While World War II was raging and all of Europe was in a nightly blackout, Paul Ogorzow murdered eight women.
The day Germany attacked Poland Hitler instated dusk till dawn blackout over Berlin. People were forced to either tape paper over their windows or use special black out curtains that didn't allow any light out. Street lights were turned out and the lights on trains were lowered so the enemy would not have targets to bomb. At the same time, more women were leaving home and joining the work force, working shifts at factories to help produce war materials. Many women were forced to ride trains that had very little light on them and to walk home on dark streets and through dark alleys.
This creates the perfect setting for a sexual predator. Paul Ogorzow begins a two years reign of terror with verbal harassment and assaults, which become more violent assaults and eventually rapes and murders. Berlin is a city already living in fear of bombing, and having the women fear going to work is unacceptable. The police are under great pressure to find A SERIAL KILLER IN NAZI BERLIN.
The police officer in charge of the investigation, Wilhelm Ludtke, has to report to people known as being some of the worst criminals in history. Reading this well researched story and hearing how Ludtke keeps looking for the real killer instead of taking the easy way out by creating a scapegoat is very interesting. When you realize the lead investigator, Ludtke was reporting to the likes of SS Chief Heinrich Himmler and trying to get the cooperation of Minster of Propaganda Joseph Gobbels you have to respect his will to get to the truth. At times, you find it amazing that the police worked so hard to find the killer of eight women when some of the members of Ludtke's team, including his immediate supervisor, though not Ludtke himself, were later charged with the murder of millions.
A SERIAL KILLER IN NAZI BERLIN is a fascinating historical, nonfiction novel by Scott Andrew Shelby that comes across more as the story of Wilhelm Ludtke. Ludtke was a police officer determined to stop the killer he could and protect those he was capable of protecting in a time when society and humanity were most at risk of being lost. Ludtke used great police work and investigative skill to make a difference in the only way he could in a world that most likely broke his heart.
As the Nazi war machine caused death and destruction
throughout Europe, one man in the Fatherland began his own
reign of terror.
This is the true story of the pursuit and capture of a
serial killer in the heart of the Third Reich.
For all appearances, Paul Ogorzow was a model German. An
employed family man, party member, and sergeant in the
infamous Brownshirts, he had worked his way up in the Berlin
railroad from a manual laborer laying track to assistant
signalman. But he also had a secret need to harass and
frighten women. Then he was given a gift from the Nazi high
command.
Due to Allied bombing raids, a total blackout was instituted
throughout Berlin, including on the commuter trains-trains
often used by women riding home alone from the factories.
Under cover of darkness and with a helpless flock of victims
to choose from, Ogorzow's depredations grew more and more
horrific. He escalated from simply frightening women to
physically attacking them, eventually raping and murdering
them. Beginning in September 1940, he started casually
tossing their bodies off the moving train. Though the Nazi
party tried to censor news of the attacks, the women of
Berlin soon lived in a state of constant fear.
It was up to Wilhelm LΓΒΌdtke, head of the Berlin police's
serious crimes division, to hunt down the madman in their
midst. For the first time, the gripping full story of
Ogorzow's killing spree and LΓΒΌdtke's relentless pursuit is
told in dramatic detail.
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