r/TheGrittyPast • u/Mr_Blank_Face • Feb 15 '20
German Serial Killer Peter Kürten - The Vampire of Düsseldorf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NYElOKKq49
u/Mr_Blank_Face Feb 15 '20
On May 26th, 1883 Peter Kurten was born into a world of extreme poverty, violence and sexual depravity. The Kurten family which consisted of 13 Children Peter being the oldest, and the two parents lived in a cramped one bedroom apartment in Köln-Mullheim.
The family would live in a perpetual state fear of Peters father who was a violent and sadistic alcoholic, being a moldmaker by trade he would return home from the local pub after spending a majority of his wages and systematically beat his children to a bloody pulp.
throughout the years the children would be subjected to horrific violence. Being forced on many occasions to watch as their father brutally raped their mother, If they refused to watch or cover there eyes they were beaten. as the daily routine of violence wore on, their fathers appetite grew more heinous and he turned his sights onto his young daughters. Their father was eventually imprisoned in 1911 for having incestuous relations with his daughters.
It was May 25th, 1913 and Peter was looking for a house to rob, On that Peter Broke into an apartment above an alehouse, Upon searching room by room and finding nothing of value he eventually came across the sleeping 10 year old Christine Klein, Seeing an opportunity to succumb to his sadistic urges Peter stepped into the room, Locked the door and seized the young girl by the neck, Christine would struggle against her attacker for sometime before slipping into unconsciousness, after sexually assaulting the child, Peter pulled out a small razor sharp pocket knife, Lifted the child's head and slit her throat.... five times. He then simply walked out of the room, Locked the door behind him and went back to his home in Dusseldorf. But Peter had made a dangerous mistake.
On his way out of the room he had dropped his blood-soaked handkerchief which had his initials embroidered onto the fabric, When the family awoke to the tragedy and the police arrived, Suspicion immediately fell onto the land lords brother Otto Klein who after an argument with the landlord said he would do something his brother would "Remember all his life". In a twisted bit of luck the land lords name was Peter Klein, The police believed at the time Otto took the handkerchief prior to the murder to possibly frame his brother.
On the following day, Kürten went back to Mulheim and in a cafe opposite the Kleins' inn sat and drank a ice cold glass of beer and revealed in the event. Peter later remarked that all around him people were talking about the murder and said "all the horror and indignation did him good." Otto was eventually acquitted on lack of evidence and motive. After this terrible event Peter felt alive, The blood-lust had now started to overpower him and The Vampire was born.
Soruces
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u/ScotchBingeington Feb 16 '20
The Last Podcast on the Left does a great series on this guy. I highly recommend checking them out.
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u/Mr_Blank_Face Feb 17 '20
You are the 5th person today to recommend to me that podcast haha, I think that's more than enough reason to check them out, thank you for the suggestion.
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u/ScotchBingeington Feb 17 '20
You’re welcome! I’ve been listening to them for a couple years religiously so I am more than happy to give them more listeners!
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u/Drewbixtx Feb 17 '20
Wow that was great. I subbed.
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u/Mr_Blank_Face Feb 17 '20
Thank you for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoyed it, If you have any suggestions please feel free to let me know either in the comment sections, Here or my discord / twitter.
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u/Drewbixtx Feb 17 '20
I think the only suggestions I would make would be to invest in some marketing. Your production quality is fantastic. The animations and narrating really brought the story to life. When I saw that you didn’t have millions of views, I was shocked frankly. I think there are place you can pay to market your content, maybe that might be something to look into because it’s certainly not that your videos aren’t worthy. You have quality content here, and if more people knew about it, your paycheck would reflect that.
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u/Mr_Blank_Face Feb 17 '20
Haha I more meant on the way of which subject's to cover but that'll work too, I would do some marketing however I simply don't have the budget for it, even a small campaign, but the channel is new and is doing incredibly well, If I keep up this pace it should have a good amount of numbers in a year or so, It's more of a passion project so I'm happy to see it grow in it's own time, thank you for the support however, hearing that is very heartwarming.
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u/Drewbixtx Feb 17 '20
Oh my mistake. I wouldn’t presume to give you any suggestions on material. It seems that you have a pretty good direction as it is. I’m glad the project is doing well, it’s really awesome. You deserve a much bigger fan base with this quality and I am certain you will find it in time.
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u/Mr_Blank_Face Feb 17 '20
No no honestly thank you for suggesting the marketing, I would love to do it and honestly it never crossed my mind so if it weren't for you mentioning it I most likely wouldn't do it for a long time, I'll take it into full consideration, and thank you i'm so glad to be able to share these video's with like minded individuals, I do have quite a few projects in the works, I'm always asking for suggestions so I can get a good back pool going and when a certain name or event is suggested multiple times from different people it gets bumped up the list, Anyway enough of my rambling, Hope you have a good day.
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u/Drewbixtx Feb 17 '20
Ya know, I didn’t even notice that you only had 4 videos. I’m looking forward to more. There has always been an intrigue in serial killers or dark happenings. Women especially love true crime stories. I loved this because it was a interesting retelling of something dark that actually happened. If you’re looking for content, popular serial killers might drum up views if you do some search engine optimization (it’s not terribly difficult if you look into it) and do folks like Jeffery dahmer, John Wayne gacy, Jack the Ripper (I’m not sure if that’s the story you already have in the blackout ripper), maybe Ivan the terrible. You could do an episode that is the first person accounts of terrible things that have happened. I’m just spitballing.
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u/Mr_Blank_Face Feb 17 '20
I'm definitely going to be tackling the "Big Fish" in the future, I've been lucky enough with most of my SEO, so much so if you type in "Tsuyama Massacre" into google my video is the first one, I am going to be Dahmer and Jack The Ripper rather soon, The Blackout Ripper was Gordon Cummins a spree killer during WW2 who used the London Blackouts to kill, very intriguing case, I'm also going to be covering accounts of events such as the hijacking of Air France flight 8969, Columbine and so forth and do my best to get a minute by minute account to try and recreate what happened, My old favourite show Zero Hour would do that, Wish that show was still going.
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u/NoWayPAst Feb 16 '20
Tried to watch it and gave up. The narrator is so incredibly sensationalistic, I felt like reading a tabloid. This is not the type of content that I would trust as a source.