From Murdering Children To Drinking Blood, Peter Kürten Really Did Earn the Nickname "Vampire of Düsseldorf"
On the morning of 2 July 1931, in Cologne, Germany, Peter Kürten walked into the execution courtyard of Klingelputz Prison as the early sunlight began to cast a pale glow. At nearly 50 years old, Kürten was a man of average build, with neatly combed dark hair and an unremarkable face that gave no outward hint of his gruesome inner life.
Flanked by a prison priest and psychiatrist, Kürten was heading to the guillotine to answer for a litany of horrific crimes. Over 17 years, his catalogue of offences had grown to include burglary, arson, attempted murder, rape, cannibalism, and murder. The precise number of his victims remains uncertain, but estimates range from 35 to as many as 70.
Who Was Peter Kürten?
Dubbed the “Düsseldorf Monster” and the “Vampire of Düsseldorf,” Kürten’s life was a nightmare of violence and depravity. Born into a dysfunctional and abusive family, his childhood was marked by physical and verbal abuse, worsened by his father’s alcoholism. By the time he was a young boy, Kürten had already exhibited disturbing behaviour. He tried to drown one of his playmates and befriended a local dog-catcher who taught him how to torture and kill animals.
At 13, Kürten began dating a girl his age, but her refusal to have sex led him to channel his frustrations elsewhere. He turned to bestiality, engaging in acts with local farm animals and, even more disturbingly, torturing them to achieve sexual gratification. His behaviour only stopped when a farmer caught him stabbing a pig.
Not long after, Kürten ran away from home, stealing all the money he could find and beginning an affair with a prostitute two years his senior. This reckless lifestyle led to his first stint in prison, serving four years for fraud and a brief sentence for petty theft.
Descent Into Violence
In 1904, Kürten joined the German army, but his service was short-lived. He deserted and began setting fires, standing at a distance to watch the chaos as firefighters responded. He was eventually arrested for arson and desertion and sentenced to his third imprisonment. During this time, Kürten described experiencing bizarre sexual fantasies, some so intense they caused spontaneous orgasms.
Released in 1913, Kürten moved to Mülheim am Rhein. His earlier crimes, though unsettling, paled in comparison to what came next.
The First Murders
In May 1913, Kürten committed his first known murder. Shortly after leaving prison, he broke into a home and encountered a nine-year-old girl. He strangled her and then slit her throat with a pocket knife. The act, as he later admitted, brought him sexual pleasure, especially the sound of her blood hitting the floor. The next day, he lingered at a nearby bar to listen to locals discuss the murder, revelling in their horror. Over the following months, he even visited her grave for sexual gratification.
Two months later, Kürten struck again, this time killing a 17-year-old girl in a similar fashion. He was arrested later that year, not for the murders but for burglary and arson, and was sentenced to eight years in a military prison.
Marriage and a New Start?
Upon his release in 1921, Kürten married Auguste Scharf, a shop owner with a criminal past of her own. Their marriage, however, was anything but conventional. Kürten’s infidelities quickly came to light, and when Auguste discovered he had been sleeping with two of their maids, she encouraged one of them to accuse him of rape. Convicted, Kürten served six months in prison—his fifth sentence.
After his release, Kürten resumed his old ways. In the span of one month, he killed two people and attempted to murder a third. His preferred method was stabbing, often using a pair of sharpened scissors, and he delighted in the suffering of his victims.
A Killing Spree Like No Other
Kürten’s most infamous spree came in 1929. In August alone, he murdered six people. One victim was a woman he had stalked for a week. After killing her, he penned a detailed letter to the police, including a map to her body. He also began using a knife instead of scissors, stabbing three people in random attacks. Though they survived, their conflicting descriptions of their attacker confused investigators.
In another incident, Kürten murdered two sisters, strangling one and slitting the other’s throat. For the first time, he engaged in cannibalism, drinking the younger girl’s blood. The following month, he killed two servant girls by bludgeoning them with a hammer, and his final known murder was the stabbing of a young girl left to die in an alley.
Capture and Trial
Kürten’s downfall came in May 1930 when he attempted to assault 20-year-old Maria Budlick. She escaped and wrote a letter about the incident to a friend. Misaddressed, the letter fell into the hands of the police. Meanwhile, Kürten confessed his crimes to his wife, suggesting she turn him in to claim the reward money. She did, and Kürten was arrested.
Peter Kürten gave in as soon as he was taken into custody, confessing to the atrocities without showing any remorse. He ultimately admitted to 68 crimes in all, including 10 murders and 31 attempted murders. He defended his actions by saying that he was just retaliating for the horrors that life had imposed upon him as a youngster and that he was only pursuing what was rightfully his.
Police, horrified by his confession, requested the first-ever psychiatric examination of a sexual serial murderer. The results would horrify them even more, though. Although he admitted to having several passionate, psychosexual fantasies involving blood, mass murder, and fire in his vivid and detailed confession, five different experts came to the opposite conclusion and said he was fully sane and qualified to face trial. Peter Kürten’s lack of remorse only presented itself further when a judge asked him about his conscience, questioning if the man felt he had one at all.
“I have none,” he responded. “Never have I felt any misgiving in my soul; 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 must be on the heads of my torturers … The punishments I have suffered have destroyed all my feelings as a human being. That was why I had no pity for my victims.”
The Execution of Peter Kürten
Before the jury eventually returned a guilty judgement, the prosecution and defence engaged in a 10-day debate on Küchen's intentions, his crimes, his conscience, and his punishment. He received nine guillotine-delivered death sentences after being convicted guilty of murder.
Upon laying his head down on the machine, he turned to the psychiatrist and asked a question.
“Tell me,” he asked. “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.”
The executioner then dropped the blade.
Following his death, Peter Kürten’s head was removed for forensic analysis and eventually found it’s way to the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum in Wisconsin. Doctors were confident that something was wrong with him because of his nonchalant attitude towards his misdeeds. Surprisingly, the examination found nothing unusual about him.
Peter Kürten was only a psychotic serial murderer looking for vengeance for a lost childhood and tortured by romantic visions of death.
