Erwin Hagedorn

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The first children's bodies were found in this forest between Drehnitzwiese and Wildparkstraße in Eberswalde
The Drehnitzwiese on Wildparkstrasse was the scene of the third murder
The "French Bunker" was the last known whereabouts of the first two victims
On the right is the home of the murderer on Werbelliner Strasse 4.1 km from the crime scenes
The third victim lived in this apartment block (old new building) right on the edge of the forest, where the body was found. In 1971 all houses on Wildparkstraße were monitored around the clock by the police.
The victims went to this school, where the police interviews were carried out
At that time the Mitropa restaurant was located where Hagedorn worked as an apprentice. It was noticed here that he was particularly brutal when cutting fish.

Hans Erwin Hagedorn (born January 30, 1952 in Eberswalde , † September 15, 1972 in Leipzig ) was a German sex offender and multiple child murderer.

Crime and Searches

The cook's apprentice Erwin Hagedorn, who worked in a Mitropa train station kitchen, cruelly murdered two nine-year-old students in the Eberswalder Wald on the Drehnitzwiese with a knife on May 31, 1969. Both victims died from a deep cut in the neck, one cut so severe that one of the children found two weeks later had its head severed as a result of corpse rot.

A long manhunt for the perpetrator followed. For the first time in German criminal history, the police had the Berlin court psychiatrist Hans Szewczyk prepare a psychological profile of the perpetrator . In addition, agents of the Ministry for State Security of the GDR also obtained documents from West Germany on the case of the child murderer Jürgen Bartsch . According to Szewczyk, the killer was in all likelihood a homosexual and pedophile sadist , who must have been noticed before through seemingly harmless advances to children. When the extensive investigations, which were largely kept secret from the public for political reasons, did not yield anything, the case was closed.

More than two years later, on October 7, 1971, Hagedorn killed a twelve-year-old boy in the same way in the same forest. Immediately afterwards, Hagedorn went to an award event in his mother's company. After the third murder, the Westend district in Eberswalde was comprehensively checked by the police, and a police officer was posted in front of each house entrance. Children were only allowed to leave the house when accompanied by a parent; every child had to be brought to and picked up from school. In the course of the investigation into the killer, numerous other crimes were cleared up.

In addition to the weekly instruction in school how children should handle found ammunition, which was still customary at the time, instructions were given long after the conviction on how to behave towards strangers. A special commission was formed again and Szewczyk was brought in. He had the idea of ​​carrying out surveys of school classes, which finally put the criminal police on the decisive track. Erwin Hagedorn was arrested on November 12, 1971 after a boy who had been sexually molested a year before the first murders was reported, but had remained silent out of shame. He immediately confessed to the sex murders . Already during his training as a cook it was observed that he showed particular brutality when cutting fish.

Hagedorn's unprecedented crimes in the GDR were re- enacted at the original crime scenes in the form of a documentary educational film in which he played himself; Criminalists' children played the victims. The torsion bar also accompanied the interrogations and the process with the camera. Hagedorn was always extremely cooperative with the investigators; he commented on his actions without any visible emotion.

Trial and Execution

On May 15, 1972, he was sentenced to death by the 1st Criminal Senate of the District Court of Frankfurt (Oder) for multiple completed and multiple prepared murder (in eight cases) as well as sexual abuse of children . When the first act, Hagedorn was not yet of legal age. The age of majority occurred in the GDR since May 1950 at the age of 18, while a corresponding change in the FRG did not take place until 1975. The verdict said: “The accused has forfeited the right to live in this humane society of ours.” The appeal hearing confirmed the judgment of the lower court. State Council chairman Walter Ulbricht rejected a petition for clemency submitted by Hagedorn's parents . Hagedorn's outspoken self-portrayal in the film is said to have significantly influenced this decision.

The only 20-year-old Hagedorn was on 15 September 1972 in the central place of execution of the GDR in Leipzig Prison from the hangman Hermann Lorenz by an unexpected potshot with a gun in the back of the head executed . The body was cremated in the crematorium of Leipzig's southern cemetery and buried anonymously. There was only one small article about the execution in the daily newspaper.

watch TV

The episode at the age of ... the crime series Polizeiruf 110 , which was based on the Hagedorn case, fell victim to censorship in the GDR and was not allowed to be broadcast; it was reconstructed in 2011 from the camera negative and the screenplay that had escaped destruction and published on the 40th anniversary of the series.

The episode Death of a Beast - The Hagedorn Case ran on May 17, 2001 in the ARD series The Big Criminal Cases .

In January 2013, after the fall, ARD showed the crime film Mord in Eberswalde with Ronald Zehrfeld in the lead role of the fictional Kripo captain Heinz Gödicke. The screenplay was written by Holger Karsten Schmidt and directed by Stephan Wagner .

See also

literature

  • Friedhelm Werremeier : The dog rose case. Bertelsmann, Munich / Gütersloh / Vienna 1975, ISBN 3-570-00492-9 . (A popular representation of the case.)
  • Gunther Geserick, Klaus Vendura, Ingo Wirth: contemporary witness death. Spectacular cases from Berlin forensic medicine. 4th, updated reprint. Militzke, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 978-3-86189-628-9 , pp. 112-125.
  • Kerstin Brückweh: lust for murder. Serial Murders, Violence, and Emotions in the 20th Century. Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York, NY 2006, ISBN 978-3-593-38202-9 (= Campus Historical Studies , Volume 43).
  • Wolfgang Mittmann: Time of the crime. Major cases of the German People's Police. Volume 1 and 2. Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-360-00895-2 . Pp. 445-508.

Web links

Commons : Franzosenbunker in Eberswalde  - collection of pictures
Commons : Drehnitzwiese on Wildparkstraße in Eberswalde  - collection of pictures

Individual evidence

  1. ^ ZDF Info: Clarified - Spectacular criminal cases
  2. ↑ a b Dr. Stefan Orlob: Was the German forensic psychiatrist Hans Szewczyk the first modern profiler? - The Eberswalder boy murders. In: Richts-psychiatrie.de. Retrieved March 30, 2013 .
  3. ^ Christian Holst: Murder in Eberswalde - Der Totstecher. In: TV feature film . Retrieved March 30, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Phoenix report with excerpts from original recordings
  5. ^ A b Sibylle Möckl: ARD drama "Mord in Eberswalde" - the secret serial killer of the GDR. In: Rheinische Post . January 29, 2013, accessed March 30, 2013 .
  6. ↑ Note: Ulbricht had lost his other offices in 1971, but remained Chairman of the State Council until his death in 1973. Federal Agency for Civic Education, Information on Civic Education (Issue 258): The GDR in the seventies. Retrieved September 6, 2011 .
  7. ↑ Hannah Beitzer: Police 110: "At the age of ..." - The Forbidden result. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . June 22, 2011, accessed March 30, 2013 .
  8. ↑ Tonight the secret of 37 years of lost TV crime will be revealed. In: Klatsch-Tratsch.de . June 23, 2011, accessed March 30, 2013 .
  9. ↑ Peter Luley: ARD crime thriller about GDR child molesters: In two-stroke on sex offender hunt. In: Spiegel Online . January 29, 2013, accessed March 30, 2013 .
personal data
SURNAME Hawthorn, Erwin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hagedorn, Hans Erwin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German sex offender and multiple child murderer
DATE OF BIRTH January 30, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Eberswalde
DATE OF DEATH 15th September 1972
Place of death Leipzig