Audiobook7 hours
A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin: The Chilling True Story of the S-Bahn Murderer
Written by Scott Andrew Selby
Narrated by Don Hagen
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
3/5
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About this audiobook
As the Nazi war machine caused death and destruction throughout Europe, one man in the Fatherland began his own reign of terror.
This is the true story of the pursuit and capture of a serial killer in the heart of the Third Reich.
For all appearances, Paul Ogorzow was a model German. An employed family man, party member, and sergeant in the infamous Brownshirts, he had worked his way up in the Berlin railroad from a manual laborer laying track to assistant signalman. But he also had a secret need to harass and frighten women. Then he was given a gift from the Nazi high command.
Due to Allied bombing raids, a total blackout was instituted throughout Berlin, including on the commuter trains-trains often used by women riding home alone from the factories.
Under cover of darkness and with a helpless flock of victims to choose from, Ogorzow's depredations grew more and more horrific. He escalated from simply frightening women to physically attacking them, eventually raping and murdering them. Beginning in September 1940, he started casually tossing their bodies off the moving train. Though the Nazi party tried to censor news of the attacks, the women of Berlin soon lived in a state of constant fear.
It was up to Wilhelm Lüdtke, head of the Berlin police's serious crimes division, to hunt down the madman in their midst. For the first time, the gripping full story of Ogorzow's killing spree and Lüdtke's relentless pursuit is told in dramatic detail.
This is the true story of the pursuit and capture of a serial killer in the heart of the Third Reich.
For all appearances, Paul Ogorzow was a model German. An employed family man, party member, and sergeant in the infamous Brownshirts, he had worked his way up in the Berlin railroad from a manual laborer laying track to assistant signalman. But he also had a secret need to harass and frighten women. Then he was given a gift from the Nazi high command.
Due to Allied bombing raids, a total blackout was instituted throughout Berlin, including on the commuter trains-trains often used by women riding home alone from the factories.
Under cover of darkness and with a helpless flock of victims to choose from, Ogorzow's depredations grew more and more horrific. He escalated from simply frightening women to physically attacking them, eventually raping and murdering them. Beginning in September 1940, he started casually tossing their bodies off the moving train. Though the Nazi party tried to censor news of the attacks, the women of Berlin soon lived in a state of constant fear.
It was up to Wilhelm Lüdtke, head of the Berlin police's serious crimes division, to hunt down the madman in their midst. For the first time, the gripping full story of Ogorzow's killing spree and Lüdtke's relentless pursuit is told in dramatic detail.
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Reviews for A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin
Rating: 3.1851852740740743 out of 5 stars
3/5
27 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5did not
like, dull and not very exciting to me, i would bit suffeat it to anyone - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5A serial killer living among mass murders sounds like an ironically interesting topic. Sometimes we forget that only 10% of the German population were card carrying Nazis during WWII. Scott Selby does a good job methodically describing those ordinary people and the environments the murders took place in. I actually enjoyed that aspect of the book. Unfortunately, the book is very clinical. It goes into great detail describing the "how" of each murder, but it never digs into the why. Apparently the topic of mental health and human suffering isn't an issue to write about. The author just regurgitates the facts. There are very few literary tools used for dramatic intent. We just ride along with killer, figuratively watching him from his first murder to his last. We see the police slowly find clues to track him down, but his inevitable capture is anticlimactic.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5You sort of forget that during wartime the crimes of peacetime still carry on.
Using the original police files the author pieces together the story of this killer and the subsequent police investigation.
I'm not normally a fan of "true crime" and at times I felt the book was padded out, particularly the lengthy explanation of Nazi blackout regulations. However the process and the techniques that resulted in the murderers capture kept my attention as did the issue of trying to make public appeals for information when Goebbels Propaganda Ministry wants to keep it quiet.