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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast, the podcast dedicated to serial killers.
who they were, what they did, and how. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Weyborg Thun, and tonight, dear listener, we'll leave the United States of America and find ourselves once more in your humble host's home continent of Europe. Imagine, if you will, West Germany in 1962. More specifically,
Wellbert Langenberg, a suburb between the cities of Essen, Düsseldorf and Dortmund. Germany was, as you might know, divided into two states, at this time West Germany or Bundesrepublik Deutschlands, which after the Second World War was under control by the Allied Western Nations, and Eastern Germany or Deutsche Demokratische Republik.
which was heavily controlled and influenced by the Soviet Union. In this otherwise colorful era of the 1960s, we see a young man called Jürgen Bartsch. He is in a dark, abandoned air raid shelter outside of town, and before him lays a very young boy, naked, tied up, and bloody, in the dimly lit mine, only lit by a few candles,
and the waning daylight from the entrance, Jürgen performs extreme sexual violence upon the young boy until he is dead. In this episode, I will go into detail about this and other crimes, and I therefore need to give my dear listeners a fair warning. This episode will be graphic, and is not suitable for children or otherwise vulnerable people.
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Any donation, no matter how small, is greatly appreciated. Between 1962 and 1966, between the age of 15 and a half and 19 years, Jürgen Bartsch had killed four young boys.
Klaus Jung, aged 8, Peter Fuchs, aged 13, Ulrich Karlweiss, aged 12, and Manfred Grassmann, aged 12. Bartsch himself estimated to have undertaken more than 100 unsuccessful homicidal attempts in his young life before being apprehended.
Every murder showed minor differences in the modus operandi, but basically followed the same scheme. After luring a boy into following him to a mine that had also been used as an air raid shelter during World War II, he attained the boy's obedience by beating the young boy, sometimes with a hammer. He then tied up the boys and started to torture them.
sometimes biting their genitals, sometimes cutting them, sometimes simply beating the boys. As he was abusing the boys' penis and testicles, he masturbated without ejaculation, and finally killed the children by beating, cutting, or strangling the boy to death. The masturbation without ejaculation is an indicator that Jürgen suffered from a form of sexual dysfunction,
maybe even impotence. After the boy was dead, he cut the body into pieces, including decapitation, emptied the body cavities, such as the breast and abdomen, and generally dismembered most of the bodies.
Some post-mortem acts against the corpses were variable, and included gouging out the eyes, severing arms and legs, decapitation, castration, resection of pieces of flesh out of the thighs and buttocks into other body parts, and at least one failed attempt of anal penetration.
This latter is from a statement Jürgen made himself, and is another strong indicator that he suffered from erectile dysfunction. This affliction can cause extreme psychological problems, especially among those who exhibit other mental disorders such as psychopathy. Jürgen's actual goal, according to later interviews by police,
was to very slowly torture the victims to death. Finally, he partially buried the remains inside the abandoned mine. This was most likely to hide the tissue and bones from children, who, with a very low probability, might have come inside playing. The tunnel was located near a street and a cloister, but still a few miles out of town.
In his detailed description during the preliminary investigation of the case and during the trial, Butch emphasized that he never reached the sexual climax while masturbating, but only whilst cutting the flesh after his victim's death. As he told the police, this resulted in a continuous orgasm lasting for several minutes.
During his last murder, he came very close to what he had envisaged as his greatest desire, to tie his victim to a post and slaughter the 12-year-old boy alive. In all other cases, the method of the actual murder was blunt force trauma, blood loss, and strangulation.
His wish for dominance, control, and sexual gratification, but also his strategies of avoiding persecution, were topics that were openly discussed with Bartsch from the start of the investigation.
As a final goal, his central fantasy, Bartsch stated that he wanted to skin a live child with soft skin, little body hair, and a non-aggressive mood. This goal was not reached, because in his earlier attempts, the children simply died too fast. However, he dismembered the children and ejaculated onto the flesh.
The only part of his behavior that he would not openly comment on was if he did eat the flesh or not. He would only say that he touched it with his lips. During the years 1962 up until his capture in 1966, Bartsch extensively traveled through the neighborhood, frequently using taxis.
No middle-class boy at the time could afford a taxi, so he stole the money from the cash register of his parents' butcher shop where he worked. To a lesser extent, he also used a small delivery van off the shop. To get in touch with the boys, he told them that he worked as a detective or for an insurance company
and that he needed a witness to recover a suitcase full of diamonds from the abandoned mineshaft. Most children did not believe the story. Therefore, Bartsch invited them for apple juice in a pub that was already on the way out of town. There, he offered them money, usually around 50 Deutschmarks, equivalent of about $100 in current currency.
and presented this or another story to the child. Bartsch himself did drink alcohol as a habit, but took care to keep control during his crimes. Here, he differs significantly from the serial killer that in many ways acted in a similar way as him, Jeffrey Dahmer.
Dahmer was always heavily intoxicated while he murdered his victims, although he often sobered up after a while and did indeed continue to eviscerate his victims. Often Bart would also hang out at parish fairs where he invited children for free rides.
Parish fairs in Germany were and are known to attract poor and homeless people, and those from a less respected social background, which made it difficult for the well-dressed barch to talk to children without causing suspicion. However, the anonymity and the sheer amount of children raised his chances.
For a short while, Bartsch also carried a very large suitcase in which he thought he could transport the children. After he was asked why he was carrying a children's coffin, actually a common German expression for a large suitcase, in German it's called Kindersarg, he immediately got rid of the item. After it became known that Bartsch visited parish fairs
He was called the parish fair killer, or simply the carnival killer. Later, this switched to the simpler nickname of beast, in German the similar bestie, an expression that Bartsch sometimes used as a joke to sign some of his letters out of prison or out of the psychiatric institution to friends.
The continuous efflux of money out of the parents' cash register brought Bart's parents practically to bankruptcy. Nobody suspected Bart as the thief, since he was a very polite and mild young man. It has to be pointed out that Bart did not like to work as a butcher at all. He had no idea what career or occupation he should choose for himself after school,
So he accepted the offer of his father to become a butcher. Bartsch explicitly stated that the experience of slaughtering animals was very unpleasant to him. Therefore, he mostly worked as a salesperson or at the meat counter in the shop. Bartsch's mother, a very extrovert and socially active woman, was described as both loving and caring, yet strict.
or completely overprotective and emotionally withdrawn. An important fact of this case is that Bartsch was adopted. His parents had adopted him while he was still an infant. His genetic mother came from a socially weak background, and the baby was raised in a hospital environment that gave him protection but no personal love.
When his adopted parents saw him for the first time in the hospital looking for a suitable child, they found Bartsch so charming that they immediately decided to adopt this particular 11-months-old baby. Bartsch's father is generally described as a person who did not at all understand what had happened and who was very focused on his business.
When he was asked by the court to act as a witness, he replied that this would cause problems because he would then have to close the shop for a full day in prison and in the psychiatric hospital. Jürgen Bartsch's mother and an aunt were his prime contacts to his family. The two women were allowed to send him crime novels, comic books and magic tricks.
Under the influence of psychiatric consultations, Bart's friendly views on his mother partially changed. He remembered that she once threw a knife after him in the butcher shop, and that neither of the parents ever played with him because they were so busy with the shop. At the same time, his mother was a clean and extremely accurate person.
Today, many German professionals claim that she suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder. Clothing had to be folded and put in the shelf in military style. Mother Bartsch also personally bathed her son until he was arrested, including washing his genitals.
This deviant borderline incestuous behavior might, in addition to his probable impotence, greatly contribute to his extreme criminal act. The only friendship that Bartsch had while living with his parents was with a boy whom he did like a lot, but finally severely hit hard for no apparent reason after a friendly scuffling.
Homosexual play, including ejaculation, was always involved in Bart's few adolescent friendships. Typically, this would take the form of mutual masturbation, where the boys would masturbate each other's penises, or mutual blowjobs, where they lay in the 69 position, until he sometimes managed to ejaculate.
In our postmodern Western society, we are all well informed about the sexual abuse by Catholic priests onto young children, usually young boys. There are thousands and thousands of known cases, and as you might be aware of, the previous Pope, birth name Ratzinger, probably abdicated the papacy due to his part in covering up sexual abuse cases.
Usually the abuse was directed at altar boys. The priests, especially in poorer Catholic communities, enjoyed enormous authority and trust among parents and was often viewed with extreme adoration by the general parishioners.
Many priests took advantage of this privilege, and with a ready supply of very young and very obedient altar boys, they could fill their perverted sexual appetites without repercussions. The abuse took many forms, not just fondling of genitals, as is often reported in the media, but often brutal anal rape and forced blowjobs. Butch was no exception.
He belonged to a typical middle-class German Catholic community. After the first trial, Bartsch described memories of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, a man who actually served as one of his teachers in a boarding school, who was actually known for beating the children frequently and violently.
Until today, the sexual abuse matter is the only one that was not validated in the Bart case. It is not clear whether his claim was a recollection based on fact or a fabrication or exaggeration of an intelligent juvenile person who received nearly unlimited attention after his confessions by psychiatrists, the media and the police. However,
It is a well-known fact that many serial killers start their violent tendencies as a result of a childhood trigger event, usually abuse of one sort or another. Also, back in the 1960s, it was extremely rare that sexual abuse allegations against priests were taken seriously.
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This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night.
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Visit BetterHelp.com slash SerialKiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash SerialKiller. In 1966, then 19-year-old homosexual serial killer Jürgen Bartsch was arrested after an unsuccessful attempt to torture, kill and dismember a young boy.
The victim, left in an unused air-raid shelter, had been able to free himself by burning his ties with a candle flame while the offender had gone home to eat and watch TV with his parents in the parents' bed. He had to do this every evening at exactly 7 p.m.
After the second trial, Bartsch lived in a psychiatric hospital. Inside this institution, nobody received psychological treatment due to a lack of personnel. In the psychiatric hospital, he obtained permission to marry a woman who had written letters to him. He was also voted the patient's speaker, and he entertained fellow inmates by semi-professional magic tricks.
Before the trials, Bartsch was a member of the German organization of magicians and illusionists, in German called Magischer Zirkel. Since the organization disliked the bad reputation the Bartsch case might bring, they did not allow him to stay a member. Bartsch was not only interested in controlling his impulses,
But he also wanted to know why he committed the crimes. The genetic, psychological, neurological and psychiatrical sciences were back then simply not ready to meet this legitimate request from the serial killer himself. Jürgen Bartsch had, during his incarceration, many statements issued to authorities and the public.
He stated that he had a feeling of love for his victims. This was generally accepted as true, since he never lied during the confessions, and since such a lie would not benefit him. During a pseudo-suicidal phase in prison, he scratched several inscriptions on the wall,
one of them being of particular interest in this context. It shows the dominant, controlling, egocentric and twisted personality of Bartsch. Ernst Peter Fries, the final and surviving victim, had escaped on the 18th of June 1966.
as Freeze had told Bartsch that he was afraid of being alone and tied up in the dark tunnel. Bartsch fulfilled his request by letting the candles stay lit as he left for supper. Bartsch always carried one or two candles with him in case he found a suitable victim. After Bartsch left, Freeze accidentally put out the first candle while trying to burn his ties
but succeeded to burn the ties at his ankles with the second candle. This way he escaped and contacted the police, who then swiftly apprehended Bartsch. The inscription scratched on the wall to freeze reads as follows.
Ernst Peter Fries, please excuse if I dare to ask you for pardon. On June 18, you did not know if you would ever meet your parents again. I very much would have wanted to see my parents again, too. But I do not have the right to do so, and I know how you suffered. I learned that you received the 16,000 Deutschmarks.
"'My honest opinion is that you deserve the money. However, you should give one thousand Deutschmarks, and maybe a little extra, to the Grassmanns. They are poor, and do not have money themselves. Can you pardon me, Peter? I wish for this so much, even if I cannot hear it any more. I can understand if you say it was too bad. I cannot.'
But please, Peter, believe me, it would mean a lot to me. That is to say, I honestly started to develop a very strong affection for you. The fact that I would have killed you shall be the proof that my impulses had control over me. Barge also identified with the police, especially with the actual investigators who talked to him. An inscription to them reads as follows.
Herr Hinrichs, Herr Fritsch, Herr Metzler, you were all very kind to me. Would I not have been like that one day, I would have been one of you. And believe me, I surely would not have been a bad civil servant. End quote. After trial, Bartsch started a very long and personal exchange of letters with Detective Metzler.
He also became a friend of journalist Paul Moore, who at this point worked for both the US Time magazine and the German Die Zeit. Moore and Bartsch later agreed that Moore would not publish any more about the case to allow their friendship to grow without public pressure. Reason for this was that Bartsch felt more and more uncomfortable about the effects of being a media darling.
In a letter to the court, he referred to his perception of a star, and especially how this interfered with every legal motion he made, including his application for marriage. The structure of that notion seems slightly illogical, but Bartsch just threw in as many arguments as he could find to fight for his cause. A letter he sent to authorities reads as follows.
High Court, tell me how this could be prevented. Not at all? You're right. Today I am already blamed for it. Immediately there is the accusation of being a star. This is as convenient as it is wrong. The story with Father Putsli also has another side.
He is not guilty for what I have done, but he, nobody else, determined my orientation towards pedophilia and sadism. And he told me, when I was thirteen, the exact plan which I used later. He seduced me on the gallery of the church nearly every week while I was twelve.
He put me in his bed when I had polio and a fever of 40 degrees Celsius, and told me about a knight, before that I had to masturbate him, who lived in France and who killed hundreds of boys.
Bartsch also sent out postcards to the psychiatrists that he liked, especially to Giese, the only expert for sexually deviant behavior at the time, who also testified as expert witness in the first trial. In contrast to others who replied to Bartsch with long letters, Giese tried to be brief, yet very friendly, open, and objective.
Giese was the only person involved in the case who fully understood the complexity of Bartsch, Pido and paraphilia. After the first trial, Giese, however, rejected to visit Bartsch on a regular basis. One of the notes to Giese, written in August of 1968 on a printed Christmas card, reads: "It sure is very nice of you that you wish to help me.
And I am oh so grateful for this. It only is a pity, as you already said, that even a conversation in letters would be quite difficult at the moment, because every now and then there would be something that the judges would have to hold back because of their regulations. But I will wait for you, in thankfulness yours, Jürgen. When Giesel learned that Bartsch behaved suicidal,
He wrote in January of 1969, and I quote, Dear Jürgen Bartsch, First of all, thank you for your friendly Christmas and New Year's greetings that I cordially send back to you in reply. I must, however, combine this letter with the urgent wish that you do not try again to bring your life to an end. You simply must not do this.
one reason being to allow several things to happen in your case. With kind regards, I am your Hans Giese. This letter does not only prove the open and friendly manner in which Giese and Bartsch communicated, but also that Giese knew about the preparations for the second trial, leading to a turning point in forensic psychiatry.
The first trial was held in 1967 at a high court, called in German Landgericht, in the small city of Wuppertal.
The hearings lasted only days, and it was decided that Bartsch should be treated under adult law. He was found fully legally responsible, lost all civil rights, and was sentenced to technically five times lifelong imprisonment.
This was summed up to 125 years for four homicides, one attempted homicide, abduction of children, and sexual contact with children. Homosexuality was still illegal in Germany at this point, but not an issue at the trial. The motion for the appeal was prepared in the usual way. It was said that the client was not examined sufficiently.
that he was still in the developmental stage of a juvenile, and that he was generally not responsible due to his mental constitution. The case was therefore revised by the German Federal High Court, which agreed that the Wuppertal court should have consulted an expert who was specialized in psychopathology of human sexuality, and not just in psychiatry.
Specialist statements about mental states in relation to sex drive anomalies were requested. This decision marked a turning point in forensic psychiatry since the Federal High Court deviated from its own former decisions by criticizing that the court of the first instance did not hear a better expert witness for this particular field.
Furthermore, a movement within the criminal law community voted for rehabilitation instead of punishment of offenders. Criminal courts were now forced to decide whether offenders should be punished or treated psychologically, i.e. if social reintegration was possible. Already in the summer of 1969,
the Parliament passed the first two acts for a reform of the German criminal law, implementing the idea of rehabilitation. At the second trial, in 1971, now again at a district court, there was a very high number of experts present to avoid further illegal proceedings.
two human geneticists, anthropologists, forensic biologists, at that time this was the same profession in Germany, three psychologists, five psychiatrists, and the director of the only German university-based institute for sexology.
Two of the three psychiatric experts from the first trial were rejected as experts. The expert testimony of five experts was considered to be irrelevant by the court and led to the following conclusions. At the time of the crimes, Bartsch was not yet matured enough and was thus a juvenile offender.
His responsibility was reduced because he could not fully control his sadistic impulses. This was a sharp contrast to the judgment of the district court of Wuppertal from the 15th of December 1967, which stated that the defendant could have controlled his impulses any time. This is an extract from the judgment of the district court of Wuppertal the 6th of April 1971.
The defendant clearly was still in the state of developmental concerning his social skills and his moral maturity due to his personal disposition, his childhood experiences and upbringing. The defendant could not escape his sadistic fantasies, which eventually overcame all moral boundaries and culminated in the fulfillment of his desires.
The defendant's responsibility in judicial terms was therefore reduced to a considerable extent. The maximum sentence for juveniles was applied. Ten years of incarceration served in a mental institution followed by preventive detention.
In 1976, Jürgen Bartsch asked for a physical castration, hoping that afterwards he might be released from the mental institution for the reason of not being dangerous for society anymore. Months before the operation, Bartsch had, however, fought vigorously against any possible motion towards castration because he feared for his health.
Castrations were only allowed if a person asked for it and had good practical reasons. Later, he seemed to have believed that castration might be the only way towards a possible healing of his impulses. After his first application for castration was rejected, he fought even harder for the operation.
And so it was that on the 28th of April, 1976, Jürgen Bartsch died during operation to remove his testicles and penis on the operation table due to an error in the anesthetic procedure. A fitting end, many might say, to a sadistic sexual serial killer.
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And so ends the tale of the carnival killer, Jürgen Bartsch. Next week I will cover the story of another serial killer, one that many might have waited eagerly for my take on. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. I have been your host, Thomas Warburg-Thun. Doing this podcast is a labor of love, and I couldn't have done it without my loyal listeners.
This podcast has been able to bring serial killer stories to life, especially thanks to those of you that support me via Patreon. You can do so at theserialkillerpodcast.com slash donate. There are especially a few patrons that have stayed loyal for a long time. Amber, Charlotte, Christina, Craig,
Jason, Lexi, Lisbeth, Maud, Mickey, Philip, Sarah, Tommy, Troy and Wendy. Your monthly contributions really help keep this podcast thriving. You have my deepest gratitude.
As always, thank you, dear listener, for listening. And feel free to leave a review on your favorite podcast app, Facebook, or website. And please, do subscribe to the show if you enjoy it. Thank you. Good night, and good luck.