Heinrich Pommerenke was convicted in October 1960 of murdering four women and girls in southwestern Germany and of twelve attempted murders. The regional court in Freiburg sentenced him to six terms of life imprisonment plus 15 years. German newspapers had called him "das Ungeheuer vom Schwarzwald," roughly "the beast of the Black Forest." He was never set free. When he died in a prison hospital in December 2008, aged 71, he had spent 49 years in custody, longer than any other prisoner in Germany, according to the German press agency dpa.
Pommerenke was born in 1937 in Bentwisch, near Rostock in Mecklenburg, in what became East Germany. In 1953 he moved to the Federal Republic. The taz reported that he soon began committing offenses in southern Germany and in Switzerland. A dpa report published at his death added that he had once played football with Wolfgang Schäuble, who was federal interior minister in 2008.
At the end of the 1950s Pommerenke killed four women and girls in Baden, in the southwest of the country, der Freitag wrote. dpa, in its 2008 report, put the span of the killings at 1958 to 1959; the taz and other accounts place them at the end of the 1950s.
In March 1959 he killed an 18-year-old woman. About two months later, according to the taz, he killed a 21-year-old woman, who was stabbed. On June 9, 1959, a 16-year-old girl was strangled near Baden-Baden. Details of the fourth killing have not been reported.
The taz, summarizing his record, counted four murders, seven further attempted murders and six robberies, among other offenses. dpa reported that he went on to confess to 65 crimes in all and that he had attacked several other women who survived.
He was arrested in Hornberg, a small town in the Black Forest, on June 19, 1959. The accounts of how police found him differ. The taz wrote that a break-in at a gun shop and the discovery of a rifle put police on his trail. dpa reported that he was found by chance, after a man discovered a gun that Pommerenke had left in a briefcase. The weekly der Freitag, reviewing a 2010 book on the case, said he had left the bag holding his rifle with a tailor, "whether deliberately or not."
Pommerenke himself told dpa in 2006 that the gun had been his last resort. "I wanted to get arrested," he said.
The trial was held before the Landgericht Freiburg, the regional court in Freiburg im Breisgau, in 1960. According to the taz, Pommerenke told the court: "Vor Ihnen sitzt kein Mensch, sondern der Teufel" ("It is not a man sitting in front of you, but the devil"). dpa attributed the same words to his confession.
In October 1960 the court convicted him and imposed six life sentences plus a further 15 years. Der Freitag put the total at 27 serious crimes: four murders, twelve attempted murders and other offenses including bodily harm and robbery. A 2012 radio feature produced at the University of Tübingen described the judgment as a sentence of 165 years, the strictest a West German court had handed down.
The chief prosecutor's closing image became the line most often quoted from the case. As dpa reported it, he said that nine gates would close behind Pommerenke, gates he would never walk through again, and that he would go into "Dante's Ninth Hell."
Der Freitag noted that most people serving life for murder in Germany were released after about 15 years, and that the Federal Constitutional Court later ruled that locking a prisoner away with no prospect of release was unconstitutional. Even so, the prosecutor's prediction held. The authorities did not give him the positive social prognosis that release required.
His decades inside were broken only by a few supervised outings. The first came in 1994, after 34 years in custody, according to the taz. A prison chaplain became his friend and advocate, der Freitag reported.
By 2001 his sentence was considered served, but he stayed in prison. In 2004 experts judged his release inappropriate. dpa reported that he was classed as "not qualified for release" and that the experts could not rule out that he remained a danger to the public. One reason given, the taz wrote, was that he had received too few hours of therapy. The Baden-Württemberg justice ministry said therapy could not begin without a positive social prognosis. A report by the psychiatrist Werner Berner put it the other way round: a positive prognosis could only be given once therapy had begun. The taz called it a vicious circle.
In February 2007 he was moved to the prison in the Hohenasperg fortress near Stuttgart, where he began social therapy. It was broken off soon afterward.
Asked what he would do if freed, he told dpa that he wanted to breed snails and fish. "Nature moves me," he said. He also said he did not want to be released "if women will run away from me screaming."
In mid-December 2008 Pommerenke was taken into intensive care at the Hohenasperg prison hospital. He had diabetes and was in poor health, the taz reported. dpa said he died of a blood disease; the Tübingen radio feature named it as leukemia. Guards found him dead in his bed on a Saturday, the taz reported in its edition of December 31, 2008. Both dpa and the taz described him as the longest-serving prisoner in Germany.
At the trial a link was drawn between one of the killings and a showing of the film The Ten Commandments (in German, Die 10 Gebote): a scene in the film was said to have set him off. The journalist Thomas A. Staisch, in his book Heinrich Pommerenke, Frauenmörder, tested that claim. According to der Freitag's review, he found that no cinema was showing the film on the day of the crime, so Pommerenke could not have gone from a screening to the victim in the time available. The reviewer praised the precision of that research and the book's attempt to describe the offender as a human being, while faulting its style and its brief treatment of the debate over preventive detention.
How he was caught: a gun-shop break-in and a rifle (taz), a briefcase with a gun found by a man (dpa), or a bag left with a tailor (der Freitag).
The span of the crimes: 1959 in most accounts; 1958 to 1959 in the dpa report.
The film as a trigger: raised in court, and contradicted by Staisch's check of where the film was showing, as der Freitag reported.
The total sentence: given in the press as six life terms plus 15 years; the Tübingen feature expresses it as 165 years.
The "devil" remark: placed at the trial by the taz and at his confession by dpa.
1937: Born in Bentwisch, near Rostock, Mecklenburg.
1953: Moves to West Germany.
March 1959: An 18-year-old woman is killed.
About two months later: A 21-year-old woman is killed.
June 9, 1959: A 16-year-old girl is strangled near Baden-Baden.
June 19, 1959: Arrested in Hornberg.
1960: Tried before the Landgericht Freiburg.
October 1960: Convicted of four murders and twelve attempted murders, with other charges; six life terms plus 15 years.
1994: First supervised outing, after 34 years in custody.
2001: Sentence considered served; he remains in prison.
2004: Experts judge release inappropriate.
February 2007: Moved to Hohenasperg for social therapy, later broken off.
Mid-December 2008: Taken into intensive care at the Hohenasperg prison hospital.
December 2008: Dies in the prison hospital, aged 71, after 49 years in custody.
September 2010: Thomas A. Staisch's book on the case is the subject of a review in der Freitag.