Carl Großmann

Carl Großmann
Großmann mug shot
Born	Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann (1863-12-13)13 December 1863 Alt Ruppin, Province of Brandenburg, Kingdom of Prussia
Died	5 July 1922(1922-07-05) (aged 58) Berlin, Weimar Republic
Cause of death	Suicide by hanging
Other names	Beast of Silesian Train Station The Berlin Butcher Blue Beard of Berlin
Conviction(s)	Assault Child molestation
Criminal penalty	15 years imprisonment (for child molestation)
Details
Victims	26–100+
Span of crimes	1918–1921
Country	Germany
State(s)	Berlin
Date apprehended	21 August 1921

Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Großmann (13 December 1863 – 5 July 1922), better known as Carl Großmann, was a German serial killer and rapist who murdered at least twenty women in the Berlin quarter of Friedrichshain between 1918 and 1921. He killed himself while awaiting the end of his trial without giving a full confession.

Early life

Childhood

Großmann was born in Alt Ruppin (now part of Neuruppin) as one of eight children to rag picker Karl Friedrich Großmann and Marie Dorothea Sophie Prößel (or Brüssel). Of his two brothers and four sisters, Großmann was closest to his half-brother Franz, who corroborated most of Großmann's own testimony about his childhood. His father was an alcoholic and locally regarded as an ill-tempered brute, who was often arrested for starting fights with other townsfolk, also regularly beating his wife and children in drunken rages using a fire poker. Großmann was often singled out in the abuse, as his father "hated how alike they were", and forced his son under threat of death to lie to teachers about the bruises, claiming that they were the result of accidents while playing.

Großmann was widely disliked and mocked for his ugly appearance, and began voicing violent thoughts and sadistic sexual tastes since his youth. Early on, Großmann developed a fascination with the slaughter of animals, delighting in the flow of blood and final death throes. In one instance, when Großmann was six years old, he and his half-brother assisted in the slaughter of a pig at the local abattoir. The brothers were supposed to catch any run-off blood in a bowl, but when butcher Koppelin cut the pig's jugular vein, Großmann pushed his brother aside, opened his mouth, and gulped up as much blood as he could from the gushing stream. Franz Großmann described how his brother was "seizing as if he were having an epileptic fit" before an adult worker shoved the boy away. Großmann reportedly told his brother later in life that he could only achieve arousal at the sight of blood. Childhood friend Fritz Schirrmeister recalled a time when he slaughtered an injured rabbit for food while Großmann watched, noticing his friend's oddly pleased facial expression and fixed gaze on the animal's twitching.

From an early age, Großmann assisted his father's merchant business as a crier and tended to the family's goats kept in nearby Treskow. Neighbours often observed the young boy playfully smashing heads with one particular billy goat and covering his face and chest in salt to have the goats lick him, leading to Großmann being nicknamed "Zickenkarl" ("Nanny Goat Karl") for his overt fondness for the animals.

Großmann left Volksschule in the third grade, shortly after which he had his confirmation. Großmann claimed to have continued school for a few years while working at a local fabric factory, but did not possess higher education.

Adolescence

In 1876, he took an apprenticeship as a slaughterhouse worker at the meat shop of Ferdinand Kliefoth, who took the troublemaking youth in despite his unpopular reputation, having seen his potential as a slaughterer given his deftness with a knife and lack of aversion to blood. Großmann told his brother that he only took the position to get close to Klieforth's wife Dorothea and that he often had wet dreams about forcing himself her. In 1879, Großmann was dismissed after he was caught attempting to rape Dorothea and beaten by Klieforth as a result. According to Großmann, he never finished a proper course as either a slaughterer or butcher. He returned to selling cloth with his father, occasionally working as a laborer at the fabric factory. Großmann was thrown out of the house in the early 1880s for stealing money from his father.

Großmann claimed that he moved to Berlin with friends at 16 and later served in the Imperial German Army between 1886 and 1887, in the 12th Grenadier Regiment in Frankfurt an der Oder, until he was discharged for a criminal arrest. Beginning 1890, Großmann worked for numerous butcher shops and slaughterhouses in Berlin-Mitte, subsidizing his income as a peddler of matches and other households items, until 1895.

Crimes

Vagrancy and sex offenses

After failing to find steady employment, Großmann became a vagrant traversing southern Germany, primarily the Franconian region of Bavaria, during the late 1890s, making a living through begging, peddling, and theft. His criminal record during this time included assault, trespassing, petty burglary, bestiality, and sex crimes against young girls, for which was jailed at least 24 times. His first charge was for the rape of a four-year-old girl. The longest of these sentences was served in Nuremberg, after Großmann was convicted of molesting a twelve-year-old girl and sodomising a goat.

After being released on 1 April 1899, Großmann molested a ten-year-old girl and raped a four-year-old girl. A court in Bayreuth sentenced him to 15 years imprisonment for the rapes on 4 October 1899; the four-year-old died of an infection from a complete tearing of the perineum inflicted during the attack shortly after the judgement. During his sentence at Ebrach prison, Großmann continued his violent behaviour and got into unprovoked fights with fellow inmates, leading to 55 citations.

Murders

After his release from prison in August 1914, Großmann again moved to Berlin. Despite the start of World War I just a few days earlier, he was not drafted due to his age. Initially financing himself with peddling, Großmann rented out the kitchen habitation in the third-floor apartment of Manfrim Itzig at Lange Straße 88, in the area around Berlin Ostbahnhof, known at the time for its high rates of crime, unemployment, and prostitution. Although Großmann was a one-room lodger, he often had the apartment to himself for as Itzig and his family were rarily home. Neighbors described Großmann as a quiet tenant, only remembered for his particularly repulsive looks. Großmann sold meat on the black market and managed a sausage stand at Andreas Square outside the train station.

Beginning at least 1918, Großmann used his location near Ostbahnhof to approach women, often jobseekers from the countryside newly arrived by train, and lure a victim to his home by offering them work as a domestic housekeeper. Some surviving victims said that they interpreted this as a code for solicitation while others genuinely believed they would be given employment. At the apartment, Großmann would physically overpower the woman and rape her, though other times, he would let the victim do housekeeping for several days or weeks before drugging and sexually assaulting her. Some of the women were let go after agreeing to not report Großmann while others were killed at Großmann's discretion. He would dump his victims' remains in Luisenstadt Canal and the adjoining Engelbecken basin. After any encounter, Großmann reported the women, whether dead or alive, to police, claiming they had run away after stealing from him to either explain their disappearance or disparage potential accusations made by surviving victims. On occasion, Großmann also targeted local women, ranging from female labourers, stay-at-home mothers, and sex workers, all invariably from poor financial backgrounds.

Großmann's activities went mostly unnoticed due to the political climate of the time, due to which Berlin Police was largely occupied with quelling armed protests. He had been occasionally investigated, such as on 24 March 1920, after a social worker reported a 15-year-old girl found in Großmann's flat after screaming was heard. The girl said that Großmann had invited her into his room and digitally pentrated her while she slept. Großmann claimed that he had tried to undress her for a bath. The matter was not pursued further since the girl was a homeless runaway and did not press charges. Two victims who reported Großmann for rape, Emma B. and Frieda T., were disregarded by police because of Großmann's theft accusations and because they were known prostitutes. Another woman, known only as "Polish Anna", was arrested and jailed until well after Großmann's arrest, after she was found with four 100 mark notes, which had been marked by Großmann, hidden in her stocking.

Since May 1921, the body parts of women appeared in the Spree going though Berlin, primarily the Luisenstedt Canal sometimes on a daily basis. Only two, 33-year-old sex worker Frieda Schubert and 29-year-old Johanna Sosnowski, could be certainly identified. The body parts belonged to at least 23 women, but the sheer amount led some investigators to suspect that Großmann murdered up to 100 women and girls. Dismembered human remains had washed up since March 1920, but estimation is skewed due to the presence of the corpses of Reichswehr officers thrown into the Spree during the Kapp Putsch, due to which body parts were not further examined. It was rumored and widely reported by contemporary newspapers that the meat Großmann sold contained the remains of his victims, as he threw some of their bones and other inedible parts into the river.

Arrest

On 21 August 1921, two neighbours of Großmann, labourer Robert Iglitzki and war widow Gertrud Grabowski, separately alerted police at the 50th precinct, after hearing screams and banging noises, followed by silence at around 21:30. Großmann refused to open the door despite repeated knocking by officers, who then burst into the apartment. Arresting officer Klähn saw Großmann with visibly bloodied hands about to commit suicide by drinking muckefuck laced with cyanide, but was prevented when Klähn knocked it out of his hand. Immediately putting Großmann in handcuffs, police found the body of a nude female on the bed. The woman was still alive, but died seconds after the discovery. She was identified as 34-year-old Marie Nitsche, an occasional sex worker from Dresden who had been released from Moabit jail the same day. Witnesses confirmed that Nitsche had been picked up by Großmann at Koppenstraße and that the pair spent the evening at a nearby carnival, using rides and drinking beer, until around 21:00. Großmann was taken into custody and charged with murder.

Neighbours reported that he seemed to have had a steady supply of female companions, mostly destitute-looking young women, over the previous few years. Residents estimated that they had seen around 150 different women with Großmann after presumably taking him up on the supposed housekeeping position. How many lives Großmann took is not known and Großmann only gave first names when reporting his housekeepers to police. Only the body of his final victim was found, along with bloodstains in the apartment that indicated at least two other persons had been butchered in the few weeks leading up to his arrest.

Großmann was connected to three murders and suspected of a fourth, 19-year-old sex worker Emma Baumann from Mecklenburg, yet maintained during his arrest and several weeks into custody that he had killed Nitsche because she had stolen from him, and attempted to convince officers to downgrade his murder charge to manslaughter. Großmann eventually conceded after detective Ludwig Werneburg offered to give him access to Hänseken, the pet siskin that he kept in the apartment, and was further able to gain Großmann's trust by allowing him unhandcuffed private time with the bird. After Werneburg ingratiated himself to Großmann for treating Hänseken for mites, Großmann admitted to killing three women, Marie Nitsche, Elisabeth Barthel, and a woman named Johanna. Investigators estimated that around 50 women and teenage girls entered Großmann's apartment and survived. The ones who were identified were most often raped, but some stated that they either performed regular housekeeping or engaged in consensual intercourse in return for money and habitation, describing that Großmann had given many of them food, coffee, money, or paid for other expenses upon their first meeting, which had earned him the nickname "Mysterious Karl" by long-time sex workers in the borough, who avoided Großmann as they did not know his intentions. The survivors of the rapes described being tied to the bed and tortured by Großmann, consistent with the wounds found on several of the dismembered bodies. By 1922, Großmann had reportedly begun writing an autobiography in which he claimed that he killed his victims because they were "surplus women", whom he described as "economic and social pests". English-language media referred to Großmann as a Bluebeard and dubbed him a "German Jack the Ripper" or "German Landru", despite also acknowledging that none of the murderers shared much similarity in modus operandi besides killing women. The same newspapers misrepresented the victims as being exclusively prostitutes who were lured by the promise of money or legitimate work.

During his trial, court witnesses made several attempts to assault Großmann. An eyewitness hurled a set of keys at Großmann, which nearly hit his court-appointed defense counsel Erich Frey, while a surviving victim lunged at Großmann for accusing her and other witnesses of lying. He was not convicted of murder, because he committed suicide in his prison cell before the end of the main trial. Großmann had used his bedsheet as a make-shift noose and hanged himself by tying it to a loose nail in the door frame.

See also

• Friedrich Schumann
• Fritz Haarmann
• Karl Denke
• List of German serial killers

Bibliography

• Matthias Blazek (2009), Carl Großmann und Friedrich Schumann – Zwei Serienmörder in den zwanziger Jahren, Ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-8382-0027-9.
• Horst Bosetzky (2004), Die Bestie vom Schlesischen Bahnhof, Jaron-Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 3-89773-078-2.
• Peter Haining (2005), Cannibal Killers: Murderers Who Kill and Eat Their Victims, chapter: "The Bread And Butter Brides", Magpie Books, UK, ISBN 978-1-84529-792-3.
• Masters, R.E.L.; Lea, Eduard; Edwardes, Allen, (1963), Perverse Crimes in History: Evolving Concepts of Sadism, Lust-Murder, and Necrophilia from Ancient to Modern Times, New York: Julian Press.
• Maria Tatar (1995), Lustmord: Sexual Murder in Weimar Germany, Princeton, NJ (English), ISBN 0-691-01590-2.