Lichtgedanken 04

Rubrik 45 04 | LICHT GEDANKEN the Third Reich following? And why did the horror story of the »monster« Lüdke hit a nerve with the public in the Federal Republic? Dr Axel Doßmann and Prof. Dr Susanne Regener have been following up on these and related questions. »Fabrika- tion eines Verbrechers. Der Fall Bruno Lüdke als Mediengeschichte« (Fabri­ cation of a criminal. The case of Bruno Lüdke as a media history) is the title of their recently published book. In the book, the historian from the University of Jena and cultural scientist from the University of Siegen discuss criminal- ity, violence and racist conceptions of man in the 20th century and do so in a way that is as thrilling as a detective story. The findings of their research are given a further level of reflection thanks to the special book design by Markus Dreßen: the readers are directly shown several evocative sources: crime scene photos, interrogation records, a bust of Lüdke from 1944, secret documents, film posters and magazine articles from the 1950s. Bruno Lüdke was a victim of the Nazis, not a serial killer Susanne Regener first came across Bruno Lüdke in the 1990s. She visited the Police Historical Collection in Berlin as part of her post-doctoral thesis and examined the social and cultural significance of »mug shots« and exhibited artefacts like a hand cast of Bruno Lüdke. The criminal case of Bruno Lüdke clearly shows the fabrication of conceptions of man and presentations of evil. Evidence suggests that high-ranking Nazis from the Reich Security Main Office (Reichs- sicherheitshauptamt) wanted to use the Lüdke case as a pretext for introducing a new social-racist law against so- called Gemeinschaftsfremde (socially undesirables). »This law would have made it legal to prosecute and murder all maladjusted Germans«, says Axel Doßmann. As a mentally ill serial killer, Bruno Lüdke would have provided the required foil for this law. Regener and Doßmann also show their doubt concerning previous theses about the murder of Lüdke. It is highly prob- able that Bruno Lüdke died as a result of an experiment with poisoned munition. The aim of this »Secret Reich matter« was to test assassination attempts for high-ranking politicians. »It is beyond doubt that Bruno Lüdke was a victim of the Nazis and not a serial killer«, confirms Axel Doßmann. »But it is not just the Nazis, but also the German Federal press and judicial system that share responsibility for the myth sur- rounding the serial killer: sixty years ago, on 17 April 1958, Hamburg Higher Regional Court legally sanctioned the fake news of the serial killer.« In the mid-1990s, Dutch criminologist Jan A. Blaauw proved in his meticulously de- tailed work that it is highly unlikely that Lüdke could have committed a single one of the crimes attributed to him. The book by Doßmann and Regener now elucidates this criminal case within the historical and media context and, in doing so, allows parallels to be drawn with the present day. For it is all too easy for the mentally ill and other outsiders to find themselves caught in the wheels of criminal proceedings and the justice system. Contact Dr Axel Doßmann Institute of History Fürstengraben 13, D-07743 Jena, Germany Phone: +49 36 41 9-44 483 Email: axel.dossmann@uni-jena.de www.histinst.uni-jena.de Bibliography Fabrikation eines Verbrechers. Der Krimi­ nalfall Bruno Lüdke als Mediengeschichte, Spector Books, Leipzig 2018, ISBN 987-3-95905-034-0 »Fake news« from the post-war period: Jena historian Dr Axel Doßmann and Siegen cultural scientist Prof. Dr Susanne Regener have reassessed the criminal case of Bruno Lüdke and the subsequent mediatiza- tion of evil: the alleged serial killer was a victim of the Nazi criminal investigation department and the media democracy of the 1950s. Here you can see the cover of their joint publication. Image left: The Police Museum in Berlin contained nu- merous artefacts relating to the case of the supposed serial killer Bruno Lüdke.