The pair met boys at the railway station and lured them into Haarmann’s home, where they were killed, dismembered and thrown into the River Leine. Haarmann sold the boys' clothes.
The second murder was in February 1923 and many more followed. Haarmann claimed he strangled boys by biting their throats. However, inevitably people began to find human remains in the river. In May 1924 children found a human skull on the banks of the river. A pathologist said it was the skull of a young man and it had been cut from the body.
Meanwhile people had, of course noticed the large number of teenage boys who were disappearing in Hanover. In the following weeks three more skulls were found. Children also found a sack of bones near the river. Eventually the police dredged the river and they found hundreds of human bones. Haarman was a suspect because of his previous offences against boys and he was placed under surveillance. Two undercover policemen saw him arguing with a 15 year old boy.
Foolishly, Haarmann himself went to two other officers and demanded they arrest the boy for travelling with forged documents. The boy told the police he had been staying with Haarmann for several days and that the adult had sexually assaulted him several times.
The police arrested Haarmann and searched his apartment. They found the walls and floors were bloodstained. Haarmann claimed the bloodstains were from animals he had butchered and sold. But the police also found large numbers of clothes and other personal effects.
The police placed the clothes on display in the police station and the relatives of the missing boys were invited to look at them to see if they could identify them. Many of the clothes were indeed identified as belonging to missing youths. Eventually Haarmann confessed to the murders, although he claimed he couldn’t remember how many boys he had killed. In the end the police were able to identify 27 victims.
The trial began on 4 December 1924. Haarmann was convicted of 24 murders, he was acquitted of 3 of them. He was sentenced to death.
His lover Hans Grans was also put on trial. He was also found guilty of being an accomplice and he was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Fritz Haarmann was executed by guillotine on 15 April 1925. Haarman’s head was preserved for research. It was finally cremated in 2014.
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