Peter Kürten was a serial killer dubbed The Vampire of Düsseldorf by the contemporary media. He committed a series of sex crimes, assaults and murders against adults and children, most notoriously from February to November 1929 in Düsseldorf. Serial killers are individuals who have a history of multiple slayings of victims who were usually unknown to them beforehand. ... Sex crimes are forms of human sexual behavior that are crimes. ... February is the second month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... November is the eleventh month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days. ... 1929 was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Düsseldorf in Germany The Düsseldorf Coat of Arms Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. ...

Early life

Kürten was born into a poverty-stricken, abusive childhood in Köln-Mülheim on May 26, 1883, the third of thirteen children. Disturbed from an early age, he grew into a petty criminal and often ran away from home. He later claimed to have committed his first murders at the age of nine, drowning two young friends while swimming. He moved with his family to Düsseldorf in 1894 and received a number of short prison sentences for various crimes, including theft and arson. His behaviour became more cruel, and his violent tendencies increased as he progressed from the torturing of animals to attacks on people. He committed his first provable murder in 1913 during the course of a burglary, by strangling a young girl. His crimes were then halted by the First World War and an eight year sentence in prison. In 1921 he left prison and moved to Altenburg where he married and became a trade unionist. He returned to Düsseldorf in 1925 to later begin the series of crimes that would last until his capture. Poverty is the state of being without, often associated with need, hardship and lack of resources across a wide range of circumstances. ... Map of Germany showing Cologne Cologne (German: Köln [kœln]  listen?) is, in terms of population, the fourth largest city in Germany and largest city of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. ... Mülheim an der Ruhr is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. ... 1883 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... for other uses please see Crime (disambiguation) A crime is an act that violates a political or moral law. ... Swimming is the method by which humans (or other animals) move themselves through water. ... 1894 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Theft (also known as stealing) is, in general, the wrongful taking of someone elses property without that persons willful consent. ... Arson is the crime of setting a fire with intent to cause damage. ... Phyla Porifera (sponges) Ctenophora (comb jellies) Cnidaria Placozoa Bilateria  Acoelomorpha  Orthonectida  Rhombozoa  Myxozoa  Superphylum Deuterostomia     Chordata (vertebrates, etc. ... 1913 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... 1921 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Altenburg is a town in the German Bundesland of Thuringia. ... A union (labor union in American English; trade union, sometimes trades union, in British English; either labour union or trade union in Canadian English) is a legal entity consisting of employees or workers having a common interest, such as all the assembly workers for one employer, or all the workers... 1925 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...

He viciously assaulted a woman and then the sexually molested and murdered an eight-year-old girl on February 8, 1929. On February 13 he murdered a middle-aged mechanic, by stabbing him twenty times. Kürten did not attack again until August, stabbing three people in separate attacks on the 21st; murdering two sisters, aged five and fourteen, on the 23rd; and stabbing another woman on the 24th. In September he committed a single rape and murder and in October another, also attacking two women with a hammer. On November 7 he killed a five-year-old girl and sent a map to a local newspaper disclosing her grave. The variety of victims and methods led to the assumption that there had to be more than one killer at large, and over 900,000 different names were given to the police as potential suspects. February 8 is the 39th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... February 13 is the 44th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... A Mechanic is a person who fixes things (generally machinery) or works to keeps things operating properly. ... Note: as an adjective (stressed on the second syllable instead of the first), august means honorable. ... August 21 is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... August 23 is the 235th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (236th in leap years), with 130 days remaining. ... August 24 is the 236th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (237th in leap years), with 129 days remaining. ... September is the ninth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four Gregorian months with the length of 30 days. ... October is the tenth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... A claw hammer on the ground. ... November 7 is the 311th day of the year (312th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 54 days remaining. ... MAP can refer to: Missouri Assessment Program Manifold Absolute Pressure, an important sensor in automobiles Austronesian languages (ISO 639 alpha-3, map) Maximum a posteriori estimator, a Bayesian statistics estimator Original abbreviation of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Mobile Application Part, an SS7-based protocol used in GSM networks Malawi... Grave has multiple meanings: A grave (IPA: ) is a place for the dead, see tomb, burial, grave (burial) A grave accent (IPA: ) is a type of diacritical mark (as in French crème de la crème). ...

The November murder was Kürten's last, although there were a spate of non-fatal hammer attacks from February to March 1930. In May he accosted a young woman called Maria Budlick (or Budlies), and took her first to his home and then to the Grafenberger Woods where he raped her, but did not kill her. Budlick led the police to Kürten's home. He was concerned over the sentence he would receive for the rape and avoided the police. Kürten told his wife of the rape and also of his other crimes, and he told her to inform the police. On May 24 he was located and arrested. March is the third month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... 1930 is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... This article is about the month of May. ... May 24 is the 144th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (145th in leap years). ...

Kürten confessed to almost eighty offences, and was charged with nine murders and seven attempted murders. He went to trial in April 1931, and initially he pleaded not guilty but after some weeks changed his plea. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed by guillotine in Köln on the morning of July 2, 1932. A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard. ... April is the fourth month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of four with the length of 30 days. ... 1931 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Public guillotining in Lons-le-Saunier, 1878 Badische Guillotine Portrait of Dr. Guillotin The guillotine is a machine used for the application of capital punishment by decapitation. ... July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 182 days remaining. ... 1932 is a leap year starting on a Friday. ...

That same year, the movie M was released. It told a fictionalized story of a serial child killer and was in part based on the crimes of Peter Kürten. Peter Lorre in M M (original title: M- Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (translation: M- a city in search of a murderer)) is a 1931 German film noir directed by Fritz Lang and written by Thea von Harbou in which a serial killer, played by Peter Lorre, preys on...

References

• The Monster of Dusseldorf: The Life and Trial of Peter Kürten by Margaret Seaton Wagner, 1932.
• The Sadist by Karl Berg, 1945.