Author Topic: German Monsters  (Read 64 times)

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raul

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German Monsters
« on: October 08, 2022, 08:24:01 am »
Klaus Gossman
The Midday Killer
Taken from author Robert Keller

Klaus Gossman was exposed to violence at an early age. In his case, he saw his father shot to death by American soldiers towards the end of World War Two, when he was just four years old. What impact that had on the young Klaus is difficult to gage. He grew up as a fairly normal kid, albeit one with conflicting passions. On the one hand, he was determined to become a priest, on the other, he was obsessed with firearms. By the age of 19, those mismatched obsessions were still close to his heart. He was studying theology at the University of Nuremburg, he was also a gun-nut who professed to friends his intention to become a “Death Agent.”

In 1960, he took his first step towards realizing that ambition.
Gossman was a meticulous planner. On the morning of his first murder he went to the university library at around midmorning to catch up on some study. At around ten before twelve he left the building and joined the milling crowds on the campus, eventually following a couple to an isolated spot. Still Gossman hung back. He was waiting, waiting until midday when the church bells in the university town began chiming. Using the cacophony to disguise the sound of his pistol, he fired four shots, killing the man and woman. Then he walked calmly back to the library and resumed his studies as though nothing had happened. That night he described the shootings in his diary. He also reiterated his desire to become a priest.     

The double murder cause an uproar on the university campus, but despite the best efforts of the police they went unsolved. In any case, they appeared to have sated Gossman’s bloodlust.
He remained inactive for the next two years. When he returned, in 1962, it was to carry out a daring bank robbery in Ochenbruch, entering the building just as the noonday bells began to chime. As before, Gossman had been meticulous in his planning and no resistance was offered. Nonetheless, he just could not help himself. On the way out, he turned his gun on bank manager Erich Bauer Hall, firing off a volley that left the man bleeding to death on the floor.     

Encouraged by his success as a bank robber, Gossman decided to carry out another heist just a few months later. He struck at midday and again committed a senseless murder at the scene, gunning down a bank employee even though the staff had complied with his every demand.

By now, the word was out about the “Midday Killer” and the police stepped up their surveillance of Nuremburg’s banks. Unperturbed, Gossman simply shifted focus. On March 29, 1963, he held up a gun shop, shooting the elderly owner Karola Hannwacker, and her 29-year-old son Helmut, in the process. As always, he used the sound of church bells to disguise the volley of bullets he unleashed.

Gossman had by now abandoned his studies and with them his plans to enter the priesthood. Instead, he opted for a life in the military, joining the German Bundeswehr (army) in December 1964. However, despite his love of weaponry, he found that military discipline was not to his liking and he deserted just four months later. 
Making his way back to Nuremburg, Gossman lay low until June 1, 1965, when he committed an unusually random crime, one that was always likely to get him caught. Entering the Brenninkmeijer department store at around noon, he tried to snatch a purse from a female customer. The woman, however, was not about to give up her belongings without a fight. As she and Gossman wrestled over the purse, a janitor, Hermann Thieme, tried to intervene.
Gossman then drew his pistol and shot Thieme dead, before firing several bullets into the crowd, hitting and injuring two customers. He fled out into the street and tried to flee, but he’d emptied his revolver in the fracas and was soon overwhelmed by the crowd. But for the intervention of the police, he might well have been lynched on the spot.   

With Gossman in custody, the police carried out a search of his home and found a journal that carried a detailed description of each of the murders, as well as an elaborate plan to kidnap the German-born Hollywood actress, Elke Sommer. 

Gossman appeared before the Nuremburg courts in July 1967, charged with seven counts of murder, robbery and aggravated assault. He appeared unconcerned by his predicament, laughing and joking and quoting to the judge from Machiavelli and Nietzsche. He was less jovial when the sentence was announced, life in prison at the tough Straubing penitentiary.

In the years since his imprisonment, Gossman has filed several appeals for clemency. All have been rejected. He remains, as of 2015, the longest serving inmate in the German penal system

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