Willi Kimmritz

Willi Kimmritz (born June 26, 1912 in Wriezen ; † July 26, 1950 in Frankfurt an der Oder by execution ) was a burglar , rapist and multiple murderer .

Kimmritz was born into a working-class family as the 14th child and attended elementary school up to seventh grade. After his confirmation, he worked as a servant and coachman in agriculture. His first sentence of three years in prison for rape took place in 1936, and he served the sentence in Gollnow . After his release he married and had one child. In 1943 he burgled his employer, a food wholesaler , and was sentenced again to three years in prison. The divorce took place while in detention .

In April 1945 Kimmritz was sent with the other inmates of the Gollnower prison due to the approaching Red Army on a trek westward and was finally released. After an interlude as an estate manager of a supply property of the Soviet occupiers, where he was accused of embezzlement, he fled first to Freienwalde to his mother and then to Berlin, where he mostly lived with prostitutes without a permanent residence . He made his living mainly through burglary and robbery .

Between 1946 and 1948 he lured several women to the Brandenburg forest areas north and east of Berlin, where he raped and robbed them. He killed four of them. His actions sparked one of the largest manhunt of the post-war period called Aktion Roland . The search for Kimmritz was initially unsuccessful for several years, although several of the surviving victims had identified him early on in a criminal record . This is mainly due to the post-war circumstances (inadequate police forces and search equipment, obstruction of the search by the Soviet occupation authorities , disputes over competencies between the occupying powers and finally the Berlin blockade ), which made investigative work difficult.

On September 11, 1948, Kimmritz was recognized by a witness in Berlin and arrested in the French sector ; at the interrogation he made a first confession. He was extradited to the Soviet sector, where he finally confessed to 23 rapes, four murders and numerous property crimes. The trial before the Potsdam Regional Court began on February 18, 1949 . For reasons of procedural economy , only 13 rapes and three murders were tried. The death sentence was passed on the same day, which was confirmed in the appeal hearing and the appeal . On 26 July 1950 Willi Kimmritz was in the detention center Frankfurt (Oder) through the guillotine executed.

reception

The DEFA feature film Leichensache Zernik (1971) is based on the hunt for Kimmritz.

In 2014, the case was the subject of the docudrama “Willi Kimmritz - Horror of the Woods” from the RBB series Tatort Berlin (authors: Gabi Schlag and Benno Wenz).

literature

• Wolfgang Mittmann : Aktion Roland - hunt for a woman murderer. Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-360-00870-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://www.maz-online.de/Lokales/Oberhavel/Tatort-Berlin-des-RBB-ueber-den-Verbrecher-Willi-Kimmritz