"RIPPER-MURDERER" SOUGHT REVENGE ON HUMANITY: THE WASHINGTON TIMES, MAY 26, 1930

For fifteen months Düsseldorf had been hunting a killer it could not see, and when he was finally caught he talked at once. Peter Kürten was taken without a struggle outside the Rochus church on Saturday, May 24, 1930, after his own wife told the police where he would be, and that same day he began to confess. Two days later The Washington Times carried the news on page 23 in four short paragraphs from the International News Service: the man it calls Peter Kuerten, a coachman, said he was the "ripper-murderer" who had terrorized the city, and that he had committed eight murders.

The paper gives him two sentences of his own, and they are the reason the item is worth keeping: "I wanted to avenge myself on humanity. It would be best to chop off my head immediately." The first was an explanation he would lay out for investigators at length, that the long, harsh prison sentences he had served since his teens had done nothing but teach him to hate. The second was a wish the state would grant, though not immediately. More than thirteen months passed between this confession and the guillotine.

The dispatch ends with Kürten leading officers to the scenes of several of the murders he said he had committed. His list would grow far past eight. For a time the charge sheet ran to nine murders, thirty-two attempted murders and twenty-seven arsons, and when his trial opened on April 13, 1931, he took the confession back, saying he had made it only so that his wife could claim the reward, then returned to it under questioning. The paper reached its readers on his forty-seventh birthday.

This is a wire brief from Germany reprinted in Washington, not a court record, and its few facts do not all fit together. The dateline reads May 22, two days before the Saturday arrest it reports; Kürten was taken into custody on May 24, 1930. The paper calls him a coachman, though he was an unemployed iron molder, and spells the name Kuerten. Eight murders was the number he gave in the first days of confessing. The court in Düsseldorf convicted him on April 22, 1931, of nine, among them the 1913 killing of Christine Klein, and he was guillotined in Cologne on July 2, 1931.

Printed in 1930, this issue of The Washington Times is more than ninety-five years old, and the page, dispatch and quotation included, is in the public domain without condition. The scan is the Library of Congress copy held in Chronicling America, and the full citation and the Library's rights statement appear below it.

The type is clean and well inked, and no word needed an [illegible] mark. The spellings are the paper's: "Kuerten" in the text, "DUSSELDORF" in capitals with neither umlaut nor "ue" in the dateline, the news service credit as "(I.N.S.)" and the American "terrorized." The dispatch is complete in itself and stops at a rule; the story printed under it, about Sunday sports, is not part of it.

The Washington Times, May 26, 1930, page 23, column 6: a short dispatch headed "Ripper-Murderer" Sought Revenge On Humanity, datelined Dusseldorf, with his two-sentence quotation set as its own paragraph. A rule closes it above an unrelated story. — The Washington Times (Washington, D.C.), May 26, 1930, page 23, column 6: "\"Ripper-Murderer\" Sought Revenge On Humanity." Library of Congress, Chronicling America (LCCN sn84026749).Select the scan to open it at full size. The full newspaper page: JPG or PDF.Rights: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety." This issue was published in 1930.

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

"Ripper-Murderer" Sought Revenge On Humanity

DUSSELDORF, Germany, May 22 (I.N.S.).—Peter Kuerten, coachman, who has confessed to police that he is the so-called "ripper-murderer" who terrorized residents here, told police today that he has committed eight murders.

He told police:

"I wanted to avenge myself on humanity. It would be best to chop off my head immediately."

Kuerten was arrested Saturday and led officers to the scenes of several of the murders he says he committed.

Transcriber's notes

- Readability: excellent. Clean, well-inked type. No [illegible] markers were needed.

- Kept as printed: "DUSSELDORF" without the umlaut or the "ue" digraph in the dateline, against "Kuerten" in the text (SKC files him as Peter Kurten; the German is Peter Kürten); the International News Service credit as "(I.N.S.)"; and "terrorized".

- The dispatch is datelined 22 May but was printed on 26 May; Kürten was taken into custody on Saturday 24 May 1930, which the paper reports as "arrested Saturday". The dateline is transcribed exactly as printed.

- This is a short, self-contained item. It ends at a rule, below which an unrelated story ("SUNDAY SPORTS PAIN PASTORS") begins; that story is not part of the article.