Stuttgart · DE
True Crime Stuttgart
Water Cannons, Show Trials, and a Riot on the Palace Square
What's the walk about?
Welcome to Stuttgart, the prosperous Swabian capital of palace gardens, grand opera and royal squares. But behind its tidy facades lies a darker chronicle: water cannons in a city park, a night of riots, a Gestapo headquarters, an antisemitic show trial and a deadly fire, all on streets that thousands of people cross every day. Our journey begins here in the Schlossgarten beside the main station, where one autumn day in 2010 a protest over trees ended under water cannons.
What you'll see
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1
Water Cannons on Black Thursday - Mittlerer Schlossgarten
park
On Thursday, 30 September 2010, police turned water cannons, batons and pepper spray on largely peaceful Stuttgart 21 protesters in this park beside the main station, injuring more than a hundred people and leaving one engineer almost blind; five years later a court ruled the whole operation unlawful.
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2
Shots for the Prima Donna - Schicksalsbrunnen
fountain
On 29 June 1910 the jilted court conductor Aloys Obrist forced his way into the flat of Stuttgart's adored prima donna Anna Sutter, shot her twice and then killed himself. Four years later the city raised this Jugendstil Fountain of Fate beside the new opera house in her memory.
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3
The Night of the Riot - Eckensee
lake
On the night of 20 to 21 June 2020, a police drug check at this ornamental lake sparked Stuttgart's "Krawallnacht", when up to 500 people turned on the police, damaged around 40 shops and looted nine, and an investigation team named after the lake went on to secure 79 convictions.
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4
The Knife in the Fan Zone - Schlossplatz
square
On 26 June 2024, during the Euro 2024 public viewing of Czechia against Turkey on this palace square, a man slipped a knife past the fan zone checks and attacked six fans in Turkish colours, wounding three, one critically; in February 2025 he was sentenced to nine and a half years.
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5
The Gestapo Hotel - Hotel Silber
memorial
From 1937 to 1945 this former luxury hotel on the Karlsplatz was the Gestapo headquarters for Württemberg and Hohenzollern, where opponents like Eugen Bolz were abused, the deportation of more than 2,600 Jews was organised, and prisoners were hanged days before liberation; today it is a free memorial.
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6
The Show Trial of Süß Oppenheimer - Marktplatz
square
On 4 February 1738, after a show trial without evidence, 1,200 soldiers sealed off this square as the Jewish financier Joseph Süß Oppenheimer was carted from the Herrenhaus to a 12 metre iron gallows. Today the state parliament calls it what it was: the judicial murder of an innocent man.
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7
The Robber Poet on the Run - Königstraße 29
street
In 1782 Friedrich Schiller, author of The Robbers, served fourteen days under arrest in the duke's main guard house that stood right here, then fled Stuttgart by night under a false name and became a deserter.
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8
The Night the Stairwell Burned - Geißstraße 7
building
At about 3:30 a.m. on 16 March 1994, a fire set in the cluttered, unlocked entrance of Geißstraße 7 raced up its wooden stairwell and killed seven people, two small children among them, in Stuttgart's worst fire since the Second World War. A serial arsonist aged 23 was caught 15 months later and convicted of seven murders.
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