Editing Fritz Haarmann (section)

==Arrest==
On the night of 22 June, Haarmann was observed by the two undercover officers prowling Hanover's central station. He was soon observed arguing with a 15-year-old boy named Karl Fromm, then approaching police and insisting they arrest the youth on the charge of travelling upon forged documents. Upon his arrest, Fromm informed police he had been living with Haarmann for four days, and that he had been repeatedly raped by his accuser, sometimes as a knife was held to his throat. Haarmann was arrested the following morning and charged with sexual assault.<ref>Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} pp. 61–62</ref>
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00884, Hannover, Prozeß gegen Friedrich Haarmann.jpg|right|thumb|Detectives search a stove inside Haarmann's attic room at 2 Rote Reihe.]]

Following his arrest, Haarmann's attic apartment at No. 2 Rote Reihe was searched. Haarmann had lived in this single-room apartment since June 1923. The flooring, walls, and bedding within the apartment were found to be extensively bloodstained.<ref>Real Life Crimes, p. 2653, {{ISBN|1-85875-440-2}}.</ref> Haarmann initially attempted to explain this fact as a by-product of his illegal trading in contraband meat.<ref>On Trial for Murder {{ISBN|0-09-472990-5}} p. 71</ref> Various acquaintances and former neighbours of Haarmann were also extensively questioned as to his activities. Many fellow tenants and neighbours of the various addresses in which Haarmann lived since 1920 commented to detectives about the number of teenage boys they observed visiting his various addresses. Moreover, some had seen him leaving his property with concealed sacks, bags, or baskets—invariably in the late evening or early morning hours. Two former tenants informed police that, in the spring of 1924, they had discreetly followed Haarmann from his apartment and observed him discarding a heavy sack into the Leine River.<ref>Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} p. 56</ref>

The clothes and personal possessions found at Haarmann's apartment and in the possession of his acquaintances were suspected of being the property of missing youths: all were confiscated and put on display at Hanover Police Station, with the parents of missing teenage boys from across Germany invited to look at the items. As the days passed, an increasing number of items were identified by family members as having belonged to their sons and brothers. Haarmann initially attempted to dismiss these revelations as being [[circumstantial evidence|circumstantial]] in nature. He claimed that the majority of the clothes had been acquired through his business (trading used clothing), and that the remaining items had been left behind by youths with whom he'd engaged in consensual sexual activity.<ref name="The Milwaukee Journal Jan. 19, 1933">{{cite news|url=https://newspaperarchive.com/us/new-york/olean/olean-times/1924/12-05/page-1|title=Fritz Haarmann: Tells of Killing His First Victim|access-date=2 April 2025|newspaper=Olean Times Herald|date=5 December 1924}}</ref>

The turning point came on 29 June when clothes, boots, and keys found stowed at Haarmann's apartment were identified as belonging to a missing 18-year-old named Robert Witzel. A skull that had been found in a garden on 20 May<ref>Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} p. 113</ref> (which was not initially connected with other skeletal discoveries determined to be linked to Haarmann) was identified as that of the missing youth. A friend of Witzel's then identified the police officer whom Witzel had been seen with on the day of his disappearance as Haarmann.<ref>Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} pp. 63–64</ref>

Confronted with this evidence, Haarmann briefly attempted to bluster his way out of these latest and most damning pieces of evidence. When Witzel's jacket was found in the possession of his landlady and he was confronted with various witnesses' testimony as to his destroying identification marks on the clothing, he broke down and had to be supported by his sister.{{refn|group=n|Of the 400 items of clothing found in Haarmann's apartment, only 100 were ever identified as having belonged to any of Haarmann's known victims.<ref>On Trial for Murder {{ISBN|978-0-330-33947-6}} p. 72</ref><ref>Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} p. 102</ref>}}

===Confession===
Faced with this latest evidence, and upon the urging of his sister,<ref name="Monsters of Weimar p. 64">Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} p. 64</ref> Haarmann confessed to raping, killing, and dismembering many young men in what he initially described as a "rabid sexual passion"<ref name="Monsters of Weimar p. 64"/> between 1918 and 1924. According to Haarmann, he never actually intended to murder any of his victims, but would be seized by an irresistible urge to bite into or through their [[Adam's apple]]<ref name="nydailynews.com"/>—often as he manually strangled them—in the throes of [[Ecstasy (emotion)|ecstasy]], before typically collapsing atop the victim's body. Only one intended victim had escaped from Haarmann's apartment after he attempted to bite into his Adam's apple, although this individual is not known to have reported the attack to police.<ref name="The Milwaukee Journal Jan. 19, 1933"/>

All of Haarmann's victims' bodies were disposed of via dismemberment shortly after their murder, and Haarmann was insistent that he found the act of dismemberment extremely unpleasant; he had, he stated, been ill for eight days after his first murder.<ref>Cannibal Serial Killers {{ISBN|1-5697-5902-2}} p. 225</ref> Nonetheless, Haarmann was insistent that his passion at the moment of murder was invariably "stronger than the horror of the cutting and the chopping" which would inevitably follow, and would typically take up to two days to complete.<ref name=Ludington>{{cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=110&dat=19241207&id=nXZOAAAAIBAJ&pg=5624,5147990|title=Murderer of 14 Men Asks for Speedy Death |newspaper=Ludington (MI) Sunday Morning News |date=7 December 1924 |via= Google News Archive Search|access-date=26 February 2017}}</ref>

To fortify himself to dismember his victims' bodies, Haarmann would pour himself a cup of strong black coffee,<ref>Cannibalism: The Last Taboo! {{ISBN|1-859-58495-0}} p. 117</ref> then place the body of his victim upon the floor of this apartment and cover the face with cloth, before first removing the intestines, which he would place inside a bucket. A towel would then be repeatedly placed inside the [[abdominal cavity]] to soak the collecting blood. He would then make three cuts between the victim's ribs and shoulders, then "take hold of the ribs and push until the bones around the shoulders broke."<ref name="Monsters of Weimar p. 80"/> The victim's heart, lungs, and kidneys would then be removed, diced, and placed in the same bucket which held the intestines before the legs and arms would be severed from the body. Haarmann would then begin [[Kitchen knife#Paring|paring]] the flesh from the limbs and torso. This surplus flesh would be disposed of in the toilet or, usually, in the nearby river.<ref>The World's Most Evil Murderers {{ISBN|978-1-405-48828-0}} p. 18</ref>

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 102-00824, Hannover, Prozeß gegen Friedrich Haarmann.jpg|right|220px|thumb|Fritz Haarmann (centre) with police detectives, November 1924]]

The final section of the victims' bodies to be dismembered was invariably the head. After severing the head from the torso, Haarmann would use a small kitchen knife to strip all flesh from the skull, which he would then wrap in rags and place face downwards upon a pile of straw and bludgeon with an axe until the skull splintered, enabling him to access the brain. This he would also place in a bucket, which he would pour, alongside the "chopped up bones" in the Leine.<ref name="Monsters of Weimar p. 81"/>

Haarmann was insistent that none of the skulls found in the Leine belonged to his victims, and that the [[Forensic anthropology|forensic identification]] of Robert Witzel's skull was mistaken, as he had almost invariably smashed his victims' skulls to pieces. The exceptions being those of his earliest victims—killed several years prior to his arrest—and that of his last victim, Erich de Vries.<ref name="Monsters of Weimar p. 65"/> Although insistent that none of his murders were [[malice aforethought|premeditated]], investigators discovered much circumstantial evidence suggesting that several murders had been planned hours or days in advance, and that Haarmann had both concocted explanations for his victims' disappearances and dissuaded acquaintances of his victims from filing [[missing person]]s' reports with Hanover police.<ref>Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} p. 110</ref> Investigators also noted that Haarmann would only confess to murders for which there existed evidence against him; on one occasion, Haarmann stated: "There are some [victims] you don't know about, but it's not those you think."<ref name="ReferenceL">Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} p. 34</ref>

When asked how many victims he killed, Haarmann claimed, "Somewhere between fifty and seventy." The police, however, could only connect Haarmann with the disappearance of twenty-seven youths, and he was charged with twenty-seven murders—some of which he claimed had been committed upon the insistence of Grans,<ref name="ReferenceF">Chronicle of 20th Century Murder {{ISBN|978-0-425-14649-1}} p. 82</ref> who was arrested on 8 July, and formally charged with being an [[accessory to murder]] one week later.<ref name="ReferenceE"/>{{refn|group=n|In his initial confession to police, Haarmann stated that although Grans knew of many of his murders, and personally urged him to kill two of the victims so that he could obtain their clothing and personal possessions, Grans was otherwise not involved in the murder of the victims.}}

On 16 August 1924, Haarmann underwent a psychological examination at a [[Göttingen]] medical school; on 25 September, he was judged competent to stand trial and returned to Hanover to await trial.<ref name="Monsters of Weimar p. 65"/>