Bruno Lüdke (3 April 1908 – 26 April 1944) was an alleged German serial killer. At least 51 people, mainly women, were killed in a 15-year period, which began in 1928.[1]
Born in Köpenick, Lüdke had a mild intellectual disability (he could not tell interrogators how many minutes there were in an hour). He was discovered by Nazi police committing necrophilia on a recently-deceased victim. He quickly confessed to his crimes and was taken into custody. Witnesses report Lüdke showed signs of physical abuse and he stated that 'they would kill me if I didn't confess'.[2]
Declared insane, he was sent to a Vienna hospital, where experiments were carried out on him until he died by lethal injection in 1944.
The 50-odd crime scenes showed no similarities in modus operandi, signature, or motive. No fingerprints were ever found and no evidence against Lüdke has ever been presented.
A Dutch former Chief of police named Blaauw took an interest in the case and investigated original police reports. He found them inconclusive, incoherent, and vague. He also expressed his disbelief that a semi-illiterate, who once got caught stealing a chicken, could evade authorities for nearly 20 years, let alone get away with murder.
Many believe Lüdke to be the victim of a frame-up, carried out by an ambitious Kriminalkommissar (chief homicide investigator) Franz, the heavily censored Reichskriminalpolizeiamt, and the budding Nazi government, that had little patience with people with intellectual disabilities.
A post-war movie, Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam, affirmed the image of Lüdke as one of Germany's worst serial killers. Attempts at reopening the case by members of the Kriminalrat (the German Internal affairs division) Faulhaber yielded no results. The true nature of the 51 murders remains unsolved to this day.[3]
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