The S-Bahn Murderer: The Serial Killer in Nazi Germany

just before we get started i do want to say that this video is brought to you by curiositystream more about them in just a bit hello everybody welcome back to another brand new episode of the casual criminalist as always hello there i'm your host simon lambs here one of my writers today arnaldo welcome arnaldo has written me a script this one is called literally this is how new it is to me i'm reading this for the first time right now a serial killer in nazi germany the s-bahn murderer arnaldo thank you so much on youtube in the first 30 seconds i've managed to mention serial killer and nazi germany and murderer and now i've mentioned them twice each so there goes all my monetization for the video i might actually lose money on this job crimea river uh arnaldo thank you so much for putting this together what happens here i've not read this before it's brand new to me we're gonna explore this murdering nazi serial killer brilliant get the feeling this one's gonna be a bit depressing isn't it and uh afterwards jen here i am it's going to edit it she adds in some images some memes some music we love everyone for it let's go [Music] 4th of december 1940 night was about to fall over berlin with most men away at the front women in the city had got used to a new routine a new way of life in which every night of sleep could be interrupted by the distant rumbling roar of the british bombers followed by the whale of air raid sirens a new way of avoiding death in which artificial light was almost completely vanished leicester provided british crews the clear target amidst a notion of shadow after zonzer blackout measures reigned supreme every window had to be covered in black curtains every light bulb or headlamp shielded in black shades but life had to go on many young women had to work in government offices hospitals or factories traveling alone on the berlin commuter train the s-bahn sitting in dimly lit compartments with windows obscured they hoped to require tonight of respite from aerial incursions what they could not imagine was that another menace less conspicuous but equally lethal lurked in the shadows of blacked out berlin ready to strike yeah and this is kind of like the serial killer in one of these times it's like when there's loads of stuff going on so the police and everything and everyone is going to be focused on so much other stuff that i you've got there's got to be so many crimes going on in like war zones that are not even related to war because people are like i was going to commit this crime now's the perfect time to like murder my neighbor i'll be like yeah no one will ever know because the city's being evacuated there's bombings i'll just like throw his body in with a pile that's that holy [ __ ] the amount of crimes that must quietly go on during wartime that no one investigates because they just don't have the resources is crazy and depressing 4th of december 1940 night had fallen over berlin on any other night total darkness would have engulfed the railroad depot at rummelsburg eastern berlin near the tracks of the s-bahn but that night shadowy figures were chased away by the flashlights held by a group of men some uniformed some in plain clothes their lights wandered in the night before shining on what they were looking for the body of a young woman in a nurse uniform lying motionless on the railway embankment the coroner dr vyamin urged caution before jumping to conclusions it could have been an accident after all but detective inspector zack of the criminal palezi already feared the worst two women had already been viciously assaulted on the s barn thrown off the moving train and left the dead but they had survived by miracle but this was different the mysterious assailant had graduated to murder and pressure kept on mounting from above the heads of the reich security office wanted the case solved but the minister for propaganda joseph goebbels wanted the investigation to be hushed up inspector zach and his superior captain ludkay had a tough job ahead of them would they ever crack the case of the s-bahn murderer if you're a cop i know he just said like all the men were off at war if you were a cop during the war do you have to stay behind or do i mean do you have to stay by do you get to stay behind or do you go to the front because i can't imagine there were many women policemen back in the day i'm sure there were some but not like the majority i mean it's the majority today still it's still got to be i kind of feel like cops still a male-dominated profession right and so do they stay behind to enforce cop stuff because there must be people who have to stay behind like who are critical for this kind of stuff if there was a war i mean there is a war but if war comes to like me i'm definitely one of those people it's like dude your job get in line conscripts a pest among the allotments blackout regulations were first imposed on berliners on the 1st of september 1939 to coincide with the german invasion of poland from that date women living around the eastern district of fredericksfield started reporting a series of random assaults taking place under the cover of total darkness in the local garden colony to clarify berlin the garden colonies were similar to the public allotments in many british towns where citizens can rent a small plot of land to grow vegetables or quietly sip a beer in front of their tool shed young ladies returning home from work would be startled by an unseen man who jumped from behind one of these tool sheds the man would normally blind them with his flashlight before hurling sexually laden insults at them holy [ __ ] with time the severity of the attacks increased jesus christ this guy escalated to murder it's like yeah you know he shouts insults at women like a crazy person and then he's now a murderer i mean we should keep an eye on this guy the sexpers roaming the gardens progression insults the threats of violence is through actual violence eventually he committed his first rape and more followed on most occasions the victims were not able to provide a description of the cowardly fiend but some of them noticed an important detail the pest wore the uniform of a railway worker the mysterious railwayman racked up a total of 32 offenses of various degrees of severity what are you doing if you're like a criminal and you're committing crimes are you really going to wear like something so identifiable as a rail it's like what works a railway doesn't he we've just narrowed it down from basically in the entire population of a town to only men who work for the railway and with most men away it's going to be really narrowed down the mysterious railway man racked up a total of 32 offenses of varying degree of severity the file for the friedrichsfeld attack had initially been picked up by the or pro or un odds dung's policy in charge of lesser crimes wait oh okay because he was just shouting at people that's not only rape is a lesser crime i know it's nazi germany guys but eventually it was escalated to the creeper or criminal policy which dealt with cases of murder arson and rape there we go the creepo reported to reich security main office of the nazi regime led by reinhard heydrich affectionately known as the hangman of prague or the architect of the final solution yeah brilliant [ __ ] eye drake he was murdered in prague which was nice there's that movie anthropoid all about it where he's just taken his car through and some legend throws a grenade in there and he doesn't die immediately but he later does and it's like nice nice nice heydrich also oversaw even the uh i've made a video about hydra i'm pretty sure and even the other nazis were afraid of him because they are the nazis we're all like yeah we know we're the bad guys and heydrich was just like i've been given to job and i will do it and it's like holy [ __ ] heidrick he just didn't care either way he was like full psychopath just like no i don't really i don't mind the jews i don't hate i i think it was hydric and he was just i don't feel in i just feel indifferent to them it's like yeah i can kill millions of them no problem and it's like holy [ __ ] my dude what the [ __ ] but then he got brutally murdered heydrich oversaw the activities of the gestapo in the ss it was common for the creepo and the gestapo to cooperate on the prosecution and persecution of enemies of the reich some creepy officers even joined the ranks of the einsatzgruppen murdering jews roma and other undesirables but many other krebo officers were not staunch supporters of the regime and actually made a career by cracking down on nazi paramilitary groups before their rise to power we'll meet one of these top detectives later in our story at this stage the creepo could not do anything to track down the garden pest as his attacks had suddenly stopped wait so at this point at bit elevated he'd raised his crimes to rape and they're still calling him a pest it's like he's just a bit of a pest it's like no no no he's a rapist there's a difference [ __ ] guys come on unbeknownst to the investigation the attacker had committed an almost fatal mistake as per the playbook of the perfect coward the railroad had always picked on lone women whose husbands had probably been drafted in the military but one night he failed to notice that his intended victim was being escorted at a distance by her husband and her husband's brother when she cried valve the two men intervened and introduced the sex offender to their personal brand of blitzkrieg a barrage of punches and kicks that night the railwaymen found out that fighting two men was not as easy as surprise attacking a young lady who wouldn't have known unfortunately the weasley offender might manage to evade capture and beat a hasty retriest into the shadows from whence he had crawled what the [ __ ] these two guys are beating out of him taken to a police station as well come on a free upgrade the bad encounter convinced the rapist to lay low for several months it also taught him a lesson the wrong one a notion started forming in his mind if he wanted to avoid retaliation he had to silence his victims quickly and violently he also decided to change hunting grounds as allotments could be frequented by too many witnesses on the evening of september 20th 1940 gerda cargo was traveling home on a third class carriage of the yes barn tired from long day's work she fell asleep when she woke up she had missed her station she immediate they used to have third class they had none of that [ __ ] today i've talked about this before trains in the uk are like the worst because when i was a kid there was a first class section and then just like regular section and the first class section it was like a different carriage it was nice they had these little rooms they had a person with a cart with like snacks and you had to pay for anything off the trolley deers no thanks i'm all but it was nice i i never traveled in it but a friend of mine from school he was uh he was korean and uh he'd often he lived in the uk for years we went to school together for like seven years and it always just sit in first class it always just did in first class and as soon as the inspector came he'd just start speaking korean at him and the inspector they couldn't find him because it'd just be like i do not understand what's going on and so the inspector would just show him to the economy section and sit him down legend but nowadays it's like there's no there's hardly any difference first class is just like there's four seats at the end of the carriage and they don't seem to be any different other than that they're a different color at least on like southeast trains i don't know it's kind of a bit of a joke fascinating tangent simon thank you for that we've all wanted we come here to learn about trains don't we that's exactly that's exactly what you're all here for train chat with simon so from a long day's work she fell asleep when she woke up she had missed her station she immediately dismounted i can't i've never done that i know it's more train talk with simon but i used to take the train all the time like to different places because i lived in the middle of the countryside and i'd be like as i became like an adult all like late in my teens you'd be like hang out with my mates and it'd be like everyone lived like all over the place so i'd sometimes take a train it'd be like a 20-minute train train ride just to go to the pub and it's like sometimes i have no idea how i never miss my station and if i miss that station you're on the last train it's like you're ending up at a place called ashford international and it's like oh my god you get you're in asheville international and there's no train's home it's like well looks like you're waiting until five in the morning aren't you whistle but fortunately never happened she immediately dismounted and climbed onto a train traveling in the opposite direction the problem was that a ticket was no longer valid she was visibly nervous when a railway worker approached her and struck up a conversation she confessed to not having a valid ticket but the kindly man offered her a free upgrade how about she sat with him for the rest of the journey in second class he would vouch for her in case they encountered a ticket controller gerder accepted and the two moved into an empty dimly lit second class carriage after just 11 30 pm the sympathetic worker revealed his true colors without any warning he assaulted garda wrapping his hands around her neck but gerda fought back by the time she eventually fell unconscious it was only three minutes before the train would reach the next stop the attacker panicked what if somebody climbed onto the train and found him next to a limp body the man dragged gerda's body by the carriage door flung it open and tossed the body from the train traveling at 80 kilometers an hour wait is this the woman that survived that's incredible as he did so an electric wave of pleasure surged through his body it was a feeling of omnipotence stronger than any pleasure you could extort from a defenseless woman as gerda's body flew across the berlin night the rapist realized that he enjoyed killing but fortunately for girder she did not die that night by an incredible stroke of luck the woman landed onto a pile of sand by the railway track which absorbed the impact of the fall oh my god that is crazy lucky the morning after she was taken to the hospital and questioned by the oppo reminder this is the police division for lesser crimes thank you for that ronaldo i think and adam listens to these and he probably is he's just sympathetic to me because so often when there's too many names of different new divisions or foreign names i'll be like oh my god who is that i've got to go back and check what's going on now i get a little reminders from my small brain thank you that sounds like a real hero a shocked gerta was not able to provide much detail admitted to having consumed alcohol before traveling on the s-bahn the detail convinced the oppo that gerta was somehow lying and that her fall was the result of a drunken accident her report did not reach the criminal policy or crypo really yeah yeah no no it makes no sense it's like yeah no i fell off the train and landed in a sand patch you would just say that why would you make up a story come on police you're as disappointing in germany apparently is everywhere else the attacker was free to strike again and soon he would commit his first murder this is such a serious crime it's fully attempted murder of the police like nah you're just lying because you were a drunk woman stupid now just before we continue with today's video i do want to tell you about curiosity stream curiosity stream is a subscription streaming service that offers thousands of non-fiction and documentary titles for your enjoyment their their copyright here describes it as the netflix for nerds the hulu the history buffs the disney plus for the scientists in us which uh is something way cleverer than that i could come up with and i love it also oh they also mentioned the price here already okay i'll tell you what i'll tell you right now then curiosity stream is under 20 a year which makes it insane i i don't know i feel like my other unnamed streaming service the one everyone has i don't know i pay for the 4k version of that and it's i swear it's got to be like that much a month right it's it ain't cheap curiosity stream same price for the whole year in this case you didn't know there are 12 months in every year when highlighting curiosity youtube talk about a documentary or series that you enjoy oh i'll tell you about one i enjoy i've got it open right here it's called crime scene solvers and you can guess why i picked it for an advert for curiosity stream on this channel it's all about true crime they look into cases what is interesting about the show it's originally french but it's one of these documentaries where they've remade it so you can't really tell like all the titles are in english all of the narration and stuff's in english it's really well done uh but what is nice about that is it's a bunch of cases that you probably don't know because they're like french and they're all like super mysteriously like i don't know how this one ends i have no idea but france uh at least from me watching true crime solvers it seems to be an absolute hotbed of weird crime so uh crime scene solvers definitely check that one out it's available on many platforms they've got a web app roku android xbox one smart tvs ios chromecast amazon fire amazon apple tv i have uh embarrassing number of those devices uh but it's available all the look if you've got a screen you'll be able to watch it you can watch it on the go like on your ipad or whatever or you can watch it at home on the big screen curiosity stream is also adding exciting titles all the time as well which is fantastic there's always new stuff on there go to curiositystream.comcriminalist for unlimited access the world's top documentaries and non-fiction series and for you guys you can use the promo code criminals you'll get 25 off which makes it just 14.99 a year that definitely makes it cheaper than whatever the the monthly price i pay for the other unnamed streaming services it's an insanely good deal so click the link below go to curiositystream.com criminalist and you'll save 25 right now which makes it 14.99 for the whole year what's that it's a little over a dollar a month or something like that maths is not my strong suit but it is not expensive and it's filled with awesome content look check it out check out crime scene solvers and now back to today's video a broken bone [Music] on the morning of the 4th of october 1940 a worker from the national socialist people welfare organization showed up at the house of gertrude ditter a 20-year-old mother of two the social worker found her lifeless body in the kitchen of her apartment her hyoid bone was broken a sign of strangulation no idea what hyoid bone is but i'm going to assume it's in the neck moreover her left carotid artery had been sliced through with a knife and she had bled to death her two young children were alive crying for their mom in a nearby room holy [ __ ] the oppo were first on the scene initially treating the death as suicide but they quickly realized this was not the case and called the crippo yeah i mean good some decent police work there it's like no people don't strangle themselves to death to the extent of breaking a bone and then slice their neck open autoerotic asphyxiation yep that's not how pete that's not suicide even i read that it'd be like okay it's not suicide detectives immediately suspected gertrude's husband arthur and took him in for questioning it fair enough it is you know it's always the husband but mr ditter was serving in the military at the time stationed in nearby potsdam and was able to provide an alibi except when he's not there what neither the detectives nor mr ditto could suspect is that gertrude had struck a friendship with a railway worker at the rummelsburg station only a few days earlier and yes it was that railway worker gertrude had invited a new friend to visit her flat the railwayman came knocking on the evening of the 3rd of october after some small talk he decided it was time for action first he squeezed her neck hard enough to fracture that hyoid bone then to ensure she was dead he stabbed her in the neck the murderer fled the flat leaving behind no murder weapon no fingerprints and two witnesses too young to talk the crippo was thoroughly stumped and the case turned cold crippo are you just incompetent like we were thoroughly stumped i don't know how about you go to the [ __ ] railway station how about you talk to some railway workers how about you ask the children how about a magic trick i know they're all traumatized and [ __ ] but just be like was he old or was he young what color was his hair you know like child questions my child's two years old she has a vague understanding of colors nah she'd never be able to help with this nah i over as how old are the kids we don't know but crippo you could do a better job you could at least i don't know try a length of pipe [Music] one month passed by at 11 pm on the 4th of november 30 year old elizabeth bendorf had just finished her shift selling tickets at the friedrichshargen station of the espan she was about to board a third class carriage to return home when a friendly co-worker invited her to travel in second class with him instead why is the with this you can't just like invite people to your section otherwise everyone would just buy third class ticket if you were traveling as a group you'd just be like okay well we can buy two second class tickets or one of us can buy a first class ticket one of us can be a third class ticket and we can invite the third class person to sit with us in first class that makes no sense he was cheating you just can't imagine doing that on a plane just go to someone who's sitting in first class mind if i sit with you they'll be like uh it doesn't work like that does it mate at that time of night the second class carriages were almost surely empty more space to sprawl and relax and less of a chance to run into witnesses the two sat across the street from each other for a while engaging in small talk when the train pulled away from a station the railway man produced a thick length of lead pipe and hit elizabeth on the head but elizabeth was still conscious she fought back and screamed as loud as she could the attacker raised and lowered the weapon again and again until she finally slumped onto the carriage floor he then turned away from her opened the door breathing in fast moving cold air he saved the night thrilled to recreate the pleasure of throwing a woman's body from a moving train when he turned again towards elizabeth he was surprised to find her still alive stunned by the blows ms bendorf was trying to crawl away from her tormentor the rower man approached her slowly one step at a time once more he struck her on the head with the lead pipe miraculously elizabeth survived also this last blow powerless she could only watch as the assailant dragged her by the feet toward the open chain door after a further streak of violent blows the attacker lifted elizabeth from the ground and flung her against the wall of darkness he then wiped his weapon the pipe against his uniform to remove any fingerprints and hid it in the compartment just like any other commuter the railwayman clocked off from his labor of violence and rode the s-bahn home as he entered his flat he made sure not to make too much noise he didn't want to wake up his wife and two children the morning after elizabeth bendorff was found on the embankment of the s fahn line she was in dire condition but still alive this guy is i mean it's just like how if if he doesn't get him i know he doesn't get caught because we're not even halfway through today's episode but it's like police you're already like showing a lot of incompetence and if they can't get him with two failed murders in the same location in the same way i'm gonna be very disappointed i get the feeling going to be very disappointed after eight days in hospital she was finally well enough to speak to the crippo she did not remember most of the attack and was not sure about the physical features of the attacker but one last thing was for sure the man wore the uniform of a railway worker investigators picked up the file again of the previous victim who had survived girder cargill her testimony had been dismissed by the your po but now it was clear that the woman on the s-bahn were being targeted by a malicious predator the crippled detectives searched the crime scene and found the lead pipe in a behind the cushions of a second-class carriage the pipe turned out to be a piece of telephone cable two centimeters thick and 50 centimeters long encased in lead the police spoke to the telephone company and found that the cable had been initially laid near the rummelsburg station of the s-bahn so an improvised weapon easily accessible to a railway employee a profile of the murderer was starting to emerge well done well let me let me guess let me guess he's a railway employee police you being sarcastic soldier good job a double murder [Music] another month went by really then there's no interviewing people who work at the railway station there's no looking into that just a little bit more there's no like maybe we should have some undercover police on the s-bahn at night nothing just a month goes by and i get the feeling given by the uh the title of this entry there's going to be a double murder kind of at this point you're like is it the is it the murderous fault or is it the police's fault i mean obviously it's the murderer's fault but come on police on the night of the 4th of december 26 year old nurse alfreda frank was sitting in an empty second-class compartment the s-bahn had just left carl's horse station when an iron rod slammed into her skull the railroad man was pleased with himself he had killed his victim with a single clean blow he then proceeded to enact his favorite ritual he dragged frank by her feet next to the carriage door pushed it open and threw the nurse off the moving train half an hour later the attacker disembarked at karlhorst station his bloodlust was not yet sated he felt a rush of excitement as he spotted a teenage girl walking alone she was 19 year old erm guard the van crushed her skull with three swift blows ripped her clothes and sexually assaulted her when passerbyes found her later that night she was still breathing imguard was rushed to the hospital but she died without regaining consciousness in the meantime nurse frank's body had been found and the cripper been cooled in dr wyman and inspector zach huddled by her body in a scene that we've already described at the start of the story vyman was unsure that this case was connected to the other two women found by the espan track yeah i mean sure you'd be unsure you're like i'm not 100 sure i'd say like 99 like in the last couple of months two women have been assaulted and thrown off a train and then another woman is assaulted and thrown off a train and vyman's like phil we're not sure if they're connected really vitamin come on get you together i'm not 100 certain that it was by a railway worker come on zack on the other hand was convinced that the attacks were all related that's cause zach obviously has a big brain i mean he's got a regular-sized brain because anyone should be like yeah they're probably connected but it just seems that dr veyman barely has a functioning brain at all what neither could suspect at the time though is that these three cases were related to mrs dritter slain in a flat or the string of sexual assaults in the allotment area yeah that's totally fair i don't think anyone would expect those to be connected but also a couple of murders a couple of attempted murders that's enough that guy's good you know that's enough to actually track someone down and send them to prison forever what zach and his cripper colleagues knew for sure though is that their superiors were clamoring hard for a solution to the mystery they had to find a culprit preferably a foreign worker or an undesirable surely no aryan citizen could commit such heinous crimes obviously not how could an aryan commit a crime like genocide holy [ __ ] the [ __ ] could have used some cooperation from the press or the radio for example by issuing a public warning to all women in berlin not to travel alone on the s-bahn but joseph goebbel's ministry of propriganda had already sent directives to hush up the crimes no details could be revealed to the public lest berliners thought that the nazi regime was unable to maintain law and order it would take a top detective at the crippo to tackle this case a detective on the prowl [Music] on the 5th of december 1940s inspector zack was called by superior captain vil helm ludkay head of the serious crimes unit ludkay would take the lead from then on born in 1886 this veteran officer had first joined the police in 1910. after world war one he had been a member of the german democratic party as such she was a staunch supporter of the weimar republic trying to maintain law and order as german society descended into chaos ludke had no sympathy for those goons in brown shirts and swastika armbands that had been engaging in violent street battles throughout germany in fact as head of the political branch in frankfurt he had active opposed the violent methods of the nazi party until they rise to power in march 1933 yeah it's like ah you can be like he's like i really don't like how these not these nazis are doing terrible things we should definitely not stand for that this is horrible and then they come to power and become super vile he's like i mean i love it you two-faced bastards oh please don't hurt me in may of 1933 a disciplinary court found him guilty of interfering with nazi rallies and had him transferred to the serious crimes unit in berlin wait that sounds like a promotion serious crimes surely that's like the top of where a detective wants to go to even after hitler's election as chancellor ludkid resisted joining the party eventually was forced to become a member in 1940. on that very 5th of december captain ludkin and dr wyman met to consider all the elements of the recent murders and violent attacks dr wyman's like i have no idea what's going on i think the murderer was a jew good lord no i have no idea if defyman was anti-semitic i'm kind of just i think he just seems a bit dim doesn't he the captain reviewed again the reports of the non-lethal aggression taking place in the allotment area and drew some conclusions first some of the victims had reported that the assailant was wearing a railway uniform second gertrude did his house where she had been found dead was in the same area third the attacker on the s bun also wore a railway worker uniform and had used an improvised weapon procured next to the train tracks fourth when the attacks on the train had started no more offenses had been reported in the allotment area well this guy's actually a competent policeman look at that chain of logic that he's doing kind of surprised and impressed his final assumption was that all three crimes were connected and the perpetrator was the same a life within a life citizens of berlin were now preparing for their second christmas since the start of the war some days before the holiday another body was found by the s-bahn tracks it belonged to 30-year-old elizabeth bowen-jenner the police found a medical note in her pockets diagnosing her depression and ruled the death as a suicide but dr vyman's examination confirmed that she had been beaten with a blunt object the espan murderer had claimed his fourth victim and some uh look some competent work from dr veyman there for the first time and he would kill again in rapid succession on the 20 how is this guy not caught he's operating in a small area while all the men are at war there seems to be an incompetent detective finally on the case and he's wearing his work uniform what is going on on the 29th of december it was the turn of 40 year old gertrude siebert when rescuers found her she was still breathing but died shortly after reaching the hospital on the 4th of january 1941 another victim was rushed to hospital she had been strangled and then thrown off the train twenty-seven-year-old hedwig barr grasped onto life for a day before giving up sadly she was pregnant at the time of her death based on where she had been found loot kay was able to determine the compartment in which she had likely been attacked wow that's kind of impressive his officers rushed to investigate hoping to find some leads unfortunately it was a sunday the day in which all the carriages were thoroughly cleaned by the s-bahn crews all evidence had been mopped away a frustrated loot cave what sort of evidence they mopped away so it's been either there's like lots i mean this is like back in the day so it's not like we're scraping for dna and all that kind of [ __ ] i guess they were doing fingerprints back then maybe i'm not even sure yeah the guy was wiping the fingerprints off the blunt object earlier so i guess they did have fingerprint technology if there was some evidence i guess they could be looking for hairs but there's no dna so what are they cleaning up just a giant pool of blood and no one at the espar cleaning crews like uh should we tell anyone that's like just clean the blood every time my fingers touch brain i'm super fly tnt i'm the guns of the navarone just clean it up come on it's nazi germany people live in fear just do your job don't raise attention to yourself a frustrated ludkay resorted to setting up a trap he instructed female officers to travel on the s-bahn trains at night hoping to catch the murderer red-handed finally the plan almost succeeded one night in early february an undercover policeman was approached by a friendly yet creepy railway worker in a tense moment she realized he was about to attack somehow also the murderer realized that this was not a helpless victim and backed off at the last moment the officer according to berlin police regulations was unarmed but gave chase nonetheless oh my god what who is volunteering for this it's like yeah yeah what we need to do you to do lady police officers is uh there's a murderer on the trains he's almost certainly armed with some sort of heavy metal object um you need to go in there and be bait i mean okay do we get to have our guns no guns that's against the rules can i have some volunteers please i volunteer as tribute like yeah yeah i'll go oh my god bravery jesus the train was slowing down as it was approaching a station the sneaky assailant took advantage of the situation flung open the carriage door and jumped outside the spook had vanished in the blacked-out night and the officer had not been able to clearly see his face in the dimly lit compartment i remember a mate of mine showed up for school one day and he was all [ __ ] up like he had cuts on his face and his body and he was like dude why am i and he's like oh yeah i got drunk and i i thought it'd be a good idea to jump off the train before i go into the station you know like he was there the platform was there and he's like i'm just gonna jump for it and uh yeah obviously he hit the ground his legs just swept out beneath him and he rolled along the train platform and got all cut up and i'm like that wasn't the best idea was it mate the scare with the undercover officer apparently did not deter the murderer from striking again on the night of the 11th february 1941 39 year old joanna voigt was waiting for a train at carl horse station even though the newspapers were forbidden from publishing stories about the murders she had heard some rumors about a vicious killer prowling the train lines this ridiculous propaganda it's like yo just because you made your society super airy in goebbels doesn't mean there's not gonna be any murders anymore yes it does doesn't it you'll quickly realize that or just cover it up i guess christ she was alone and scared in the dark luckily she spotted an espan employee and asked him if he could accompany her on the train oh my god please don't tell me that this is the dude the one she asked for help happens to be the person she only had to get down to the next station shoulder man answered he would gladly be her chaperone how about a free upgrade to second class oh no what are the chances and also this but i'm also like one of the chances which makes me think like it'd be like the only way this can happen is if there's not many railway employees which will be like so police why don't you just start interviewing all the railway employees until you find someone who doesn't have any alibis and is super suspicious and uh just looks like a bit of a murderer because obviously there can't be that many if she just happens to bump into the one dude who is the murderer as soon as joanna took a seat the iron bar struck her on the head over and over again before the trainer reached the next station her body had landed on the embankments her heart stopped beating as she struck the ground shortly afterwards another tiny heart star no stop beating inside her she was three months pregnant captain ludke was furious if only he could publicize the events he could prevent more women from being mercilessly beaten to death by that scumbag eventually he summer managed to have a notice published on the valentine's day edition of the newspaper durvestin the article featured a description of draenovoit's murder and invited members of the public to provide any valuable information leading to the capture of the espan murderer in exchange they would receive a reward of 13 000 reichsmarks that's almost a hundred thousand dollars in 2022 money so understandably the [ __ ] officers were flooded with fifteen thousand tip-offs good lord that's a lot that's a giant prize far too many to be properly followed up finally the police captain took the most obvious decision he instructed inspector zach as meant to question the railway employees in berlin all five thousand of them oh my god okay that's a lot of employees but still well okay but there's five thousand of them immediately eliminate anyone who doesn't work at night let's just say that's two-thirds because obviously it's going to be um more busy at night so we're down to what roughly 1700 ish there's my maths there um and then eliminate all women and then eliminate all i i mean i don't know what else to eliminate now while i wasn't able to cut everyone i wanted to i have cut a lot of you but you can eliminate various things and which let's say you could easily enough whittle that down to a thousand people this doesn't seem like this seems like this should happen much earlier a trail of footprints as the officers worked their way through the roster of railway workers the immediate effect was that the attack stopped also yeah it also it's like okay some they're on to me they're on to me so probably stop attacking which is a good thing because even if they're not getting caught at least there's less murders clearly the murderer had been cowed by the intense police activity and was restraining his urges on one hand uh lutke was pleased on the other he feared that the blanket questioning would lead nowhere he had to lure the killer out in the open if he wanted to catch him on the 1st of july 1941 the captain decided to take a gamble he asked his detectives to spread the rumor that police monitoring was to cease as it appeared futile two days later a group of nine co-workers on boarded the train at rummelsburg unbeknownst to them someone was watching one of them 35 year old frieda cosiol walked away from the station tentatively finding her way home in the pitch-black night a voice startled her it was a man he introduced himself as a railway employee and offered to walk her home frida must have been annoyed by the attention since most men were away training or fighting on the eastern front every male left behind in berlin felt he had the chance nay he had the right to chat up the ladies frida shrugged him off and kept walking the next thing she heard was the sound of her own skull cracking under the swift blur of an iron bar really collapsed on the pavement and the attacker climbed on top of her raping her as she gasped her last breaths ludga had failed he had hoped to spring a trap on the perpetrator catching him red-handed but he felt responsible for causing it another murder the detective had not been beaten yet though he and his team found a trail of footprints in the dirt close to freda's body forensic analysis determined the footprints to belong to a man's pair of shoes 39 and a half in size they had likely been left by a pair of special boots with extra thick soles manufactured at the time only by the salamander company in berlin the creepo was in luck as wartime rationing regulations demanded that the companies kept a list of customers for this special type of garment ludke reviewed the list crossing out men serving in the beer market and those who lived too far from the crime scene he was left with just one name her hymen also why didn't he do this before though why do you have to wait to find the special garments just start there's another way of limiting things down anyone's aware of war just eliminate them anyone who doesn't live nearby eliminate them of course it could be someone who travels but at least you know you're really increasing your chances hyman lived close to the site of the attack moreover he had a criminal record as a sex offender more precisely as a peeping tom who liked to spy on couples making love in the open there is another way to narrow it down this is all basic police stuff anyone who's a criminal already put them to the top of the list don't eliminate everyone else don't assume it's the guys who have a criminal record but if there's a guy who's like a sexual criminal from before and he's and you're looking for someone who's committing escalated sexual crimes maybe that's the guy you want to look at the creepo took hyman into custody and confiscated his shoes they matched the footprints found in the dirt the suspect was interrogated eight times over three days it emerged that he had no connections to the s-bahn except as a passenger but luca pressed on until the man confessed not to the murder though he confessed to having been near the site of the sexual assault spying as the actual murderer was taking advantage of a dying woman only after the killer had left and he realized the woman was dead and he had fled the scene ludke believed him and this was not his man it had been another failure but the hound was not far from a breakthrough a model citizen in july zach and his officers resumed their questioning of the s-bahn cruz the question that finally yielded some results was have you noticed anything suspicious about any of your co-workers a railway employee did report something unusual very unusual indeed he had spotted one of his colleagues an assistant signal man as he quit his post during work hours he would climb the fence by a railway yard walk away into the night and return before anyone could notice also he thought the crippo had already spoken to this particular signal and he was well regarded by superiors and colleagues who considered him to be a serious worker a devoted husband and a loving father ah the mask the mask will fall moreover he was a german born and bred a staunch follower of national socialism and a veteran of the storm tylong or sa the infamous brown shirts plus some of the crimes had occurred while he was supposedly at work so he's cleared of suspicion but this new piece of information changed everything apparently this guy was able to leave at will and returned to his post undetected on the 12th of july 1941 at quarter to seven in the morning a crippled detective picked up the new suspect at his apartment his name was paul augozov also i'm slightly concerned this dude's a signalman right and he's just like leaving his post isn't the point of the signalman on railways to be like yeah yeah this trade could go this one stop to stop trains crashing into each other it also feels like leaving that post might be a crime as well and you'll be like wasn't as serious as the other crimes isn't it like boy it is if two trains crash into each other luke could question him about his escapades and augustov denied leaving his post had he done so his superiors would have surely reprimanded him luke did not believe him and eventually augazov admitted that he had been playing truant he claimed they had been sneaking out to visit a woman with whom he was having an affair while her husband was at the front the [ __ ] spoke to augustov's lover and she admitted to the tryst was this another dead end it could have been had not ludkay ordered to confiscate the suspect's uniform forensic analysis of the fabric revealed that the tunican trousers contained traces of blood the largest quantity was found around the crotch area confronted with this evidence augusov claimed that some of the blood came from a cut to his finger while the rest belonged to his wife who had been unwell lately the interrogators did not buy the story and kept pushing for answers she's been unwell lately that's how the blood got my uniform it's like when was the last time that someone got unwell that blood went everywhere that's not unwell that's like badly injured eventually augustov cracked under pressure his first confession related to the assaults perpetrated in the allotment area crippled detectives took him to the district and asked him to retrace the landmarks of his unglorified career as a sex pest on the occasion they brought along two of the women who had suffered his early attacks one of them recognized him instantly on the way back to police headquarters agazov asked to speak to the lead investigator he wanted to tell his story to a high-ranking official probably hoping that someone like ludke could help him on the back of his shining nazi credentials who was paul augersov this would be the right time to introduce the backstory of our chief suspect he was born in september 1912 in the village of muntov in east prussia a birth he was registered as paul sagar after his mother's surname his father was recorded as unknown at the age of 12 he changed his name when he was adopted by the augusto family and moved to the havalan district near berlin not much is known about his early years except that they were well pretty normal it's a recurring theme in the show that serial killers suffered horrific abuse as children and they displayed the early signs of psychopathy or antisocial potency such as harming animals setting property on fire or bed wetting oh yeah totally forgot about bedwetting that did come up as a thing which is weird is that a common thing though like i get of course arson like setting property on fire that's a big one harming animals probably even bigger didn't realize bedwetting is that actually one three trades shared by 95 percent of all serial killers bedwetting pyromania animal cruelty but this was not the case for paul as a teenager he worked as a laborer in the farm of his adoptive father and then took a job at a steelworks blast furnace at the age of 19 in 1931 paul joined the nazi party in the following year he enlisted in the sa the brown shirts rising to the equivalent rank of sergeant on the 30th of june 1934 the essay were violently purged by members of the ss under hitler's instructions the episode known as the night of the long knives led to a massive downsizing of the paramilitary group augustov left the organization and took on a more mundane occupation with the maintenance crews of the national rail company after a series of promotions he got a job as an assistant signal man in the rummelsburg freight yard in 1937 he married saleswoman gertrude zieglemann the two had two children together a boy and a girl the family moved to the carlos district of berlin where they led an apparently quiet life paul would often be seen at home playing with his kids watering his vegetable guards nor picking cherries from a tree in the back garden but behind this ideal darkness was brewing it later emerged that augusta was frequently physically abusive to his wife and would seek the attention of other women especially lonely passengers who did not mind being chatted up by a friendly railway man in his uniform a row of skulls [Music] by the time argozov was driven back to the [ __ ] officers lutker was ready to meet him high-ranking party members had exhausted their patience and they demanded the captain obtain a confession he would get it in the most morbid way when augusov was marched into interrogation room ludke in the coroner dr vyman had laid out a macabre display the skulls of the five victims have been carefully cleaned and neatly lined up in a row upon the interrogation table confronted by the empty stare of five dead women augustov finally confessed he was the espan murderer why are you doing this they cleaned the skulls and had these skulls there isn't there a point where you've taken all your notes and you're like okay and now we'll allow the family to bury the victims or whatever or you know cremate them or do whatever is in accordance with their customs is that nananay we kept the heads and cleaned them what's up the killer implored ludke for help and the captain assured him that he would do what he could provided that augusov gave a full confession logos of agreed he retold his crimes in fine detail but he got something wrong on purpose he said his weapon had been a knife in all his murders in augusov's intention planting a wrong detail was a clever tactic to later recant his confession but the skulls spoke themselves lutke pointed to the injuries which clearly hinted at the use of a blunt object eventually the murder admitted that he had bludgeoned the debt to death the majority of his victims but he was not done with trying to weasel out of a criminal sentence how are you possibly going to weasel out of this my dude you just confessed and there's lots of evidence against you and people recognized you ogazov blamed his deviant acts on gonorrhea he had caught it three times in berlin in 1934 in poland in 1940 and also in paris in 1940. he had been incompletely treated by a jewish doctor which had compromised his state of mind it was not his fault after all so he demanded to be interned in a psychiatric hospital of course luke kate did not buy a single gram of that a wagon load of [ __ ] on the 22nd of july 1941 mogazov went on trial was charged with the murder of eight women and the attempted murder of further six on that same day the court found he was fully sane and convicted him on all counts the sentence was carried out the following day death by means of guillotine whoa only i did not expect and now it's dismembered appendices that got wrapped up super quick i didn't realize that i mean i still thought i guess nazi is nazi germany so you know of course she got crazy but did people really get executed so quickly in the past we did one the other day and it was like immediately like he was taken out back and shot and it's like holy [ __ ] i didn't really realize that happened in the in europe in the 20th century even in some crate like outside of war crimes that's pretty intense there's no appeals for a death sentence just like i said you to death bailiff get your gun ready dismember to vendee sees [Music] one apparently the nazi judiciary cared much about the proper maintenance of their execution devices as per regulation an invoice for the wear and tear of the guillotine blade were sent to the relatives of the condemned prisoner in this case mrs gertrude ogasov holy [ __ ] really two i was interested in finding out more about [ __ ] captain wilhelm ludke who certainly makes her an interesting character a 33-page dossier about him can be found on the cia freedom of information act search engine what most of his contents of poorly rendered documents are in german which i hope to decipher in the near future why does the cia have a 33-page dossier on this guy from the few pages in english i found out that in november 1949 he had submitted a request for his denotification to the office of the us high commissioner for germany in other words he wanted to be acknowledged as a non-nazi and this requote was quote denied on the ground that you are considered to have more than nominal participation in the activities of the national socialist german workers party as a result he could not resume his office in the police lutch became a private investigator working for coffee import export firms in hamburg and berlin in this capacity he helped the customs office in cracking down on the smuggling of coffee from beyond the iron curtain that seems like a bit of a fall doesn't it what was he before he was investigating murders as part of this like super serious crime unit and now it's like yeah i i look for illegal coffee smuggling which i didn't realize was even a crime that could exist in july of 1951 the cia considered him a potential agent in west germany but the assessment found that quote he is well grounded in all phases of police investigative work but lacks the ingenuity and imagination required of an independent intelligence contractor harsh a further document dated 15th of december 1951 includes a note stating denazified no punishment but there are no records that he rejoined the police around that time well he was 60 i was going to say he's pretty old by this time well he was 65 by this time so probably enjoyed his retirement while sipping on a delicious brew of contraband socialist coffee yes this has been an episode of the casual criminals thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed it please do leave us a review on apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcast if you're watching this on youtube hello like subscribe also if you'd like another episode i got one here to recommend it's another european-based murder story check out death in the vatican if you're watching on youtube i'm going to link to it on the screen now and i'll see you next time [Music] now just before you leave today's video let me tell you about another channel that i run called decoding the unknown it's a show where i take a deep dive in some of the world's biggest mysteries from what happened to the roanoke colonists the regular guy who found a listening device in one of his power strips it's always a bit of a wild ride you can find a link to decoding the unknown below or just search decoding the unknown in youtube and you will find it

Channel: The Casual Criminalist

Views: 216,587

Keywords: true crime

Id: 95TAacaHuKw

Length: 49min 45sec (2985 seconds)

Published: Tue May 03 2022