Jürgen Bartsch
Encyclopedia
Jürgen Bartsch was a German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

 who murdered four children and attempted to kill another.

Bartsch was born Karl-Heinz Sadrozinski in 1946 as an illegitimate child in Essen. His birth mother died of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

 soon afterward, and he spent the first months of his life being cared for by nurses, until at 11 months he was adopted by a butcher and his wife in Langenberg
Langenberg
Langenberg is a quarter in Velbert, a German city. Located in this district is the famous Sender Langenberg transmission site, which transmits MW, FM, and TV broadcasting signals....

 (today Velbert-Langenberg). From then on he was called Jürgen Bartsch. Bartsch's adoptive mother, who suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...

, was fixated on cleanliness. He was not permitted to play with other children, lest he become dirty. This continued into adulthood; his mother personally bathed him until he was 19 . At the age of 10, Bartsch entered school. Because, in his parents' opinion, it was not sufficiently strict, he was moved to a Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 boarding school.

Bartsch began killing at the age of fifteen. His first victim was Klaus Jung who was murdered in 1961. His next victim was Peter Fuchs who was killed four years later in 1965. He persuaded all of his victims to accompany him into an abandoned air-raid shelter, where he forced them to undress and then sexually abused
Sexual abuse
Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...

 them. He dismembered his first four victims. His intended fifth victim, 15-year-old Peter Frese, however, escaped by burning through his bindings with a candle that Bartsch had left burning after leaving the shelter. Bartsch was arrested in 1966.

Upon arrest, Bartsch openly confessed to his crimes. He was sentenced to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...

 on December 15, 1967, by the Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...

 regional court (Landgericht Wuppertal). Initially, the sentence was upheld on appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....

. However, in 1971, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany
Federal Court of Justice of Germany
The Federal Court of Justice of Germany in Karlsruhe is the highest court in the system of ordinary jurisdiction in Germany. It is the supreme court in all matters of criminal and private law...

, returned the case to the Landgericht Düsseldorf, which reduced the sentence to 10 years of juvenile detention and had Bartsch placed under psychiatric care in Eickelborn. There, he married Gisela Deike of Hanover
Hanover
Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...

 on February 15, 1973.

The forensic psychiatrists considered various therapy concepts: psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...

, castration
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...

 and even psychosurgery
Psychosurgery
Psychosurgery, also called neurosurgery for mental disorder , is the neurosurgical treatment of mental disorder. Psychosurgery has always been a controversial medical field. The modern history of psychosurgery begins in the 1880s under the Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt...

. Bartsch initially refused any surgery but finally agreed to voluntary castration
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...

 on April 28, 1976 in order to avoid lifetime incarceration in a mental hospital. This was about ten years after incarceration, two years after his marriage, and after his depressive
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...

 condition did not improve. The doctors of Eickelborn State Hospital chose a castration methodology that accidentally resulted in Bartsch's death. An official autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...

 and investigation
Criminal procedure
Criminal procedure refers to the legal process for adjudicating claims that someone has violated criminal law.-Basic rights:Currently, in many countries with a democratic system and the rule of law, criminal procedure puts the burden of proof on the prosecution – that is, it is up to the...

 determined that Bartsch had been intoxicated with a Halothane
Halothane
Halothane is an inhalational general anesthetic. Its IUPAC name is 2-bromo-2-chloro-1,1,1-trifluoroethane. It is the only inhalational anesthetic agent containing a bromine atom; there are several other halogenated anesthesia agents which lack the bromine atom and do contain the fluorine and...

 overdose (factor 10) by an insufficiently trained nurse.

Film and literature

The 2002 film Ein Leben lang kurze Hosen tragen (released in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 2004, as The Child I Never Was) depicts Bartsch's life and crimes.

Bethlehem
Bethlehem (German band)
Bethlehem is a German extreme metal band from Grevenbroich, formed in 1991 by Jürgen Bartsch and Kläus Matton. Before starting Bethlehem, Bartsch and Matton used to play in a German Thrash metal band called Morbid Vision...

's bassist and main songwriter uses the name Jürgen Bartsch.
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