"Crazy Bruno": The Story of Europe's Most Terrible Maniac Who Killed 85 People

It is believed that the record holder for the number of victims in Europe was the maniac Andrei Chikatilo, who killed 56 people. Anatoly Onoprienko, who killed 52 people, is slightly behind him. But the German maniac Bruno Ludke, nicknamed "Crazy Bruno", who committed 85 brutal murders, is almost never remembered. Why? The fact is that Ludke operated in Nazi Germany, and for a long time there was almost no information about him. In addition, many consider his case to be fabricated. But let's tell you everything in order!

Bruno Ludke was born in 1908 in the German city of Köpenick, into a poor family of a small laundry owner. He was the fourth of six children and lived in poverty from childhood. In addition, the boy was mentally retarded. Bruno studied in a special class for children with disabilities, and after finishing school he had no chance of getting a decent profession.

Having somehow learned to write and read, 16-year-old Bruno got a job as a coachman. He was catastrophically short of money, and the boy began to steal. He was arrested several times, but because of the diagnosis of "congenital feeblemindedness" he could not be convicted. But something worse than a prison sentence happened to him.

In 1940, Bruno Lüdke was caught for petty theft once again. But this time, he was not released, having found out his identity and diagnosis. He fell under the "Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases" passed by the Nazis in 1933, and was forcibly sterilized. But castration turned out to be ineffective, since it did not prevent Lüdke from committing sexual crimes.

On January 31, 1943, a woman's torn body was found in the forest near Köpenick. The killer had beaten her, raped her, and then strangled her with her own shawl. The killer had taken the victim's handbag with him. Criminal Police Commissioner Heinrich Franz, who was investigating the murder, noticed a harmless local idiot named Bruno hanging around the crime scene in the forest.

No one could even imagine that a sterilized feeble-minded man had committed this monstrous murder. He was well known in the city and considered absolutely harmless. But Franz still decided to interrogate Bruno, hoping that he had heard or seen something. So on March 18, 1943, Ludke was detained and taken to the police department.

The feeble-minded man did not tell Commissioner Franz anything interesting. But the investigator with thirty years of experience had a special premonition. He was kind to Bruno - he fed him lunch and took him to the bathhouse. Lyudke had never known such treatment before and decided that the policeman had become his best friend.

And suddenly Bruno Ludke confessed to murder, and not just one. He talked about his crimes for several days. It turned out that he started killing right after school, back in 1924. The maniac told about 86 massacres committed over the past 20 years in Köpenick and neighboring towns. His testimony was checked, and the police were able to confirm 53 murders and 3 more attempted murders.

By all accounts, Ludke was the European record holder for the number of murders. But the authorities did not know what to do with him. World War II was in full swing, and a trial of such a "productive" serial killer would have shown the helplessness of the Reich's law enforcement system. Even if the trial had been held behind closed doors, his deeds would sooner or later have become known to the general public.

They tried to find Jewish roots in the criminal so as not to harm Hitler's racial policy. But Ludke turned out to be a purebred German. Apparently, they simply decided to get rid of the "inconvenient" maniac without bringing the case to court. On April 8, 1944, he was found dead in a cell at the criminal-medical institute in Vienna. He was probably injected with poison.

But perhaps Ludke was simply tortured to death. At the Vienna Institute, the criminal was subjected to numerous experiments, including testing new medical drugs. His body was dissected, and his skeleton was transferred to a medical museum. The skeleton was lost in the 1960s. Today, at the University of Vienna, you can see only a bust of the maniac, made by a sculptor during his lifetime.

There is an opinion that Bruno Ludke killed far fewer people than he was credited with, or was even innocent. Some historians believe that a man with the intelligence of a 10-year-old child was simply blamed for all the unsolved sex crimes and murders. Whether this is true or not, we are unlikely to know. The only person who could have solved the mystery of "Crazy Bruno" - investigator Heinrich Franz - died at the very end of the war in Berlin during a bombing.

The story of Bruno Lüdke remains one of the most mysterious and controversial in the criminal chronicle. Whether he was a real serial killer or a victim of the Nazi system, we may never know. Do you think the Third Reich police could have fabricated this case, or was Lüdke really one of the most brutal criminals in Europe? Share your opinion in the comments!