Fritz Angerstein

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Fritz Heinrich Angerstein (born January 3, 1891 in Dillenburg ; † November 17, 1925 in Freiendiez ) was a German mass murderer who killed eight people on December 1, 1924.

Life

Angerstein, son of a Dillenburg ironworker, initially worked as a surveyor. In 1921 he moved to the neighboring town of Haiger with his wife Käthe, his mother-in-law and his sister-in-law . The couple remained childless. In Haiger, Angerstein became the director and authorized representative of a limestone mine owned by the van der Zypen company. He had a high monthly salary of 390 Reichsmarks and an official apartment, but nevertheless got into economic difficulties. Angerstein's embezzlement was discovered in November 1924, and one of his employees tried to report him. According to later investigations by the public prosecutor's office, the amount embezzled was 14,892 Reichsmarks.

Sequence of events

On the night of November 30th to December 1st, 1924, Angerstein first damaged the telephone line and then killed his sick wife with 18 stitches from his hunter in the bedroom. He then killed his 50-year-old mother-in-law in the next room with an ax. His 18-year-old sister-in-law, who was returning home from a train ride at night, he killed with an ax and dragged her into the bathroom. He also killed the maid with an ax. On the morning of December 1, 1924 at around 7 a.m., an accountant and an office worker came to the villa. Angerstein ordered them one by one to the office, locked the door and killed them both with an ax. In the course of the day he killed the son of his house gardener and a laborer who both worked on the property of the villa.

After the mass murder, Angerstein doused his private offices on the ground floor and the rooms on the first floor with benzene . Then he went to town to do some shopping. In the first shop he bought "his dear wife" two bars of high quality chocolate and in the second a flashlight; in the end he went to a bookstore. He returned home after dark and set the benzene on fire, but the first floor did not catch fire. Angerstein was deliberately badly injured with several knife stabs, but not life-threatening, pierced his hat and called for help. Neighbors noticed the calls for help and the smoke rising from the house.

The seriously injured Angerstein told the aid workers and the police that he had been attacked in his villa when he returned from the city. The volunteer fire brigade extinguished the apartment fire and was able to thwart Angerstein's intention to cover up the crime.

Witnesses claimed to have seen 15 to 20 criminals fleeing. Angerstein came to the Haiger hospital, where he was operated on. The news of the gruesome bloody act quickly spread beyond the national borders.

Immediately after the crime, police officers from Siegen and Wetzlar were sent to Haiger and vigilante groups were set up.

Investigation

The media initially spread the version of the only survivor Angerstein as a fellow victim of the mass murder. The criminologists arriving the morning after the crime, including Georg Popp from Frankfurt - one of the most important criminologists at the time - increasingly doubted Angerstein's accounts. During their investigations, for example, they found that the murdered had already gone through rigor mortis, which could not be reconciled with the time of the crime specified by Angerstein. They also found Angerstein's fingerprints on the hunting knife and on the murdered people . Furthermore, there was no evidence of a robbery. At the same time, Angerstein's embezzlement was revealed as a possible motive. When the Limburg Chief Public Prosecutor, Angerstein, who was in charge of the investigation, denied it, but became involved in contradictions. He was then arrested, but remained in the hospital. After the autopsy was available, the attorney general accused him at the bedside of being the murderer. Angerstein's resistance broke and he confessed that he had killed the eight people on purpose the previous day. The act was also preceded by an attempted suicide by Angerstein.

Apparently an optogram was made of the retina of the murdered gardener to investigate the crime .

Litigation and judgment enforcement

The trial took place from July 6th to 12th, 1925 before the jury court of the Limburg regional court. The court followed the prosecution's request and sentenced Angerstein to death and loss of civil rights eight times for eight murders on July 13, 1925. Angerstein waived the right to appeal and said in court: “I don't want mercy, my deed can only be atoned for by death.” He cited love for his wife as the motive.

The death penalty imposed on Angerstein was carried out with an ax on the morning of November 17, 1925 in the central prison in Freiendiez .

literature

  • Hubert-Georg Quarta (ed.): The case of Angerstein. From the letters of a mass murderer. Verlag M and N, Dillenburg 1996, ISBN 3-928796-01-1 .
  • Siegfried Kracauer : The act without a perpetrator - On the Angerstein case. In: Writings. Volume 5, part 1. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 318f.
  • Bernd Stiegler (Ed.): Act without a perpetrator. The Fritz Angerstein murder case . Konstanz University Press, Konstanz 2013, ISBN 978-3-86253-035-9 .
Newspaper articles

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ see Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg (HStAMR), Best. 911 No. 2146, p. 8 ( digitized version ).
  2. ↑ a b c d A family murdered by a band of robbers. In:  Die Neue Zeitung , December 3, 1924, p. 3 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nzg
  3. ^ Paul Langenscheidt : Encyclopedia of Modern Criminology.
  4. ↑ The Angerstein case. In: Journal for the whole of neurology and psychiatry. Volume 98, 1925, p. 659.
  5. ↑ a b The judgment in the Angerstein trial. In: Die Neue Zeitung , July 14, 1925, p. 5.
  6. ^ No band of robbers - Angerstein himself the murderer. In:  Vorarlberger Volksblatt , December 4, 1924, p. 2 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / vvb
  7. ↑ a b Band of Murderers Slays 8 in German Villa, Including Four Women, and Burn the House. In: The New York Times , December 3, 1924.
  8. ↑ Der Raubmord von Haiger .. In:  Tages-Post , December 4, 1924, p. 12 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / tpt
  9. ↑ a b The horror act at Haiger .. In:  Reichspost , December 4, 1924, p. 9 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / rpt
  10. ↑ S. Ings: Eye. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008, ISBN 0-7475-9286-1 , p. 61. Limited preview in Google Book Search
  11. ^ Report man's image in dead victim's eye; German police alleged to have photographed Angerstein's picture for evidence. In: The New York Times , December 8, 1924.
  12. ^ Judgment on the mass murderer. Angerstein's statement. In: Vossische Zeitung , July 6, 1925, supplement, p. 5.
  13. ↑ Nassauische Annalen: Yearbook of the Association for Nassau antiquity and historical research. Volume 99, 1988, p. 84.
  14. ↑ Nassau Annals. Verlag des Verein für Nassauische Altertumskunde und Geschichtsforschung, 1988, p. 84.
  15. ↑ Execution of the mass murderer Angerstein. In:  Die Neue Zeitung , November 18, 1925, p. 6 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nzg
  16. ^ Paul Schlesinger : Angerstein. In: Paul Schlesinger (Ed.): Judges and Judges. Court reports from the twenties. P. 106.
personal data
SURNAME Angerstein, Fritz
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Angerstein, Fritz Heinrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mass murderer
DATE OF BIRTH January 3, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Dillenburg
DATE OF DEATH November 17, 1925
Place of death Freiendiez