The Sadist
Atrocity Crimes of Peter Kürten the Vampire of Düsseldorf
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4.0 • 6 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In 1929, the German city of Dusseldorf was afflicted by a horrifying series of brutal, random and often fatal attacks upon women and young girls. With weapons ranging from knives and hammers to his bare strangling hands, a shadowy predator left a mounting trail of sexual assault, carnage and murder in his wake, fomenting mortal terror amongst the local populace. Police finally arrested Peter Kurten, a convicted felon, in connection with the crimes; his subsequent confessions revealed a staggering career of evil, documented in at least 69 cases of theft, arson, rape, throttling, stabbing, hammering, hacking, mutilation, blood-drinking and corpse immolation spanning some 30 years. THE SADIST, an in-depth forensic and psychiatric report on Kurten by Dr. Karl Berg, was published in 1931 in the "Deutschen Zeitschrift fur die Gesamte Gerichtliche Medizin”, revealing fully for the first time the irreconcilable lusts, compulsions, obsessions, pathologies and atrocities of a remorseless and psychopathic sex-killer – the inhuman monster known as the Vampire of Dusseldorf. The report is illustrated by 8 pages of detailed and disturbing forensic photographs.
Customer Reviews
The Sadist
A primary source written by the pathologist who examined the bodies and interviewed the killer, Peter Kurten, the infamous vampire of Düsseldorf.
Dr. Karl Berg provides the reader with Medico Legal analysis, interviews with both Kurten and some of the surviving victims as well as forensic autopsy and crime scene photos.
The book was written by the author just prior to Kurten’s beheading in 1929 so some of his analysis is a tiny bit dated.
It’s also clear this was translated from the original German but the sometimes obscure language just provides an added degree of fascination.
For instance what is “chyme” ? My guess was stomach bile but it’s actually undigested food and gastric juices. Dr. Berg references it when approximating time of death. Something we now know is unreliable but was cutting edge in the 1920’s.
This book is strictly factual with no dramatic language but the facts are so terrifying, macabre and mesmerizing that nothing more is needed.
What you see on the front cover is human viscera and I would not recommend this book for anyone prone to intrusive thoughts or images.
I would recommend it for law enforcement or serious true crime scholars who can compartmentalize their brain, keeping dead children in one box and their grocery list in another. Five Stars. Joe Bob says: check it out!