Karl Denke - The Cannibal of Ziebice Poland

Karl Denke - The Cannibal of Ziebice Poland

          Karl Denke - The Cannibal of Ziebice Poland

Karl was born into a wealthy farming family, August 10, 1870 in Oberkunzendorf (near present Ziębice, in what is now Poland), within the territory of Lower Silesia. Ten years later he moved to Muensterberg (today Ziębice). Described by his teachers as a "very stubborn" guy and he has "no respect for teachers," Karl was a student who was bored in class, drew very bad notes and constantly received punishment and reprimands from their teachers, who considered him a " idiot ", not only because of their learning difficulties but because until six years he learned not to speak ...

Karl Denke handwriting.

After finishing school, at age 12 Karl ran away from home, and survived as an apprentice gardener, for a period which not much is known of his life. He was already at 25, starting an economically independent life, because his father died and, although the estate passed to his older brother, he received enough money from inheritance to buy land, although he was wrong in his attempt practice farming and had to sell that land, getting enough with that sale to buy a house in what is now Stawowa Street in Ziebice capital. However, their savings were gone before the fierce inflationary crisis of his time, and then had to rent his house, although he did not move but stayed in a small apartment on the right side of the ground floor, also he continued to occupy the shop standing next to the house.

With regard to your social life, it is known that it was a subject alone that he is not coming "no man or woman" (it never met couple, for example), even though the people of his community appreciated it, as it was a quiet and gentle man, who was active in the religious life of the town, gave alms relatively frequently and even invited homeless people to sleep at home, reaching, under that charitable attitude, to be dubbed "Vatter Denke," that is, "Dad Denke". Because of its good behavior as it was not known any defect (it was not an alcoholic and was known some paraphilia), the police came to give you a vendor's license, which Karl took the opportunity to sell belts, suspenders, belts, shoelaces and "marinated boneless pork". Thanks to that Karl managed to survive in the midst of a crisis where the middle class was increasingly asphyxiated, to the point that many families ate as if they were poor. Nobody knew where he got his products Karl, and as it was so quiet, no one thought to suspect that all those things that he sold were nothing more and nothing less than made from human flesh and skin ...

Before the dark side of Karl was discovered, one might think that his older brother witnessed, the only occasion when Karl accepted an invitation to dinner from his family, which could be seen as a brief hint of the trend that would explain the source Karl products sold; since, he told the elder brother of Karl, Karl had eaten two pounds of meat, so from that day was called "The Glutton" all jokingly, never imagining what lay behind that inordinate appetite The meat…

The hidden monster

Drawing recreates Karl Denke killing a peak instrument more used to commit the murders.

Not much is known of the personality of Karl Denke, as his case was forgotten until 1999 Lucyna Bialy, in charge of the Library of the Wroclaw University of Silesia, he revived this murderer based on a publication supported on investigations German press of the twenties. So, what we know about Karl comes from documents and scattered observations of relatives, acquaintances and fellow citizens. In this context of limited data, it is known that their crimes were not related to sexual motivations, and rather obeyed an operational rationality devoid of all morality and invested in a chilling Machiavellianism, in theory, is supposed to Karl killed to feed and get money in the midst of an economic crisis. Most likely there was something else, and it is speculated, based on the information that exists, that Karl was at heart a very selfish subject, partly because of their insufficient intellectual capacity to reflect on moral concepts, had no real awareness of what I was doing, which is not to be interpreted as meaning that he knew that his actions were wrong, because he knew, but lacked empathy and sufficient understanding of what morally meant their murders beyond the mere fact of being bad. We have so Karl simply looking to survive, and to do generally resorted to Rovers train station, to which he invited home after gaining their trust, without these suspected that end up as "pickled pork" in the market.

Most of his victims were homeless male, and all followed the same procedure: led to the victim's apartment and in an unguarded moment of this, beat her with a pickaxe, over and over again to death ... already dead, butchered methodically undid what the body no good, and the rest is kept according to him were to give ...

Surprisingly, Karl began to kill quite late, when he was 39 years old. His first victim was Emma Sander 25, in 1909. However, its dark trend recently blossomed fully in 1921 (when he was 51 years), as it was between that year and 1924 when Karl killed virtually all its victims, as inferred from a set of sheets that wrote down the names of the victims, dates of deaths, and the weight of bodies, especially in the context of a macabre plan to sell its tasty pickled pork and other products ...

This is the home of Karl Denke: he occupied an apartment on the bottom and a store that stood at the foot of the house, the rest rented. There, between 1921 and 1924, he committed almost all murders.

Before the episode that resulted in the capture of Karl, neighbors had complained several times of strong, pungent odor coming from his apartment. Besides Karl always he had a lot of meat, even when no one had money to buy meat ... Where would remove the flesh? Kill stray dogs to sell their meat was illegal, and neighbors suspected that the dogs were the source of the raw material marinades Karl, but nobody tried to do something because I felt pleased by Karl and did not give importance to the lives of dogs . And blood cubes yard? If the meat was dog, blood should also be dog, and no matter ... Finally, there were the constant noise of hammering and sawing coming from the apartment Karl, and the fact that they often saw a night out with large covers, and always return empty-handed ... What was it ?, also covers dogs Sacaba alleged money for other things or selling these same things were made of dog? This was a mere suspicion, and the worst they could think of Karl, was that he was exploiting the poor stray dogs for a living. But selling was good, and that, coupled with the fact that he was considered a good guy, was enough to leave him alone and they did not give much importance to the conjecture dogs ...

The fall day

Between twelve and one in the afternoon of December 21, 1924, the coachman Gabriel, Karl Denke tenant, heard cries for help coming from the ground floor. Fearful that Karl had been wounded, he ran down to help, but found Karl, but a young man who walked unsteadily in the hallway, with his face covered in agony and blood dripping from cracks in his skull open ... thunderstruck Gabriel watched the young man approached him, fighting the unconsciousness that finally struck after it reached tell that "Dad Denke had attacked him with a peak" ...

Fortunately Gabriel could help the young man, a drifter named Vincenz Oliver. Thus, at about one in the afternoon, Vincenz appeared with bated breath at the police station. There he told all the horrors to impressed police, who refused to believe that Karl was capable of such atrocities but, at the insistence of Vincenz, ended up believing that it was possible and arrested Karl, who insisted he was only defending his property of an "unknown thief." But he lied, and before human remains legal might make him a check mate on the night of his arrest, a guard found the body of Karl Denke in the cell. Karl Denke had hanged himself with a rope made of tissue, as he preferred to disappear forever rather than face the shame and rejection public, rather than being known for what he really was: a bloodthirsty monster.

Report of Horrors

After the body of Karl was returned to his family, the police went to the house of it, right on Christmas morning 1924, a day that should be marked by family joy, devotion to the Savior and charity but not the unspeakable horrors that they would soon see in the store of Karl, and were later in 1926, published in a report presented by Friedrich Pietrusky (then acting head of the Institute of Legal Medicine in Breslau) and appeared in the Deutsche Zeitschrift Gerichtliche gesamte für Medizin , which we report here some fragments that have translated and we consider particularly interesting:

Place where human flesh pots, prepared by Karl found.

<< The first findings in search Denke house were bones and pieces of meat. The latter were in a salt solution that was in a wooden drum. There were a total of fifteen pieces of skin. >>

<< No evidence of vital reaction of organisms to the cuts, which means that the latter does not take place while the victims were still alive. However, some skin and muscles of the neck were missing, as well as the extremities [arms and legs], head and sexual organs. The injuries could not be determined, nor the nature of death or tool of crime. >>

<< In three medium-sized pots filled with cream sauce, he found some cooked meat, partially covered with skin and human hair. The meat was pink and soft. All pieces seemed cut from the gluteal area [rear]. A pot was only half portion. Denke must have eaten the other portion before being arrested. >>

<< I would like to mention here that there is no evidence that Denke has never sold the flesh of their victims [all evidence has obviously been eaten!]. However, it seems certain that your guests, that is, the homeless, volunteered to eat it. >>

<< In the shed, where the meat pieces were found, there was also a barrel full of bones were cleaned of tendons, muscles, etc., which most likely have been removed after precooking (...). Other remains were found behind the shed. Besides there was a leg that remained in the pond that Denke had dug many years before, and skeletal parts were discovered in the local forest. >>

Photo showing the bones of some victims of Karl Denke.

<< The cut surfaces of the bones are irregular, as if he had blunt force applied, as the blunt end of an ax or a hammer. Some bones were visibly sawed. Few places show traces of a sharp (...) tool. Similarly such traces in the joints, which must have been cut with a knife found. >>

<< The teeth that were found belonged certainly to at least twenty people [...]. However Professor Euler notes that some individual teeth appear more than twice that expected statistically (referring to the second premolars and incisors), suggesting that it might have been even more victims. >>

<< Professor Euler summarized that among the victims was certainly a person who was no older than sixteen, while most were significantly older than forty years, two people were probably twenty or thirty years old, and had between thirty and forty. >>

<< Tests have not given a positive result on the sex of individuals, or their jobs. >>

<< Among the straps Denke, three pairs were made of human skin. They are about six centimeters wide and two feet long. The leather is soft and is broken at one point. It does not appear tanned, only dry and free of subcutaneous tissue (...). All straps show signs of use and one of them was found in the same Denke. >>

<< Beside suspenders, Denke also had leather strips cut from human skin, treated with bitumen and whose parts were assembled with pieces and strips of cloth. >>

Photo showing pica (above) Karl commonly used to kill his victims, and saw and knives used to cut them once dead.

<< Many of these cords were made of human hair. >>

<< A large number of ID cards and private documents of several people were found in the room Denke and ledgers of income in the garden, working hours, etc. (...). more attention to some loose sheets of paper on which the names of thirty men and women appear is granted. In front of each name there is a date - probably the date of death of the person. At number 31 there is only a date. Registration is cronológico.La numbering starts only at number eleven. In the case of women, only the name indicates, notes for men are much more detailed, usually with the date of birth, place of stay and the status of the person concerned. The assumption that this is the list of victims is justified by the fact that the identification cards found in the room Denke belonged to people whose whereabouts could not be identified by other means (...). By the looks of leaves, you can assume that the list has not been done in a day. On the one hand (leaves) are the initials of the name followed by a number, which most likely indicates the weight of the person concerned. On another sheet of paper, next to a name it highlights the following: "dead, 122, 107 naked, disembowelled 83" >>.

<< Of the tools used for killings and fragmentation of the bodies, these can be divided into: three axes, a wood saw, a hacksaw to cut trees, a sink, and three knives >>.