Born on the 26th of May, 1883, Peter Kürten would grow up to become one of the worst mass-murderers in the history of Europe. He was also singlehandedly responsible for ruining the reputation of the German city of Dusseldorf among Europeans. As is so often the case with serial killers, Kürten's problems began in his youth. His violently drunk father would often force his wife to have sex with him in front of their children and was eventually arrested for molesting his daughter (Peter's sister). Kürten repeated the attack on his sister as he had seen it performed by his father shortly afterwards. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ These problems were only intensified when his father was imprisoned and they accepted the local dog-catcher into their home as a lodger. The lodger taught Kürten, who was still only a boy, how to capture dogs as well as how to masturbate and torture them. This led to Kürten's eventual experiences with bestiality that he is reported to have performed frequently. After his arrest that came many years later, Kürten admitted to drowning one of his childhood friends while they were playing together on a raft. When another friend leapt into the water to try and save the first Kürten held him under the water and drowned him as well. These two murders, Kürten's first, were performed somewhere between the ages of five and nine, showing that he had developed homicidal tendencies developed extremely early in life. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ As he got older Kürten appeared to others as a boring and bespectacled man with a moustache and neat clothes who worked as a truck driver. Throughout the spring of 1913 Kürten had been breaking into various properties, particularly inns or taverns in which the owners lived in apartments above the premises. On May 25th, 1913, while breaking into yet another inn called the Wolfstrasse he came across a sleeping girl of about ten years of age. According to details given by Kürten after his eventual arrest he strangled the girl, molested her and then, using only the small pocket knife that he had with him, cut her several times in the throat, entranced by the way in which the blood spurted out from the wounds. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The girl was the daughter of the tavern owner whose name was Peter Klein, and suspicion for the murder almost immediately fell on his brother Otto. Only the night before Otto had gone to his brother to ask for a loan and when Peter had refused Otto had flown into a rage and threatened his brother that he planned to do something that he would remember for the rest of his life. The suspicion was deepened when they found a handkerchief embroided with the letters "P" and "K" in the room where the murder had occured and assumed that it had been borrowed by Otto and dropped in the room during the killing. Of course "P" and "K" where also the initials of the then-unknown Peter Kürten - and his reign of terror had only just begun. The day after committing the murder Kürten returned to Koln and sat in a cafe situated across the road from the Wolfstrasse to drink a glass of beer and listen to the gossip that surrounded the killing. Otto Klein was charged with the murder, but the Jury found him innocent due to a lack of strong evidence. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ For a while after that first murder Kürten led a rather unexceptional life. Though imprisoned for a short period for a number of arson attacks and theft charges he appeared to be keeping his darker desires under control. He married, found permanent factory work and became an active member of the trade union. Yet in 1925 when returning to Dusseldorf for the first time in some years he witnessed a blood-red sunset and took it as an omen of his destiny. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ On the 3rd of February, 1929, a woman was seized by a man and stabbed twenty-four times before her attacker ran off. Six days later, Dusseldorf police uncovered the body of an eight-year-old girl who was found under a hedge. Wounds indicated that the girl had been stabbed thirteen times and the killer had attempted to burn the body by dousing it with petrol and setting it alight. Her genitals had also been stabbed and there were seminal stains on the girls underwear, though there was no evidence of sexual intercourse. Five days after the murder of the girl a 45-year-old mechanic was found stabbed to death - he had been stabbed twenty times, including several times in the head. The day after this murder Kürten returned to the scene of the crime and struck up a conversation with one of the investigating detectives. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Shortly after this string of attacks a man named Stausberg was arrested for assaulting two women with a noose. The man who obviously suffered from a psychological disorder confessed to all three of Kürten's attacks. Stausberg was sent to a lunatic asylum and Kürten had so far avoided detection. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ On the 25th of August in that same year three people were stabbed while walking home at night. The three victims all reported hearing someone say to them "Good Evening" before being stabbed in the back. The wounds were deep but not fatal. Two days later, on the 23rd, two girls were attending the annual fair held in the ancient town of Flehe. The sisters, fourteen-year-old Louise and five-year-old Gertrude were coming home from the fair when they were greeted by Kürten who asked Louise if she would be so kind as to fetch him a packet of cigarettes. He gave the girl some money and she ran off back towards the fair. While she was gone Kürten strangled Gertrude and cut her throat with a knife. Then, when Louise returned he wrestled her away from the footpath before strangling and decapitating her. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The very next day Kürten approached a woman and tried to persuade her to have sex with him. When the woman told him that she'd rather die Kürten replied "Die then" before stabbing her. Fortunately she survived and was able to provide the police with an accurate description of her assailant. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The killer was reported not to simply strangle and kill his victims but also drink their blood as was suggested by evidence of bite marks on some of his victims, not to mention the extremely bloody way in which they were murdered - usually with hammers and axes. Although it is uncertain if part of his homicidal urges actually came from his desire to consume blood, this information earnt Kürten the title of the Dusseldorf Vampire and secured his position in vampire lore forever. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ In September yet another young girl was found - raped and battered to death. In October another woman was killed and two other women were assaulted with a man wielding a hammer. Dusseldorf was gripped by panic, on the 7th of November a five-year-old girl went missing and two days later the local paper received a letter that contained a map where it said the body of the girl could be found. The girl was found in the location specified and had been strangled and stabbed 35 times. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ February and May of the next year brought more attacks against women with axes and hammers, yet none were fatal. On the 14th of May, 1930, a young woman by the name of Maria who had recently lost her job was accosted by a man who offered to show her the way to the local women's hostel. She agreed yet after remembering the stories she had read in the newspaper about a murderer suddenly stopped and refused to go any further with the man. After a brief argument another man came to inquire if everything was alright and Maria went with him at once, thankful for his help. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Little did she know that her saviour was none other than Peter Kürten - the Dusseldorf Vampire himself. Kürten expressed his interest at taking her back to his apartment with him and she agreed. Shortly after entering the apartment she decided that she no longer wanted to have sex with Kürten and asked if he would find her somewhere else to sleep. He escorted her through a local park where he suddenly seized her by the neck and asked her to have sex with him. She agreed and he then let her go as she had offered no resistance. He did not fear that she would remember the location of his apartment as it was placed somewhat obscurely. However Maria wrote a letter to a friend of hers recounting her experience with Kürten. The letter never reached its intended recipient but fell into the hands of another person whom upon reading the letter informed the police at once. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Maria was questioned by the police at once and she lead them to Kürten's apartment. While standing in the apartment foyer with two police officers Kürten himself entered the building and appeared briefly startled before continuing on to his room. He returned moments later with a hat pulled down over his eyes and left the building. Sensing that his arrest was imminent he confessed the rape of the young woman to his wife who was inconsolable - not knowing how she would support herself with him imprisoned. She told him that he should kill himself and then she would do the same as if he was sent away for this rape then it would surely mean the end of her also. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ After some thought Kürten and taking the knowledge into account that information leading to the arrest of the Dusseldorf Vampire carried with it a large reward he informed his wife that he could help her - and proceded to admit to the string of killings he had committed in the past two years. She took a short while to convince, yet Kürten eventually persuaded her that by informing the police of his identity as the Dusseldorf Vampire she would both be doing the right thing by herself and by humanity. On May 30th Peter Kürten's wife confessed all to the police. Later, when advanced upon by four police officers wielding revolvers Kürten offered no resistance and said to them that there was no need to be afraid. He was shortly after tried, convicted and sentenced to death. When questioned about his motives he replied only with: "You can not understand me. No one can understand me." ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Only July 2nd, 1932, Kürten was put to death by guillotine. On the way to his execution he queried the prison psychiatrist whether or not he would be able to hear, if only for a moment, the sound of his own blood gushing from the stump of his neck, stating that if so he would consider it "the pleasure to end all pleasures." ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Finally the reign of the Dusseldorf Vampire was over.