The Werewolf of Hanover - Am Hohen Ufer
The Leine riverbank at Am Hohen Ufer is where children first found human skulls in the spring of 1924, setting off the investigation that exposed Fritz Haarmann, Germany's most notorious serial killer. For nearly six years, Haarmann operated here as a police informant while disposing of his victims in the very river flowing at your feet.
À propos de ce lieu
Am Hohen Ufer is one of Hannover's oldest and most scenic river walks, framed by half-timbered houses, the medieval Beginenturm and the facade of the Historisches Museum Hannover. Yet this peaceful stretch of the Leine was the final destination of a criminal investigation that shocked Germany in 1924. Fritz Haarmann had exploited his role as a paid police informant at the Hauptbahnhof to lure boys and young men to his tiny attic room at Rote Reihe 2, just across the water. When the river gave up more than 500 bones in the spring of 1924, police could no longer dismiss the reports that had reached them for years. Haarmann was arrested in June 1924, convicted of 24 murders in December, and guillotined the following April. The case remains one of the most chilling examples of institutional failure in German criminal history, a story told not by detectives but by the river itself.
À retenir
- 24 convicted murders — Fritz Haarmann was found guilty of 24 murders at his trial in December 1924, though investigators believed the actual total was higher.
- 500 bones recovered — Police dredging of the Leine riverbed brought up more than 500 human bones, the remains of at least 22 individuals, in the spring of 1924.
- 7 square metres — Haarmann committed at least 20 of his murders in a roughly seven-square-metre attic at Rote Reihe 2, just across the river from where you are standing.