Hilmar Swinka

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Hilmar Swinka (* 1938 in Berlin ; † October 1, 1970 in Leipzig ) was a German murderer who killed three women in East Berlin on February 13 and 14, 1969 .

Swinka was the son of a contentious and irascible father who left his family after being released from captivity. Swinka himself attracted attention towards the end of his school days with her temper and truancy. He was seen as a poor loner and outsider. After finishing school, he began an apprenticeship, but did not complete it. He initially worked as a casual worker . To compensate for physical deficits, he joined a boxing club at the age of 17. Since then he has also been noticed as a thug and has been punished several times for violent crimes . Several attempts to gain a foothold in western Germany failed. Finally he got a job as a laboratory assistant and later a section assistant at the Pathological Institute of the Charité in East Berlin. Swinka developed an interest in this position and continued his education. He bought a collection of knives privately.

On February 13, 1969, he went to two former lovers and murdered both of them by strangling and stabbing them in the heart area, then "dissecting" the corpses. He viewed these killings as a test for the murder of his ex-wife. The following day, February 14, 1969, he went to her, cut her throat and "dissected" her too. He was arrested at the scene by the police, alerted by neighbors.

The trial against Swinka was carried out in strict secrecy , as from the point of view of those in power in the GDR at the time, this case offered propaganda opportunities for the West. Swinka was sentenced to death and executed on October 1, 1970 in the prison in Leipzig by the executioner Hermann Lorenz with an unexpected close-range shot . The corpse was then taken to the crematorium at the Leipzig South Cemetery and cremated there; the ashes were anonymously buried in the cemetery area.

The Swinka murders have been depicted in two books. Forensic doctor and former head of the Institute for Forensic Medicine Berlin Gunther Geserick and his co-authors Vendura and Wirth refer to the man as Hilmar S. , the author Hans Girod as Henry Stutzbach .

literature

  • Hans Girod: traces of blood. More unusual murder cases from the GDR . Knaur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-426-77634-0 , pp. 216–249.
  • Gunther Geserick / Klaus Vendura / Ingo Wirth: contemporary witness death. Spectacular cases from Berlin forensic medicine . Militzke-Verlag, Leipzig 2003, ISBN 3-86189-605-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ This is how he himself described the process towards the police authorities - cf. Hans Girod, traces of blood pp. 219–220
  2. ↑ kriminalia.de: Death sentences in the GDR 1959 to 1981
personal data
SURNAME Swinka, Hilmar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German serial killer
DATE OF BIRTH 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH 1st October 1970
Place of death Leipzig