A German serial killer active in the early 20th century, Peter Kürten tortured and killed at least nine people and attempted to kill dozens more, often by stabbing them with a pair of sharpened scissors.
Wikimedia CommonsIn the early 20th century, Germany was terrorized by a vicious serial killer named Peter Kürten, also known as the “Vampire of Düsseldorf.”
On July 2, 1931, a man named Peter Kürten entered the execution courtyard of Klingelputz Prison in Cologne, Germany, flanked by the prison’s priest and psychiatrist. He was on his way to the guillotine to answer for the heinous crimes he had committed over the past two decades.
A vicious rapist and serial killer, Peter Kürten had terrorized Germany throughout the early 20th century. He confessed that he brutally tortured and murdered his victims — mostly children — in order to achieve orgasm. And while many of his victims escaped with their lives, Kürten killed at least nine people, sometimes drinking their blood straight from their wounds — earning him the nickname “The Vampire of Düsseldorf.”
To this day, Peter Kürten is remembered as one of the worst serial killers in history.
Peter Kürten’s Dark Desires Come To The Surface From A Very Young Age
Public DomainPeter Kürten, the Düsseldorf Vampire.
Like many other serial killers throughout history, the Düsseldorf Monster had a troubled childhood. As a poor boy growing up in Germany, Peter Kürten faced regular abuse at the hands of his alcoholic father; he was also forced to watch his parents have sex.
Kürten began to show his own violent tendencies from a very young age. To channel his sexual frustrations, he resorted to bestiality with dogs or local farm animals, often stabbing and mutilating the animals during intercourse in an effort to achieve an orgasm. He also claimed that around the age of nine, he drowned two other young boys, holding them underwater until they died. He was never charged with these alleged crimes, however.
At the age of 16, Kürten robbed his family and ran away from home. He would then spend a month in jail for petty theft, and four years in prison for fraud. In fact, Kürten would spend most of his teenage and adult years in and out of prison for crimes like theft, arson, and sexual assault.
During his earliest stints behind bars, Kürten claimed he was regularly subjected to severe forms of punishment and developed deranged erotic fantasies as a means of escape. And by the time he was released from prison in 1913, Peter Kürten’s urges could no longer be satisfied by farm animals.
Soon, he would exercise his twisted desires on humans.
Peter Kürten Gets A Taste For Murder
Public DomainChristine Klein, Peter Kürten’s first victim.
In May 1913, Peter Kürten broke into a home in Mülheim am Rhein, intending to rob it.
But when he discovered the homeowner’s 10-year-old daughter, Christine Klein, sleeping inside, he “forgot [his] intention of stealing as a blood lust came over [him] for the first time,” according to TIME. Kürten brutally strangled the small girl, sexually assaulted her, and slashed her throat. He ejaculated at the sight of her bloodied body.
The next day, he returned to the scene, visiting a nearby tavern where he reveled in hearing the horrified locals discuss his crimes. Over the next few weeks, he would visit the girl’s grave to pleasure himself.
This crime had apparently given Peter Kürten a taste for murder; just two months after killing Christine Klein, he burglarized the home of a 17-year-old girl. Once inside, he strangled her — and ejaculated as she lay dying.
Peter Kürten may have continued this crime streak had he not been drafted into the German army in 1914. Soon after, he was arrested for desertion and, once again, sent to prison.
Upon his 1921 release, Kürten moved to Altenburg and married a woman named Auguste Scharf, a candy shop owner and former sex worker. It was a perfect match — Scharf herself had previously spent time in prison for murdering her former fiancé. Still, Scharf did not know about her new husband’s own history of crime.
Kürten began working as a moulder, and for a while, it seemed as though he was attempting to build a normal life for himself. But he couldn’t stay out of trouble for long. He was eventually accused of sexually assaulting two maids, and sentenced to prison yet again.
After his release, however, Kürten more than made up for lost time, embarking on a new crime spree that would solidify his legacy as the Vampire of Düsseldorf.
Inside The Vampire Of Düsseldorf’s Reign Of Terror
Peter Kürten lost no time returning to his old ways, raping, torturing, and killing more people throughout Düsseldorf, Germany. In 1929, his killing spree reached an all-time high. He murdered seven people during this period, and attempted to kill several more. In many cases, his would-be murder victims reportedly escaped simply because Kürten had achieved orgasm before they were dead.
Kürten’s preferred method of torture and murder was stabbing, usually with a pair of sharpened scissors. In an effort to throw police off his trail, however, he eventually pivoted away from his signature weapon, instead attacking his victims with a hammer or a knife.
Public DomainScissors used by serial killer Peter Kürten.
Sometimes, Kürten would drink his victims’ blood directly from their wounds. The public began to panic as it seemed a real-life vampire was walking among them.
Peter Kürten appeared to take pleasure in the terror his attacks were causing in Düsseldorf. Occasionally, he returned to the crime scenes to discuss his crimes with police, under the guise of a concerned citizen. In one case, Kürten even considered nailing his victim’s corpse to a tree to get off on the macabre public spectacle it would create, but ultimately settled for burying her. However, he did follow up the murder with a detailed letter to police, including a map to her body.
In November 1929, Kürten murdered his last victim, a five-year-old girl, whom he stabbed more than 30 times before abandoning her body beneath some rubble. Then, on May 14, 1930, Kürten attempted to seduce and murder a young woman named Maria Budlick. He sexually assaulted her in a forest, but ultimately let her go.
After she escaped this traumatizing ordeal, Budlick became convinced that her attacker was the Vampire of Düsseldorf. However, she didn’t initially report Kürten to the police, instead detailing the event in a letter to a friend. But as luck would have it, Budlick’s letter went to the wrong address. The stunned recipient passed it onto police, who immediately began searching for Budlick’s attacker.
Peter Kürten realized the authorities were closing in on him. He also knew there’d be a reward for whoever helped the police catch him — so he finally confessed his crimes to his wife, instructing her to turn him in and claim the money for herself.
In May 1930, the Düsseldorf Monster was finally in police custody.
“I Had To Kill”: Inside The Mind Of Peter Kürten
Public DomainPeter Kürten at his 1931 trial.
After his arrest, Peter Kürten confessed to 79 different crimes, including nine murders. He expressed no remorse for his deeds, but justified the crimes by claiming they were revenge for the horrors inflicted upon him during his childhood and in prison.
“Never have I felt any misgiving in my soul,” he said in court, according to renowned psychologist Karl Berg’s book The Sadist, which details Kürten’s crimes and psychology. “Never did I think to myself that what I did was bad, even though human society condemns it. My blood and the blood of my victims will be on the heads of my torturers.
“There must be a Higher Being who gave in the first place the first vital spark to life. That Higher Being would also deem my actions good since I revenged injustice. The punishments I have suffered have destroyed all my feelings as a human being. That was why I had no pity for my victims.”
Peter Kürten also explained that, although his victims were mostly women and young girls, “It was all the same to me whether they were women or girls or children or men.”
“I had to kill,” he said, according to TIME. “I did not kill either people I hated, or people I loved. I killed whoever crossed my path at the moment my urge for murder took hold of me.”
The Execution Of Peter Kürten — And His Chilling Last Words
Paul Huber/FlickrThe severed head of Peter Kürten on display in Wisconsin.
For two months, the prosecution and the defense argued about Peter Kürten’s motives, his crimes, and his conscience. In the end, the jury took just about 90 minutes to reach a verdict. Kürten was found guilty of murder and given nine death sentences to be carried out by guillotine.
In the moments before he lay his head down on the machine on July 2, 1931, he reportedly uttered some chilling last words.
“Tell me,” he said, “after my head is chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck? That would be the pleasure to end all pleasures.”
Following his death, Peter Kürten’s head was taken to a lab for forensic analysis. But shockingly, scientists found no abnormalities in his brain. Today, the Düsseldorf Monster’s eerily mummified head is on display at the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum in Wisconsin.
After learning about Peter Kürten, the Vampire Of Düsseldorf, read about the sickening crimes of Richard Chase, the Vampire of Sacramento. Then, check out the story of Albert Fish, the cannibalistic “Brooklyn Vampire.”
