Lee Mellor - Behind the Horror: True Stories that Inspired Horror Movies

Written by
Dr. Lee Mellor

Senior Editor David Fentiman

Designer David McDonald

Jacket Design Lisa Lanzarini

Picture Research Sumedha Chopra

Senior Production Controller Louise Daly

Senior Production Editor Jennifer Murray

Managing Editor Sarah Harland

Managing Art Editor Vicky Short

Art Director Lisa Lanzarini

Publisher Julie Ferris

Publishing Director Mark Searle

Digital Production

Digital Programme Manager Miguel Cunha

Senior Manager Lakshmi Rao

Producer Suruchi Kakkar

Software Engineer Rachana Kishore

Production Manager Nain Singh Rawat

Production Coordinator Manish Bhatt

With thanks to Victoria Armstrong and Nicole Reynolds for editorial assistance; John Friend for proofreading.

First American Edition, 2020
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ISBN: 9781465492388

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In 1931, the German director Fritz Lang wowed audiences around the world with M: A City Searches for a Murderer. Lang drew from the unprecedented number of serial killers who had emerged in Weimar-era Germany to formulate his sinister antagonist, Hans Beckert; those who worked tirelessly to catch them inspired Langs protagonist, Inspector Karl Lohmann.

S erial killers have walked among us since time immemorial. Still, there have been eras and locations that have spawned an overabundance. The United States saw an alarming spike in the number of serial killers between the mid-1960s and final decade of the 20th century: a period beginning with the so-called Boston Strangler and ending with Jeffrey Dahmer. Victorian Britain experienced a similar outbreak. Weimar Germany (191833)that ill-fated Republic sandwiched between the First and Second World Warswas so ridden with serial murderers that collectively they inspired the fictional child killer, Hans Beckert, in Fritz Langs timeless 1931 thriller M.

Less than a year before M was released, Berlin police inspector Ernst Gennat coined the term Serienmrder to refer to this strange new violent phenomenon. Gennat himself served as the main inspiration for M s Inspector Lohmann.

M begins with a murderer already on the prowlchildren play games about who will be next, and their anxious parents escort them home from school. A young girl is approached by a mysterious man, who offers to buy her a balloon. Shortly thereafter the girl is shown to be missing. In the wake of her disappearance, public panic is compounded when the murderer writes to the papers, promising to kill again. Led by Inspector Lohmann, the city police try to catch the killer, conducting psychiatric analysis of released prisoners, and new forensic tests, such as handwriting analysis and fingerprinting. The citys crimelords are so disrupted by the increased police pressure that they start their own manhunt for the killer, using the citys numerous beggars as lookouts. The police find the killers rooms, which contain incriminating evidence, and lie in wait for him. Meanwhile, the killer is on the hunt for more victims. A blind beggar identifies the killers distinctive whistling, and is aided by other beggars, who mark M for Mrder (murderer) in chalk on the back of his coat. Shortly thereafter, the killer is cornered and abducted by the crimelords. Put on trial in an abandoned distillery, the killer delivers an impassioned defense, claiming that he cannot help himselfthat his urge to kill is uncontrollableand questioning why other criminals feel they have a right to judge him. Before the mob can kill the defendant, the police arrive, break up the proceedings, and arrest him and the other criminals. The film ends with the killer, Hans Beckert, facing the judges at his real trial, while the mothers of his victims weep in the gallery.

Like Alfred Hitchcocks The Lodger, released four years earlier, M broke new ground by exploring the subtle psychological and social factors around sexual homicide, instead of simply portraying murderers as mindlessly evil. Peter Lorres depiction of a torn, baby-faced, seemingly non-threatening killer made him an international star and cemented M as one of the greatest films of all time.

Six Weimar-era serial killers served, to varying degrees, as inspiration for Hans Beckert: Johann Mayer, Friedrich Schumann, Carl Gromann, Fritz Haarmann, Karl Denke, and perhaps most of all, Peter Krten, the so-called Vampire of Dsseldorf.

In March 1918, while his countrymen were mired in the trenches of Belgium and northern France, Johann Mayer committed his first murder. Born in 1886 to an impoverished single mother, he had spent much of his childhood roaming western Germany begging for alms. After losing his left forearm in an accident involving explosives while working at a quarry, he was nicknamed Stump Arm, and deemed unfit for military service. Due to his disability, Mayer was unable to find steady work and ended up poaching, stealing, and sleeping in hollow tree trunks to survive.

Despite his wretched situation, Mayer was able to establish friendships and relationshipsconnections that he would abuse to repeatedly and successfully commit murder. In March 1918, he shot Maria Dahm, a 23-year-old ex-girlfriend, with his carbine rifle in the woods near Mayen in the Rhineland. Eleven months later, he fatally shot 28-year-old Maria Falk. As with many Germans at the time, Falk made her living traveling from industrial Bonn to the countryside to trade city products for natural goods. Mayer, the poacher, dealt in wild game. When Maria learned about his unsavory past, she attempted to end their relationship. Sadly, she was found with a bullet in her head, lying in a forest between Masburg and Hauroth.

Later in that spring of 1919, Mayer shot his friends Nikolaus Schller and Lorenz Reuter with a rifle in the pine forest outside Reimerath-Boos. Reportedly, Mayer decapitated both men, swapping their heads in a gruesome attempt to mislead the police. Schllers body and Reuters head were soon discovered under juniper brushes by a group of youngsters. Reuters decapitated corpse was found quite some time later, half a mile north of Franzen Mill in the Arbachtal.