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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder The most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 4: written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK every
Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
Speaker 4: infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your
Speaker 4: host journalist and author.
Speaker 5: Dan Zufanski, Good Evening. Butcher of Hanover focuses on the
Speaker 5: serial killer of at least twenty seven young men and
Speaker 5: boys in Germany in the post World War One era.
Speaker 5: At the center of this murder case where Fritz Harmon
Speaker 5: and Hans Grott, who were lovers while committing these murders.
Speaker 5: It wasn't until the skulls and bones start washing ashore
Speaker 5: from the Leon River in Hanover that Germany realized they
Speaker 5: had a cold blooded serial killer in their country. As
Speaker 5: you read the exploration of this case in this book,
Speaker 5: ask yourself, did Harmon murder each victim to keep his
Speaker 5: lover Hans Granz to stay with him? Did Granz decide
Speaker 5: who it was that was to be murdered? The evidence
Speaker 5: on this case will keep you on the edge of
Speaker 5: your seat trying to determine who was really behind these
Speaker 5: gruesome murders. The book they were featuring this evening is
Speaker 5: Butcher of Hanover Fritz Harmon, with my special guest, journalist,
Speaker 5: author and host of House of Mystery, Alan R. Warren.
Speaker 5: Welcome back to the program, and thank you so much
Speaker 5: for this interview. Alan R. Warren.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me at the pleasure.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for joining us once again, and
Speaker 5: again you've picked an incredible subject to be able to
Speaker 5: write about in Butcher of Hanover. Let's talk about Fritz Harmon.
Speaker 5: Right in the beginning, you say he was born in Hanover, Germany,
Speaker 5: October twenty fifth, eighteen seventy nine, and his father was
Speaker 5: Alie and his mother Johannah. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about his parents, He had five siblings. Tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about his early life, what that was like
Speaker 5: in Hanover.
Speaker 2: Well, his early life, the family was middle class. His
Speaker 2: father was a worker, and you know, they didn't have
Speaker 2: a whole lot of money, but they were comfortable. They
Speaker 2: were kind of a middle class, a little upper middle class.
Speaker 2: He was the sixth of the children, the last and
Speaker 2: when it happened, his mother became a little bit ill
Speaker 2: and she was having problems being mobile, so she was
Speaker 2: stuck to her dad a lot more than normal, so
Speaker 2: she didn't get around too much. She had married Olie
Speaker 2: and only was a younger guy and better I don't
Speaker 2: want to say better looking, but he was young and
Speaker 2: sort of healthy, and she was a little bit a
Speaker 2: little bit older than him, like seven eight years older,
Speaker 2: and so so that that kind of was a little
Speaker 2: different in their personalities. You know, it's kind of referred
Speaker 2: to that. Why why Allie married her was because she
Speaker 2: had a pretty good dowry, which is what the husband
Speaker 2: would get back in those days when a couple got
Speaker 2: married like this. So he was a playboy. He was
Speaker 2: constantly out with other women, he was carousing, and he
Speaker 2: didn't spend a lot of time at home. So that
Speaker 2: was kind of the start for you how Fritz came
Speaker 2: into the world.
Speaker 5: How did his mother treat Fritz and tell us what
Speaker 5: she liked to do and have him do as a boy.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, that was kind of because she was
Speaker 2: kind of stuck to her room a lot in her
Speaker 2: bedroom and didn't get out too much. She had him
Speaker 2: placed right in her bedroom with her, and she spent
Speaker 2: all of her time with him, and she was raising
Speaker 2: him as like a little girl. She dressed him in
Speaker 2: a lot of his sister's clothing, taught him how to sew,
Speaker 2: he played with dolls. He was growing up very very feminine,
Speaker 2: very much like a little girl had grown up. So
Speaker 2: she didn't really treat him like a boy. And then
Speaker 2: the father being away from home so much and not
Speaker 2: being interested in him or the kids, any of them,
Speaker 2: he didn't really learn how to do sports or anything
Speaker 2: sort of that a boy would be doing in those times,
Speaker 2: and it really hit him hard by the time he
Speaker 2: got into school, because when he got into school, of course,
Speaker 2: all the other boys would tease him and make fun
Speaker 2: of him because he was into dolls and a lot
Speaker 2: of girl things, and he didn't like sports, and he
Speaker 2: didn't like doing anything that the boys liked to do.
Speaker 5: You say that he was apparently or supposedly molested by
Speaker 5: a teacher at eight years old, but then you write
Speaker 5: that he became more physically fit and strong as a teenager. Regardless,
Speaker 5: he quit school at fifteen years old and enrolled in
Speaker 5: the military in April eighteen ninety five. You write what
Speaker 5: was his military service like and what happened in that
Speaker 5: eighteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, he kind of becomes stronger from being constant.
Speaker 2: He picked on and he became pretty athletic. He was
Speaker 2: pretty fit, and so when his father give him permission
Speaker 2: to quit school at fifteen, he joined the military and
Speaker 2: he jumped right in. Now, at the beginning, he was
Speaker 2: considered quite good. He wasn't a bad trainer or trainee,
Speaker 2: and he was doing quite well. But about five months
Speaker 2: or so into the service, he started having memory lapses
Speaker 2: and losing periods of time where he didn't know what happened,
Speaker 2: and there was a thought that he was passing out
Speaker 2: and having short you know, I don't know what, seizures
Speaker 2: of some sort. And it wasn't until I think in
Speaker 2: the fall of that same year, eighteen ninety five, while
Speaker 2: they were on an exercise, he actually collapsed, and so
Speaker 2: they took him to the military hospital and they diagnosed
Speaker 2: him back then with an anxiety neurosis. He sort of,
Speaker 2: you know, they thought they could treat him, but their
Speaker 2: treatment and even their diagnosis was not really the best
Speaker 2: back then, they didn't really understand what was going on.
Speaker 2: They treated him for about four months and really with
Speaker 2: no successful outcome or no cure. So he actually discharged himself.
Speaker 2: He walked away from the military and they let him
Speaker 2: go not a problem, and that was because he just
Speaker 2: wasn't functioning and they couldn't seem to get him back
Speaker 2: at her at the hospital, so they couldn't cure him
Speaker 2: in their mind.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you write that he returns to Hanover and a
Speaker 5: lot of this psychiatric evaluation they used terms like irreversible
Speaker 5: brain damage, also having epilepsy or early dementia, or as
Speaker 5: you write it was known as schizophrenia, so they were
Speaker 5: it was all considered some form of mental illness, dehabilitating
Speaker 5: mental illness. So he was really he got a pension, however,
Speaker 5: but he returned to Hanover and his dad's cigar factory.
Speaker 5: You write that as early as July eighteen ninety six,
Speaker 5: he committed his first known of many sex offenses. What
Speaker 5: did all these sex offenses involved and what were some
Speaker 5: of the characteristics of his.
Speaker 2: M Well, he would meet other boys really around his age,
Speaker 2: maybe a little younger, maybe even a year or two older.
Speaker 2: He would become friends, and he would lure them back
Speaker 2: to private place and he would have sex with him,
Speaker 2: and a lot of cases they said he was affaulting them,
Speaker 2: he was forcing them, right, And so that was the
Speaker 2: first thing that he got arrested for was with I
Speaker 2: believe it was a fourteen year old and so yeah,
Speaker 2: so of course they sent him to be evaluated again,
Speaker 2: and again he was diagnosed with an incurable incurability ranged
Speaker 2: like they you know, and so this side he would
Speaker 2: be unfit to stand trial. So he never had to
Speaker 2: go to court and jail per se or something like that,
Speaker 2: and the little things like this kept on happening. This
Speaker 2: went on for at least another year.
Speaker 5: You say that he was ordered confined to the institution indefinitely,
Speaker 5: but however, seven months later, what happens and where does
Speaker 5: he go?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was confined there, and it was kind of
Speaker 2: strange because his mother actually came and helped him break
Speaker 2: out in essence, and so he got away and he
Speaker 2: ended up going to I believe Switzerland. I think he
Speaker 2: went right into Zurich, and he ended up staying with
Speaker 2: a friend of his mother's, like a really close friend,
Speaker 2: almost like an uncle. And so that's where he ended up,
Speaker 2: and that was by I think Christmas of eighteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: which is it's kind of it's kind of stilly. But
Speaker 2: then he just started to work on the shipyards there
Speaker 2: and he was a handyman and he was fairly quiet private.
Speaker 2: He never really got into trouble. He never got out
Speaker 2: into the society into Zurich very much. He was a
Speaker 2: loner and he was I think he was a little
Speaker 2: bit scared too as well.
Speaker 5: By then, in April eighteen ninety nine, he's back. He
Speaker 5: stays sixteen months in Zurich before returning to Hanover. You right,
Speaker 5: And then then eighteen ninety nine he becomes engaged to
Speaker 5: a woman named Erna Lowert and she becomes pregnant shortly after.
Speaker 5: But you talk about October nineteen ninety he gets a notification.
Speaker 5: What's this notification for? And where does he go?
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the early nineteen hundred, France had become a
Speaker 2: threat to Germany military and so they ordered conscription. So
Speaker 2: they wanted all young men to go serve, and so
Speaker 2: he was served a letter it was mandatory you're in
Speaker 2: the military. So when he got that, he had to
Speaker 2: go serve his compulsory time essays say, so that he left,
Speaker 2: he left his girlfriend soon to be wife with her
Speaker 2: soon to have child type thing and father and went
Speaker 2: to the military.
Speaker 5: And what was his service this time characterized by you
Speaker 5: say that he had a comment after this term of service.
Speaker 5: So what was his experience like in the military this time?
Speaker 2: Well, you know that actually wasn't much different from the
Speaker 2: first one in the sense that he was able to
Speaker 2: perform as do. He started out doing a fairly good job.
Speaker 2: He had a fairly good record, just like in the
Speaker 2: first time. When he was with the military, he didn't
Speaker 2: have any problems and all of a sudden, it was
Speaker 2: just it was maybe a year into it, in I
Speaker 2: believe October of one that he found out that his
Speaker 2: mother died and he was very close to her, and
Speaker 2: he got into a terrible depression and he was unable
Speaker 2: to do anything. They could hardly get him up. They
Speaker 2: could do anything, he wouldn't do anything. He would eat.
Speaker 2: Then he started coming back with the dizzy spells and
Speaker 2: there was times where he said he couldn't see, he
Speaker 2: couldn't see what his eyes were all gone blurry. And
Speaker 2: again during an exercise, same as the first time, he
Speaker 2: collapsed and like the first time he was sent to
Speaker 2: the hospital, and this time the military had diagnosed him
Speaker 2: with unable to serve. It wasn't like he pulled himself
Speaker 2: out like in the first time. This time they said, sorry,
Speaker 2: we're dismissing you. You cannot serve for us. And that's
Speaker 2: when he actually started getting his pension and then returned
Speaker 2: back to the field and say in Hanover and his
Speaker 2: father and that whole scenario. So we returned home and
Speaker 2: picked up where he left off.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about the relationship he has with his
Speaker 5: father after he comes back from the military. Tell us
Speaker 5: about these lawsuits and this discourse or this disenchant over
Speaker 5: each other, father and son.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, his father didn't like him from the beginning.
Speaker 2: There was some sort of issue and there's something behind
Speaker 2: this of his mother keeping him in the bedroom from
Speaker 2: the beginning. And they were never really they never really
Speaker 2: got along. But this time, now that he was older,
Speaker 2: stronger and was more had more courage, I guess, and
Speaker 2: wasn't scared of his father, they started fighting. They would
Speaker 2: fight over all sorts of things, and it was so
Speaker 2: bad initially that the father decided to give his fiance
Speaker 2: a business like it was a fish laundery, and he
Speaker 2: put it all in her name. He refused to put
Speaker 2: any of it in his own son's name. It's his
Speaker 2: money and what he got from Fritz's mother, and he
Speaker 2: gave it to the future you know, daughter in law,
Speaker 2: to the fiance and say this is your business. So
Speaker 2: he would have to work there. That was a terrible,
Speaker 2: terrible insult, and so they would fight. He would fight
Speaker 2: with his fiance, he would fight with his father, and
Speaker 2: he walked out on his father as because his father
Speaker 2: wanted to keep working at his cigar shop and he wouldn't.
Speaker 2: So the living situation was just awful, and they thought
Speaker 2: constantly and eventually Fritz would sue his own father, you know,
Speaker 2: he would he would walk off the job and he
Speaker 2: sued him. And I think that was again in fall
Speaker 2: of nineteen oh two, and he was saying that his
Speaker 2: father was making his workplace unbearable and he couldn't work
Speaker 2: there because of his father, and he couldn't perform his
Speaker 2: job and it was hard, and his father knew of
Speaker 2: his mental condition, so he really worked that but he lost.
Speaker 2: That was the case that they didn't hear for very long,
Speaker 2: and they kind of they were a little They were
Speaker 2: a little less caring in a way of people saying
Speaker 2: that they had mental illness. That was not considered anything
Speaker 2: of sympathy back then, you know, but even with psychologists,
Speaker 2: because you know that they called alienists and stuff, and
Speaker 2: they didn't really think of him as serious medicine here,
Speaker 2: like this is a real condition. This is just all
Speaker 2: made up. So he ended up losing it, and he
Speaker 2: ended up coming back to the other and all that again.
Speaker 2: But then they got into a huge fight assault. He
Speaker 2: assaulted his father and he threatened him and he it
Speaker 2: was terrible. The police had to come and take him away,
Speaker 2: and again he was placed in jail this time, but
Speaker 2: the father ended up working out a deal where he
Speaker 2: would drop the charges, but he wanted Fritz to see
Speaker 2: a proper psychologist and he needed help, and so this
Speaker 2: was ordered by the judge, and in the following year,
Speaker 2: nineteen o three, he did see a doctor by the
Speaker 2: court and he was ruled mentally unstable and morally inferior
Speaker 2: whatever that means, and with that in itself, but they
Speaker 2: didn't place them in any institute. They let him go.
Speaker 2: They said, well, yeah, you have these conditions, but were
Speaker 2: not forcing you to get treatment for it. So he
Speaker 2: came to back out and there we go. He's back
Speaker 2: in the same situation again, and the two of them
Speaker 2: would continue fighting.
Speaker 5: You talk about a siance who was pregnant. She terminates
Speaker 5: their engagement. She's had enough the fish mungery, like you say,
Speaker 5: the business was in her name. She told him to leave,
Speaker 5: and so you say. For the next decade, Fritz Harmon
Speaker 5: lives as a petty thief, burglar, and con artist and
Speaker 5: in nineteen oh five served several short jail terms sentences
Speaker 5: for larceny, embezzlman and assault, and in nineteen thirteen arrested
Speaker 5: for a series of burglaries, sentenced to five years and
Speaker 5: released in nineteen eighteen and went to Hanover. Tell us
Speaker 5: what happens in nineteen eighteen when he goes and rents
Speaker 5: his a single room apartment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they let him out. He was getting out in
Speaker 2: the last year in the daytime because everyone had gone
Speaker 2: to the military with the upcoming and with the war
Speaker 2: and everything happening, and so they didn't have enough mail
Speaker 2: workers in the cities. So from prison he would be
Speaker 2: allowed to come out and work, and eventually he got
Speaker 2: out in New York. You're right, he got his own apartment.
Speaker 2: It's just a one bedroom in the downtown. And it's
Speaker 2: really important to understand that Germany was in a terrible depression,
Speaker 2: you know, awful poverty. There was just no money, no
Speaker 2: jobs for a lot of people were were just wondering,
Speaker 2: you know, place to place, looking for money or anything
Speaker 2: like that. And so what he would do was he
Speaker 2: went right back into the life of crime that he
Speaker 2: had left when he went into prison. He went right
Speaker 2: back into you know, sieving and stealing and doing whatever
Speaker 2: he had to to get by. And he had a
Speaker 2: good amount of it experience. He was getting really good
Speaker 2: at stealing people's properties and getting what he needed to
Speaker 2: get food and to get his rent paid and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. He kind of rose to the top of
Speaker 2: the criminal breed. On the streets, you might say. One
Speaker 2: of the biggest hangouts was, of course the stations, the
Speaker 2: train station, like Hanover station, where a lot of the
Speaker 2: homeless kids, our kids were going station to station and
Speaker 2: hang it out and they would get what they could
Speaker 2: for food, some of them would. It was just it
Speaker 2: was a really really bad time for things like that.
Speaker 2: And so he started hanging out there and he could
Speaker 2: work with some criminals and some others. He would offer
Speaker 2: them a place to stay or he started getting really integrated.
Speaker 2: He was really in with that whole criminal you know,
Speaker 2: kind of element back then, and he become very successful
Speaker 2: at this life of crime, and he started to make
Speaker 2: a good amount of money. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: you have to look at the with all of the
Speaker 2: men gone to the war, Like the police station in Hannover,
Speaker 2: I think they had twelve officers left to run the
Speaker 2: whole town, the whole city, all the crime, so they
Speaker 2: were really overrun. They were very short on support, and
Speaker 2: a lot of crimes they were just kind of letting
Speaker 2: go by because they just didn't they didn't have the time,
Speaker 2: they didn't have a lot of these guys were working
Speaker 2: six seven days a week and they could not keep
Speaker 2: up with it. So they were trying to keep the
Speaker 2: most popular or probably the most serious crimes in order.
Speaker 2: And eventually Harmon worked his way in with the police
Speaker 2: where he ended up being a kind of an informant.
Speaker 2: Was he became very close and they would rely on
Speaker 2: anybody like that because they needed all the help could get.
Speaker 5: Right now. In September nineteen, nineteen eighteen, Harmon, who's thirty
Speaker 5: nine years old at that time. He meets a young
Speaker 5: man at seventeen Freedo or Oath, in a coffee in
Speaker 5: a coffee shop, and Roath is a runaway and needs
Speaker 5: a place to sleep. Tell us about what happens. He
Speaker 5: also introduces to Harmon his classmate Fred. Tell us what
Speaker 5: happens here and how this leads to the meeting of Hans.
Speaker 5: His meeting with Hans Groans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was his typical he's meeting guys and he
Speaker 2: would often them place to stay of food, and that's
Speaker 2: how he got with Ross and then Roth himself and
Speaker 2: his friend, like Fred you were saying, they would all
Speaker 2: sort of hang out and he would end up having
Speaker 2: sex with them, that you know, sex for food and
Speaker 2: her or for money and a place to stay and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. And that's kind of how what the
Speaker 2: three of them had. But the main thing is that
Speaker 2: Fritz Harmon was really he liked Roth and that was
Speaker 2: sort of so he was kind of trying to keep
Speaker 2: him around and be more of a let's go for dinner,
Speaker 2: let's do something, and he tried to use him a
Speaker 2: little bit more. And Ross claimed, I guess at the
Speaker 2: time and from what we hear that he wasn't homosexual,
Speaker 2: but he only did it for money and for food.
Speaker 2: He would only have sex with men. That is, so
Speaker 2: he wasn't really in that. And eventually, back at the apartment,
Speaker 2: Fritz's apartment, he made advances to Roll. He didn't want
Speaker 2: to do this, so he attacked him. He ended up
Speaker 2: killing him, raping him and killing him. And that was
Speaker 2: the very first time that we know or there's any
Speaker 2: record of him actually uh biting the app Adam's apple,
Speaker 2: but biting that part of the neck while they're engaged
Speaker 2: in sex, and he would rip it off with his
Speaker 2: teeth and this caused a lot of blood and it
Speaker 2: also caused a kind of a paralyzation with the arms.
Speaker 2: So and that that that was kind of the story
Speaker 2: and how it came out as the vampire Hanover because
Speaker 2: of the blood and the neck. And that's kind of
Speaker 2: where one of his names that he was tagged with
Speaker 2: eventually came from, because he did this quite often with
Speaker 2: a lot of his victims.
Speaker 5: Mm hm. You write that that he later says that
Speaker 5: this murder or this pardon me, this rape away awakened
Speaker 5: the murderous urge in him never felt before and he
Speaker 5: and he goes on. You get this information via him
Speaker 5: that he was butchered and beheaded before breaking up the bones,
Speaker 5: and he took after he took several overnight trips to
Speaker 5: the cemetery over the next few weeks and put the
Speaker 5: body in a suitcase to be able to do that,
Speaker 5: but he kept some human remains behind the stove. You
Speaker 5: write in the apartment, what happens with this Roth's friends
Speaker 5: they report him missing. Tell us a little bit about
Speaker 5: their behavior and their initiative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when he went missing, he just didn't show off.
Speaker 2: He was no longer around. Of course, I believe they
Speaker 2: told his mother originally and she went to the police,
Speaker 2: but nothing was really happening. The police, like I said,
Speaker 2: they were overrun. They had tons of runaway reports people
Speaker 2: you know, all over the streets. It was not a
Speaker 2: high priority, and they didn't have the resources to go
Speaker 2: looking for this runaway kid who was prostituting himself at
Speaker 2: the train station going missing because there were several of them,
Speaker 2: there wasn't just one. So they didn't really pursue it
Speaker 2: very much. And so eventually the friends looked around and
Speaker 2: they tracked down Harmon and where he lived, and they
Speaker 2: knew it was him, and because they weren't, you know,
Speaker 2: there was nothing being done. So they went and pushed
Speaker 2: the police even harder, and they even got both of
Speaker 2: Roth's parents to come to the police station and also
Speaker 2: pushed this thing. And so it was just it was
Speaker 2: a really tough go for them. This took a little
Speaker 2: while and it was only after a fair bit of time.
Speaker 2: I think it was like October or something. It was
Speaker 2: like probably a good month later that they finally decided
Speaker 2: they would go question Harmon at this apartment. You remember
Speaker 2: that they also considered Harmon to be an informer and
Speaker 2: someone that they that kind of trusted and was kind
Speaker 2: of one of the boys so to speak. You know,
Speaker 2: he was part of their team, so they weren't really
Speaker 2: looking to do like maybe they didn't believe it. The
Speaker 2: hard thing is they kind of knew he was homosexual,
Speaker 2: which was a big deal then that was like a crime,
Speaker 2: but they didn't want to believe it. But anyway, eventually
Speaker 2: two of the officers came and when they went to
Speaker 2: the door and they got no answer, and they and
Speaker 2: they broke in through the door and they eventually found
Speaker 2: they found Harmon there with a young boy who was.
Speaker 2: I believe he was thirteen, and he was in bed
Speaker 2: with Harmon who was naked and the boy was almost naked.
Speaker 2: So they arrested him and they charged him with the
Speaker 2: sexual assault of a miner and he was taken to jail.
Speaker 2: And so that's how it happened with Roth. That's what
Speaker 2: that's what came out of it. And when you mentioned
Speaker 2: the body part, yeah, he had. He had cut up
Speaker 2: the body and disposed of everything except for the head
Speaker 2: and he had that rap in a lot of newspaper
Speaker 2: and little sack sort of thing that he had, and
Speaker 2: that was kind of in a cupboard where they normally
Speaker 2: kept wood and stuff that was behind the stove. So
Speaker 2: that was in the house. Now, they didn't have an
Speaker 2: arrest warrant, and again they were sort of not really
Speaker 2: all that into searching the house or anything like that
Speaker 2: because they still didn't believe that he killed anybody. He
Speaker 2: was just a homosexual. So he ended up serving I
Speaker 2: believe nine months. I think he got a year or
Speaker 2: something and he served nine months in prison to that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you talk about during his time that he's trying
Speaker 5: to avoid that sentence, and so by doing that, he's
Speaker 5: for a year he's changing addresses. But during this time,
Speaker 5: you say, this is when he met an eighteen year
Speaker 5: old man on the run that was living on the
Speaker 5: streets selling clothing and things. Hans Groans And apparently Hans
Speaker 5: knew of Fritz Harmon. He knew who he was. Tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit more about this important meeting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of a lot of the younger guys
Speaker 2: knew who Fritz was. Fritz was he had a little
Speaker 2: pass that he had from the police, and he was
Speaker 2: at the train stations all the time, and he would
Speaker 2: go waiting room to waiting room, and he would ask
Speaker 2: people for papers, and he was constantly involved with all
Speaker 2: the street kids and all the gangsters and so to
Speaker 2: speak and stuff. So, yeah, Hans knew who he was.
Speaker 2: Hans was a runaway and he knew that the rumor
Speaker 2: was that he was homosexual. And if you, you know,
Speaker 2: put out for him, you would get food or a
Speaker 2: place to stay. He would treat you really nice. Sometimes
Speaker 2: he'd give you money or you know whatever, stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So that was in Hans's mind when they first met,
Speaker 2: and that was kind of what Hans quite often declared
Speaker 2: that he was not gay, he was a straight man.
Speaker 2: And he had several girlfriends and and this is true,
Speaker 2: he did have quite a string of girlfriends throughout the
Speaker 2: whole time, so that is believable. But he had no
Speaker 2: problem staying with Fritz and having sex with him and
Speaker 2: being part of the Fritz sort of thing. And and
Speaker 2: with with with Fritz, he was immediately attracted. Hans was
Speaker 2: a you know, kind of a nice looking, well well dressed,
Speaker 2: very very handsome man, and he really was attracted to
Speaker 2: him and you know, charming. It's just he just had
Speaker 2: it all. So it was it was kind of like
Speaker 2: the perfect combination at the time.
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Speaker 5: we were just talking about this very faithful meeting of
Speaker 5: Hans Granz and Fritz Harmon, and they both have a interest.
Speaker 5: They both have an interest in each other for different reasons.
Speaker 5: You write that in nineteen nineteen they moved into a
Speaker 5: house together. They only stayed about six months. They kept moving,
Speaker 5: but eventually they moved to an apartment near the Leanne River.
Speaker 5: Tell us what happens at this apartment and then there's
Speaker 5: another address as well. There's three addresses in total that
Speaker 5: are important. Tell us about some of their time behavior.
Speaker 5: What was it characterized by and when does this partnership
Speaker 5: turn into something much different?
Speaker 2: Well, it was. It was kind of an interesting relationship
Speaker 2: because for Hans, it was just a you know, a
Speaker 2: one night stand where he could get some money or
Speaker 2: food or something. He wasn't looking at it anymore than that.
Speaker 2: But Fritz was totally, you know, enamored with him. He's
Speaker 2: totally in love with with him. So he eventually got
Speaker 2: him to come stay with him at first, and you know,
Speaker 2: and they ended up having a lot of fights, a
Speaker 2: lot of art arguments between the two. Hans was kind
Speaker 2: of on the lazy side. He wanted to sleep in
Speaker 2: and he just wanted to smoke, you know, drink, hang
Speaker 2: out and not really he didn't really have any I
Speaker 2: don't know, any initiative or anything. So it's that sort
Speaker 2: of bothered Fritz. So they had a lot of fights
Speaker 2: over this sort of situation. Fritz was sometimes more violent.
Speaker 2: He would slap Hans. They would have a huge breakup.
Speaker 2: He would leave and then Harmon would go out and
Speaker 2: find him, apologize and bring him back home. So they
Speaker 2: kind of had that type of relationship. It was up
Speaker 2: and down and happy and angry all at the same time.
Speaker 2: So when they've moved into that apartment I believe in
Speaker 2: December of nineteen, within six months, he had to serve
Speaker 2: that sentence for his as salt you know of that
Speaker 2: thirteen year old boy just a few maybe it was
Speaker 2: two years earlier. So they actually sent him away. So
Speaker 2: he gave up the apartment and then that's where he
Speaker 2: went to jail, and Hans had to go live at
Speaker 2: the train station again. When he got out in nineteen twenty,
Speaker 2: he went to a hotel and then he went into
Speaker 2: this first apartment, which was really kind of a dark,
Speaker 2: one room. It was like a basement floor apartment with
Speaker 2: just it was just one room. Everything was all in
Speaker 2: one room. It wasn't that was a new strab and
Speaker 2: so that's where they started getting back together again. And
Speaker 2: that's the two of them moved in I believe July
Speaker 2: of twenty one, and so that's kind of where it
Speaker 2: started from there, and that's where things started getting he
Speaker 2: might say, to the dark side of what happened with
Speaker 2: the couple, You.
Speaker 5: Right, though, that skulls are not our Skulls are found
Speaker 5: in nineteen twenty four by some young people, and they've
Speaker 5: determined that the ages of these people eighteen to twenty.
Speaker 5: Another skull is found. Tell us about the newspaper reports
Speaker 5: and these skulls being found and what it stirs up
Speaker 5: in Germany.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was pretty scary for a lot of people.
Speaker 2: There was just a couple of kids that were hanging out.
Speaker 2: A lot of people hung along the river and there
Speaker 2: was nothing to do, so they would hang out and
Speaker 2: they skull washed up and they told I believe the
Speaker 2: mother who told the police. And then two weeks later
Speaker 2: another skull came up. It started becoming a real panic
Speaker 2: in the area. So the police would end up eventually
Speaker 2: dragging the river and where they would have I believe
Speaker 2: it was well over four hundred bones and body parts
Speaker 2: and stuff, you know, centered around that skulls and things
Speaker 2: like that. So kind of a real fear started taking
Speaker 2: over the community because like who was like what was
Speaker 2: all this? And so everyone got scared and there was
Speaker 2: kind of this terror in the in the city, and
Speaker 2: that's kind of where it all started falling apart too.
Speaker 5: You write about that, You say that Hans is a
Speaker 5: heterosexual and as such he has a girlfriend named Dorchin Maturgic,
Speaker 5: and she has a friend and she's also you write
Speaker 5: that she's a prostitute as well, and also cleans up
Speaker 5: a housekeeper. But she has a friend named Ellie Schultz,
Speaker 5: and they are at the apartment of Fritz Harmon. And
Speaker 5: fitz Harmon, there's another person that's a seventeen year old
Speaker 5: piano player, a young man tell us about this incredible
Speaker 5: scene that they find out much later, but you have
Speaker 5: via this information this extraordinary, horrific scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the seventeen year old he was a piano player.
Speaker 2: I think he was from Berlin, about seventeen at the time,
Speaker 2: and he was traveling around playing for just money and food.
Speaker 2: He wasn't getting a whole lot of money, but he was.
Speaker 2: He was surviving, and of course they spotted him. And
Speaker 2: the story is slightly different on each case, but basically
Speaker 2: they spot him and they ended up partying with him,
Speaker 2: drinking and bringing them back home. Now, the two girls
Speaker 2: and Hans Grons and Fritz were all back at the apartment,
Speaker 2: so with this piano player, and that's how it was.
Speaker 2: When the ladies and Gron's left. When they come back,
Speaker 2: apparently have the say, so they come back and they
Speaker 2: were going to clean his apartment, because they cleaned every
Speaker 2: apartment in that building. He kept on telling them, well,
Speaker 2: you can have to come back later, I'm busy and
Speaker 2: stuff like that, and so they didn't really know what
Speaker 2: was going on. And then of course Hans when he
Speaker 2: came in, saw the seventeen year old laying in the bed,
Speaker 2: but at the time didn't know he was dead, or
Speaker 2: claimed he didn't know. And then later the house papers
Speaker 2: come back and they're cleaning, and of course they're very snoopy,
Speaker 2: and they ended up going through a cupboard and finding
Speaker 2: what they considered to be meat that had hair on it,
Speaker 2: and they believed it was part of the boy, and
Speaker 2: so they wrote a letter and they actually went to
Speaker 2: the police and they wrote an actual complaint to the
Speaker 2: police saying that because because he would give them meat
Speaker 2: sometimes in payment, he would give a lot of people meat.
Speaker 2: You know, meat was a really tough thing to come
Speaker 2: by at that time, and it was very expensive and
Speaker 2: some people couldn't even get it, so this was a
Speaker 2: big deal. And I guess there was some hair on it.
Speaker 2: And then when they found that little apart, they complained
Speaker 2: to the police that in their mind they thought that
Speaker 2: Fritz had killed this boy and cut him up and
Speaker 2: was using his meat to sell and give to people. Now,
Speaker 2: in this particular case, I don't think there's really any
Speaker 2: truth to it. And later when they tested it, it was,
Speaker 2: in fact port it wasn't human. So we know that
Speaker 2: the meat that they the housekeepers had brought forward to
Speaker 2: say it was human wasn't right.
Speaker 5: You also write, though, that what would lead them to
Speaker 5: believe that possibly this would be meat too is the
Speaker 5: odd behavior when they came to clean, they said later
Speaker 5: in the afternoon. When they came, the door was locked.
Speaker 5: He said, I'm busy, come back later. And then when
Speaker 5: they came in the place was spotless, like it had
Speaker 5: been cleaned, and then he asked questions like does it
Speaker 5: smell in here? So their suspicion was warranted, I would
Speaker 5: say certainly.
Speaker 2: So, oh yeah, for sure. It was suspicious behavior, for sure.
Speaker 2: But you know whether how far he would go with
Speaker 2: the meat and cutting and butchering and giving to them
Speaker 2: and it was human or was he just having sex
Speaker 2: with the boys because he was known as a homosexual,
Speaker 2: which they all knew. What made them jump to he's
Speaker 2: actually not only having sex with these boys, but he's
Speaker 2: killing them than using their meat. I don't know what
Speaker 2: the jump was. I don't know what made them do that,
Speaker 2: because you know, it's hard to say, you know what
Speaker 2: their relationship was, So I don't know why they suspected that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well he was a seller of contraband meat, you say,
Speaker 5: And then you say the contra band meat as well,
Speaker 5: was was boneless and diced very much like ground meat.
Speaker 5: And so anybody reading that and anybody knowing that would,
Speaker 5: I would imagine, would be suspicious as well, because you say,
Speaker 5: some neighbors wrote that. Some neighbors testified as well that
Speaker 5: it seemed like he came he left the home with
Speaker 5: big bags looking like it was meat packaged. But he
Speaker 5: didn't come into the home with very many parcels of
Speaker 5: meat packed you know, So there was reports later when
Speaker 5: jumping ahead, But so let's talk about what leads to
Speaker 5: his arrest and then what happens.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you know that sort of lifestyle kept He
Speaker 2: kept on doing this even though at the time, and
Speaker 2: I tried to put that in here. How while things
Speaker 2: were going on, like they were finding a skull, then
Speaker 2: another pile of bones, and they were doing all these things,
Speaker 2: and the terror was still kind of you know, people
Speaker 2: were talking and it was becoming a fearful thing about
Speaker 2: all this. He continued to start picking out bringing boys home,
Speaker 2: and things kept on happening and they would go missing,
Speaker 2: and you know, he continued doing this, having sex with
Speaker 2: young men and killing them basically, and he started quite
Speaker 2: often they would not only were they suspected of taking
Speaker 2: them the body for meat, but he would also take
Speaker 2: a lot of the clothing and he would use it,
Speaker 2: sell it and re sownew buttons on it, and he
Speaker 2: would make slight changes to it. But if he wanted
Speaker 2: something that someone was wearing, he would take it for himself.
Speaker 2: Hans Gron's was really big on this, and that seemed
Speaker 2: to be a lot of the reports tended to lead
Speaker 2: that Hans would see someone at a train station that
Speaker 2: was dressed really well in a suit and he wanted
Speaker 2: that suit, and he would tell Fritz, oh, I want that,
Speaker 2: You've got to get that, mommy, and suggest to Fritz
Speaker 2: to take that boy home kill him so that he
Speaker 2: could get his suit or clothing or whatever he wanted.
Speaker 2: So that was behind a lot of this behavior as well,
Speaker 2: and so he continued to do this. And I've kind
Speaker 2: of gone through the twenty seven victims that he was
Speaker 2: convicted of or charged with killing, and there's also some
Speaker 2: other ones that you know, but there was no proof
Speaker 2: of it or there wasn't enough to convict him or Hans.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of what the next group and I
Speaker 2: did the best I could in finding out who the
Speaker 2: victim was, anything about their parents, their family, what they did,
Speaker 2: how they ended up on the street, or how they
Speaker 2: ended up meeting him, and we put together the best
Speaker 2: that I could. It was a lot of research because
Speaker 2: a lot of these documents and a lot of the
Speaker 2: papers are all in German, and so I had to
Speaker 2: go through a whole translation period and go through everything
Speaker 2: took that took a really long time to get through,
Speaker 2: and it seems kind of light on some of the victims,
Speaker 2: but it's only because there was very little information on
Speaker 2: the victims. So that kept on going. He didn't seem
Speaker 2: to be he didn't seem to be in fear of
Speaker 2: being caught. While he went through all this stuff. He
Speaker 2: just continued, Now I believe it.
Speaker 5: Sorry, let's just an opportunity to stop for a second
Speaker 5: for these messages.
Speaker 3: Okay, Round two.
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Speaker 2: Oh so he yeah, he kept on doing it, and
Speaker 2: then it moved up, and then it was It wasn't
Speaker 2: until June of twenty four that the kind of the
Speaker 2: beginning of the end started for him, with the missing
Speaker 2: children and all of the things going on.
Speaker 5: So you write that when the police decide to arrest
Speaker 5: Harmon and bring him to the police station, several relatives
Speaker 5: of the missing boys and men uh waited outside the
Speaker 5: interview room. Tell us a little bit about this. This
Speaker 5: is another incredible scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when when when they arrested him, they kind of
Speaker 2: paraded him through the street and it was a big,
Speaker 2: big deal, like everyone was just waiting for this to happen.
Speaker 2: So there's just crowded, and it's amazing because there was
Speaker 2: there was a lot of reports and it was even
Speaker 2: brought to the court and the and the judge had
Speaker 2: to give heck to some of the policemen because they
Speaker 2: apparently stripped him and they beat him, hung him and
Speaker 2: caused a lot of damage to his to his body
Speaker 2: during the interrogations, and a lot of people listened to
Speaker 2: it outside the door. Some claimed that they saw through
Speaker 2: the keyhole and stuff, and they saw that he had
Speaker 2: his pants down and that they were doing these things
Speaker 2: to him and trying to make him confess and stuff.
Speaker 2: And so I was a pretty big scandal at this time,
Speaker 2: not so much like it would be today, because it
Speaker 2: wasn't unusual for the police to use physical means to
Speaker 2: try and get you, you know, slap you and punch
Speaker 2: you and stuff. That was not an unusual behavior for
Speaker 2: that time. But they seemed like they went they went
Speaker 2: much further than they expected and it became a real frenzy,
Speaker 2: and of course everyone that was really upset about what
Speaker 2: he had done to all of these loved ones, all
Speaker 2: these kids, these boys. It caused a big controversy. And
Speaker 2: with that, when they raided his apartment and they a
Speaker 2: lot of the neighbors and people, they had four or
Speaker 2: five hundred pieces of clothing and like satchels and shoes
Speaker 2: and all sorts of things that they had confiscated, and
Speaker 2: they decided to put it all in a place and
Speaker 2: anybody that had any young family member missing, they invited
Speaker 2: them to come down and see if they could identify
Speaker 2: any of the clothing or items that they found, books
Speaker 2: or papers or anything, and so they did, and that's
Speaker 2: sort of how they started putting together who it was
Speaker 2: that was murdered, and who different things belonged to and
Speaker 2: who disappeared and put together the story. And that's sort
Speaker 2: of why it was really difficult, because you have runaways
Speaker 2: with very little information out there and living on the
Speaker 2: streets and going missing. And if their jacket and bicycle
Speaker 2: showed up at their place, does that mean told them?
Speaker 2: And I think that was kind of the more than
Speaker 2: likely that he did so, But it wasn't easy for
Speaker 2: them to put this all together. And that's sort of
Speaker 2: how they did it.
Speaker 5: You say he was arrested and charged for the twenty
Speaker 5: seven use and the crimes being committed between nineteen eighteen
Speaker 5: and nineteen twenty four, and Hans Grans is charged as
Speaker 5: an accomplice as well. What is his behavior, Prince Harmon's
Speaker 5: behavior in regarding his guilt and any kind of details
Speaker 5: regarding the murders themselves and the difference with Hans Gruns
Speaker 5: and his attitude towards his innocence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were quite different people, There is no doubt.
Speaker 2: And Fittz, how do you he actually had no problem admitting.
Speaker 2: He seemed to be much more open about things. But
Speaker 2: he also he cried a lot, He broke down a lot.
Speaker 2: He had to have a sister in with him during
Speaker 2: the detective interviews, and and he had a lot of problems.
Speaker 2: But and some some suggest it was the sister that
Speaker 2: got him to do the confessions. But I don't think
Speaker 2: he had a huge problem admitting. But he wanted to
Speaker 2: make sure that they understood that he never premeditated anything,
Speaker 2: that it just happened that his intention was never to
Speaker 2: murder anyone. He would have to, he would have them
Speaker 2: home and if they got into some sort of you know,
Speaker 2: sexual thing. Something took over and and he couldn't stop
Speaker 2: from from killing them, like biting their neck, you know,
Speaker 2: and and doing the whole procedure. And then once he
Speaker 2: had that done, he had to get rid of the victim.
Speaker 2: And so he wanted people, he wanted the court to
Speaker 2: understand that. But he had no problem cutting up a body.
Speaker 2: But then he also said that he would be sick
Speaker 2: for two or three days after he cut up a
Speaker 2: body like it. Really it made him physically ill. So
Speaker 2: there seemed to be this thing about he wanted he
Speaker 2: wanted them to know that he uh it caused a
Speaker 2: lot of stress and terror for him. It was not
Speaker 2: an easy thing, and he was he was as much
Speaker 2: a victim of some sort of possessing uh that that
Speaker 2: made him do this. So so that was kind of
Speaker 2: and he wrote his confession that way, and I've included
Speaker 2: his confession now. Hans Gron's, of course, was more of
Speaker 2: the I don't know how to describe him, but he
Speaker 2: sort of he wasn't taking responsibility for anything. He put
Speaker 2: everything on on Fritz and he had nothing to do
Speaker 2: with any of it. But during the trial you heard
Speaker 2: a lot about these different cases Fritz was pretty convincing
Speaker 2: at saying, well, I had nothing to do with that,
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about that, or I don't know
Speaker 2: that person. I killed him because I was asked to.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of as you go through each one
Speaker 2: and the victims, she started to realize that there was
Speaker 2: definitely the economy here, there was something going on between
Speaker 2: these two that would create these murders. It was much
Speaker 2: more than we could see on the surface.
Speaker 5: You're right that he wasn't arrested right away, Hans, but
Speaker 5: Fritz said immediately that some of the murders were at
Speaker 5: the insistence of Hans. And so a week later after
Speaker 5: Fritz was arrested and start talking that Hans was arrested.
Speaker 5: Now both of these people are set for trial, and
Speaker 5: you talk about the trial in December nineteen twenty four,
Speaker 5: and Harmon insists on defending himself at this trial. Tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit more about this trial with Fritz
Speaker 5: Harmon and Hans ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, And at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: Harmon admitted to killing fourteen of the young men, and
Speaker 2: so that was kind of his kind of thing. And
Speaker 2: of course the prosecution would show all of the evidence
Speaker 2: of the clothing that was found, and Fritz would come
Speaker 2: back and say, well, okay, maybe I did kill him,
Speaker 2: like it was so nonchalant. He didn't really There were
Speaker 2: some victims he really recognized, and some that he would
Speaker 2: step up and say, yeah, I did this or did that,
Speaker 2: but others he wouldn't. And then he had no problem
Speaker 2: talking about how how he would cut up the bodies
Speaker 2: and how he would, you know, use a rolling pin
Speaker 2: or a potail masher. He would have descriptions and stuff.
Speaker 2: So he was he was intimately involved in it, but
Speaker 2: yet he wasn't premeditated, according to him, So it was
Speaker 2: kind of weird, and a lot of the lot of
Speaker 2: the people that were involved as well, like his landlady
Speaker 2: at the time and and other people around him and stuff.
Speaker 2: It was it was pretty obvious what he was involved in.
Speaker 2: The worst thing was the two of them kind of
Speaker 2: trying to pin on who was responsible for the murder,
Speaker 2: you know, and if he didn't do a premeditator, which
Speaker 2: was kind of a counterproductive because he says it was
Speaker 2: just an accident, an urge that took over he was possessed.
Speaker 2: If Fritz in fact had said to him, oh, kill
Speaker 2: that guy, or get that guy because I want his jacket,
Speaker 2: and then if he takes him home, he knows he's
Speaker 2: going to kill him. So that premeditation, right, Sure, it
Speaker 2: wasn't right. So that was a big, big problem with
Speaker 2: that case. And yeah, and he was not a lawyer,
Speaker 2: so I think that it was a mistake. But I
Speaker 2: don't know where do you go from there? It was
Speaker 2: bound to be convicted.
Speaker 5: Yes, you're right. The incredible detail and of course the gruesome,
Speaker 5: almost unparalleled crimes that this guy did. At this time,
Speaker 5: he said, I had no intention of killing the young
Speaker 5: people that happened. The boys kept coming back, and I
Speaker 5: wanted to protect them from myself. I knew when I
Speaker 5: had my tour again, something would happen. Just don't make
Speaker 5: me wild all the time. And so he talks about
Speaker 5: I opened the abdominal cavity with two cuts and put
Speaker 5: the intestines in a bucket. Now I could grab the heart,
Speaker 5: lungs Kidney's cut them up and put them in the bucket,
Speaker 5: broke up the skull, the brain went in the buck
Speaker 5: getting the chopped bones in the LeAnn River. It's so
Speaker 5: it's unprecedented, the kinds of things he's testifying to in court,
Speaker 5: there would be public reaction other than that, the court
Speaker 5: is filled with people wanting to get in and hear
Speaker 5: the testimony. What's the public reaction at this time and
Speaker 5: tell us what happens the verdict?
Speaker 2: Well, of course there are you know, people, there's every
Speaker 2: type of reaction. They're devastated, there's people that are upset
Speaker 2: and stressed, and people that are happy that he's done.
Speaker 2: It was just amazing. It was kind of the trial
Speaker 2: of cediary. Really. I guess we hear that a lot,
Speaker 2: but for that time period, it was it was amazing.
Speaker 2: And you can remember too that most of these people
Speaker 2: had to be there and be around the court and
Speaker 2: in the streets in order to hear what was going
Speaker 2: on because there was no other way. It's not like
Speaker 2: now you can just turn on the TV and watch
Speaker 2: the coverage. You know. It's it's quite a bit different. Right,
Speaker 2: So that was it. Well, yeah, so he got convicted,
Speaker 2: of course, of all I believe twenty seven of them.
Speaker 2: The hans Groans got convicted of just I believe six.
Speaker 2: It's been a while now, so's he got convicted of
Speaker 2: just a few of them. But after this, a letter
Speaker 2: turned up that was apparently written by Fritz and I
Speaker 2: believe it was, but it turned up and it was
Speaker 2: basically he was saying that Hans Gruns had nothing to
Speaker 2: do with anything, that it was all him, and that
Speaker 2: he just said that he did because he was angry.
Speaker 2: And so Gronz ended up getting a whole new trial
Speaker 2: which would take place just over a year later, and
Speaker 2: he no longer was facing the death sentence with this,
Speaker 2: and he actually thought he was going to just get
Speaker 2: off Scott three, but he ended up getting sentenced to
Speaker 2: two twelve year sentences to serve concurrently, which he served
Speaker 2: in prison, and then he got out and they actually
Speaker 2: ended up in a concentration camp until the end of
Speaker 2: the war, and then he was released. He went back
Speaker 2: to Hanover and he lived out his life there and
Speaker 2: died in seventy five, I believe.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so the letter did really help because he was
Speaker 5: slated for execution, so it really did work. So you
Speaker 5: said that after the.
Speaker 2: Pardon it saved his life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you write about a letter that after the execution,
Speaker 5: another letter surfaced. What was the content of that letter?
Speaker 2: Essentially it was the same sort of it was, It
Speaker 2: was much the same sort of theme. I think that
Speaker 2: there was a real there's a real guilt that Harmon
Speaker 2: had and you can sort of understand the wreck how
Speaker 2: their relationship was, and so it was kind of the
Speaker 2: same thing. But he sent that I believe was that
Speaker 2: that letter was the one who went to Hans Grand's father, Albert. Yes,
Speaker 2: and yeah, so that was it was much the same,
Speaker 2: you know, I saw. That's the most I can remember
Speaker 2: about it. He was really kind of trying to help
Speaker 2: Hans out.
Speaker 5: You right, that when he was asked how many victims
Speaker 5: he had, it was more than the twenty four that
Speaker 5: he was convicted of the twenty seven. But how many
Speaker 5: did he say? What did he say regarding victims?
Speaker 2: Well, there was one time he said fifty, the other
Speaker 2: time it was seventy. I don't think he really knows,
Speaker 2: to be honest. I think he just sort of did
Speaker 2: what he did. And he didn't he didn't keep track
Speaker 2: because he didn't care about the victim themselves. It was
Speaker 2: about what he was getting out of it, right, And
Speaker 2: and they and they kept his head too, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: after the convection and execution, they kept his head, uh,
Speaker 2: in order to analyze it scientifically.
Speaker 5: Right, and what was the reaction or what what did
Speaker 5: it create in Germany after this as a result of
Speaker 5: this trial? What was the attitude towards homosexuality then?
Speaker 2: Oh, it was hard uh and and I and I
Speaker 2: put that in there, and this is a very particular
Speaker 2: part of it because at the beginning I talked about
Speaker 2: Germany in that in that time period, and kind of
Speaker 2: a little bit about the government, the setting, how it
Speaker 2: was run, because it wasn't like it is now, and
Speaker 2: and kind of the things that were going on with
Speaker 2: the with the gay community, so to speak, and how
Speaker 2: with the Sexual Institute in Germany they were giving out
Speaker 2: day passes for trans people or people that were wearing
Speaker 2: opposite clothes for their sexuality and stuff so that it
Speaker 2: wouldn't be arrested. And it was all it was all
Speaker 2: sort of okay. And within ten years of that, Berlin
Speaker 2: became kind of a big cabaret festive. It was by
Speaker 2: drag shows and all of these things going on. Everybody
Speaker 2: of any stature wanted to see these gay clubs and
Speaker 2: these gay shows. It was really trendy, and the police
Speaker 2: were in'tterresting and it was sort of it was a
Speaker 2: totally different atmosphere going on with it. So when this happened.
Speaker 2: It jumped right back into the well, he's a dirty homosexual,
Speaker 2: homosexuals kill people, they're bad. It sort of connected that.
Speaker 2: So there was a huge amount of controversy and talk
Speaker 2: and fighting old for the forwarding of homosexuals. A lot
Speaker 2: of people had the opinion this because we let them
Speaker 2: be free, that they're they're killing and they're probably going
Speaker 2: to do all sorts of things. They need to be
Speaker 2: put away, they need to be arrested. So it kind
Speaker 2: of there's a little backlash on the community that led
Speaker 2: right into the Nazism, which ended up kind of taking
Speaker 2: over Germany in the thirties. So it was just it
Speaker 2: sort of fed right into the whole change in the atmosphere.
Speaker 5: Yeah, certainly, certainly. I want to thank you very much,
Speaker 5: Alan for coming on and talking about Butcher of Hanover,
Speaker 5: of Fritz Harmon. For those people that might want to
Speaker 5: take a look at your other several other books that
Speaker 5: you've written and your House of Mystery, tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about House a Mystery radio program, and where
Speaker 5: they might look at other books.
Speaker 2: Well, my website Alanrwarren dot com has everything. It has
Speaker 2: the show, it has all the books, any information, anything
Speaker 2: to do with me all my social media house and mystery.
Speaker 2: We talked to writers and all sorts of genres, from
Speaker 2: true crime to fiction to everything. So it's kind of
Speaker 2: a if you're a writer, you live in mystery, so
Speaker 2: kind of follow that. So you know, just go to that,
Speaker 2: and of course you know bookstores, Mamazon, Kerry all the
Speaker 2: books as well.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, thank you so much, Alan R. Warren Butcher have
Speaker 5: handover Fritz Harmon. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: You have a great evening.
Speaker 2: Good night, thank you, good night.