Editing Fritz Haarmann (section)

===First known victim===
Haarmann's first known victim was a 17-year-old runaway named Friedel Rothe. When Rothe disappeared on 25 September 1918, his friends told police he was last seen with Haarmann, who at the time resided in a single-room apartment at 27 Cellerstraße. Under pressure from Rothe's family, police raided Haarmann's apartment in October 1918, where they found him in the company of a semi-naked 13-year-old boy.<ref>Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} p. 83</ref> He was charged with both the [[sexual assault]] and [[Battery (crime)|battery]]<ref name="Monsters of Weimar p. 37">Monsters of Weimar {{ISBN|1-897743-10-6}} p. 37</ref> of a minor, and sentenced to nine months' imprisonment. (Haarmann later confessed to detectives that at the time they had searched his apartment, Rothe's head was stowed behind his stove, wrapped in newspaper.)<ref>Real Life Crimes, p. 2652, {{ISBN|1-85875-440-2}}.</ref>

Haarmann avoided serving his sentence throughout 1919. That October, he met an 18-year-old youth named Hans Grans, who had run away from his home in Berlin following an argument with his father on 1 October. Grans had slept rough in and around Hanover station for approximately two weeks—selling old clothes<ref name="ReferenceE">{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1946&dat=19240716&id=YnwuAAAAIBAJ&pg=3040,1969303|title=Aided Murderer: Second-hand Dealer Wanted Victims' Clothes|access-date=16 December 2017|newspaper=The Gazette|location=Montreal|date=16 July 1924}}</ref> in and around the station to earn enough money to simply eat—before he encountered Haarmann.<ref name="A Plague of Murder Chapter 3"/>