Rosemarie Nitribitt
Encyclopedia
Rosalie Marie Auguste Nitribitt (February 1, 1933 – October 29, 1957) was a German
call girl
whose violent death caused a scandal in the Germany of the Wirtschaftswunder
years.
, North Rhine-Westphalia
, "Rosemarie" Nitribitt and her two younger half-sisters were raised in poor conditions by their mother in Ratingen
and Düsseldorf. The girls were placed in a juvenile home and after 1939 lived with foster parents. There she was raped at the age of 11. Still in her teenage years, she recognized the full potential her budding beauty might earn her and embarked on a life as a prostitute
. She was later to juvenile correctional homes, from where she escaped several times. She then moved to Frankfurt am Main
, where, after a brief interlude of waitressing
and modelling
, she took up prostitution again and was arrested at the Frankfurt railway station in 1951.
According to people who knew her at the time, Nitribitt tried hard to disguise her humble origins in order to be able to keep up conversation in posh society and to attract more sophisticated customers. For example, she started learning English
and French
, though with little success.
Nevertheless she did succeed in getting male attention and in acquiring a stock of wealthy clients. One of her regular customers gave her a car — a used Opel Kapitän
— as a present, which at the time was quite an unusual possession for a woman in her early twenties. Others invited her to spend a Mediterranean holiday with them. Accordingly, she became very wealthy rather quickly, a fact which she demonstrated by buying a black Mercedes 190 SL (a roadster
which was to be colloquially referred to as the Nitribitt-Mercedes) with red leather upholstery in 1956; she would drive around in Frankfurt in this car to solicit customers. Also in 1956, she moved into a luxurious apartment at Stiftstr. 36. The police later estimated that she had earned about 80,000 DM
in 1956 (building a family house cost about 25,000 - 30,000 DM in Germany at the time).
and a head wound.
She was interred at the Nordfriedhof (Northern cemetery), Düsseldorf
. Her head, however, was kept as evidence in police custody and later exhibited in the Kriminalmuseum (criminal museum) in Frankfurt; it was eventually buried on February 10, 2008.
and her close friend and benefactor Harald von Bohlen und Halbach, brother of the head of the Krupp
company.
Heinz Pohlmann, a businessman and friend of Nitribitt's, became the prime suspect. He had visited her on October 29. A few days after the murder he was able to settle high debts and bought an expensive car, but could not explain the origins of the money; he provided contradictory information during questioning. He had embezzled money at his job. He was charged with her murder but acquitted
in July 1960 on grounds of reasonable doubt. Pohlmann's lawyer had argued that the police had failed, on examining Nitribitt's apartment, to measure the precise temperature there, a fact which he claimed would have been essential in determining the exact time of her death. The prosecution did not appeal
the acquittal.
When it became clear that the police would not be able to find the murderer it was insinuated in the media that high-ranking personalities were trying to thwart any attempts at solving the crime.
Nine years after Nitribitt's murder, a very similar case occurred in Frankfurt. The high-class prostitute Helga Matura, who also solicited customers by driving a Mercedes, was murdered, and the case was never solved.
In 1968, a forged stamp circulated in Germany, showing a murdered Nitribitt and the text "Zehn Jahre Trauer um R. Nitribitt" ("10 years mourning for R. Nitribitt").
black-and-white
movie by Rolf Thiele
, Das Mädchen Rosemarie. The film starred Nadja Tiller
(in the title role), Peter van Eyck
, Gert Fröbe
, and Mario Adorf
.
In this fictional film, Nitribitt is presented as just one of many entrepreneur
s during the Wirtschaftswunder who wants her piece of the new fortune. She uses her charms to bring members of the West German industrial elite to her bed. There she finds business secrets and later sells them to French competitors. However, when a scandal looms on the horizon, Rosemarie realizes that she cannot beat the system.
In a 1996
remake
by Bernd Eichinger
, Nina Hoss
played Nitribitt. Other actors included Heiner Lauterbach
, Hannelore Elsner
, Katja Flint
, and Til Schweiger
.
2004 saw the première of the musical
of the same title at the Capitol Theater, Düsseldorf.
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...
call girl
Call girl
A call girl or female escort is a sex worker who is not visible to the general public; nor does she usually work in an institution like a brothel, although she may be employed by an escort agency...
whose violent death caused a scandal in the Germany of the Wirtschaftswunder
Wirtschaftswunder
The term describes the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II . The expression was used by The Times in 1950...
years.
Early life and career
Born in DüsseldorfDüsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...
, "Rosemarie" Nitribitt and her two younger half-sisters were raised in poor conditions by their mother in Ratingen
Ratingen
Ratingen is a town in the district of Mettmann, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in the northwestern part of Berg - about 12 km northeast of Düsseldorf...
and Düsseldorf. The girls were placed in a juvenile home and after 1939 lived with foster parents. There she was raped at the age of 11. Still in her teenage years, she recognized the full potential her budding beauty might earn her and embarked on a life as a prostitute
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
. She was later to juvenile correctional homes, from where she escaped several times. She then moved to Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, where, after a brief interlude of waitressing
Waiter
Waiting staff, wait staff, or waitstaff are those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers — supplying them with food and drink as requested. Traditionally, a male waiting tables is called a "waiter" and a female a "waitress" with the gender-neutral version being a "server"...
and modelling
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
, she took up prostitution again and was arrested at the Frankfurt railway station in 1951.
According to people who knew her at the time, Nitribitt tried hard to disguise her humble origins in order to be able to keep up conversation in posh society and to attract more sophisticated customers. For example, she started learning English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, though with little success.
Nevertheless she did succeed in getting male attention and in acquiring a stock of wealthy clients. One of her regular customers gave her a car — a used Opel Kapitän
Opel Kapitän
The Kapitän was the last new Opel model to appear before the outbreak of the Second World War, developed during 1938 and launched in the spring of 1939 at the Geneva motor show. The first Kapitän was available in many different body styles, the most popular one being the 4-door saloon. 2-door...
— as a present, which at the time was quite an unusual possession for a woman in her early twenties. Others invited her to spend a Mediterranean holiday with them. Accordingly, she became very wealthy rather quickly, a fact which she demonstrated by buying a black Mercedes 190 SL (a roadster
Roadster
A roadster is a two-seat open car with emphasis on sporty handling and without a fixed roof or side weather protection. Strictly speaking a roadster with wind-up windows is a convertible but as true roadsters are no longer made the distinction is now irrelevant...
which was to be colloquially referred to as the Nitribitt-Mercedes) with red leather upholstery in 1956; she would drive around in Frankfurt in this car to solicit customers. Also in 1956, she moved into a luxurious apartment at Stiftstr. 36. The police later estimated that she had earned about 80,000 DM
German mark
The Deutsche Mark |mark]], abbreviated "DM") was the official currency of West Germany and Germany until the adoption of the euro in 2002. It is commonly called the "Deutschmark" in English but not in German. Germans often say "Mark" or "D-Mark"...
in 1956 (building a family house cost about 25,000 - 30,000 DM in Germany at the time).
Death
On November 1, 1957 she was found dead in her apartment in Frankfurt. Her death was alleged to have occurred three days earlier. Her body showed signs of strangulationStrangling
Strangling is compression of the neck that may lead to unconsciousness or death by causing an increasingly hypoxic state in the brain. Fatal strangling typically occurs in cases of violence, accidents, and as the auxiliary lethal mechanism in hangings in the event the neck does not break...
and a head wound.
She was interred at the Nordfriedhof (Northern cemetery), Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
. Her head, however, was kept as evidence in police custody and later exhibited in the Kriminalmuseum (criminal museum) in Frankfurt; it was eventually buried on February 10, 2008.
Police investigations and the trial of Heinz Pohlmann
Police investigations into the case were conducted very sloppily, with much evidence being destroyed during the first days. Several prominent citizens were exposed as her personal acquaintances, including Gunter SachsGunter Sachs
Fritz Gunter Sachs was a German photographer, author, industrialist, and latterly head of an institute that researched claims of astrology. As a young man he became a sportsman, then gained international fame as a documentary film-maker and documentary photographer...
and her close friend and benefactor Harald von Bohlen und Halbach, brother of the head of the Krupp
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
company.
Heinz Pohlmann, a businessman and friend of Nitribitt's, became the prime suspect. He had visited her on October 29. A few days after the murder he was able to settle high debts and bought an expensive car, but could not explain the origins of the money; he provided contradictory information during questioning. He had embezzled money at his job. He was charged with her murder but acquitted
Acquittal
In the common law tradition, an acquittal formally certifies the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as the criminal law is concerned. This is so even where the prosecution is abandoned nolle prosequi...
in July 1960 on grounds of reasonable doubt. Pohlmann's lawyer had argued that the police had failed, on examining Nitribitt's apartment, to measure the precise temperature there, a fact which he claimed would have been essential in determining the exact time of her death. The prosecution did not 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....
the acquittal.
When it became clear that the police would not be able to find the murderer it was insinuated in the media that high-ranking personalities were trying to thwart any attempts at solving the crime.
Aftermath
Pohlmann, after having served prison time for embezzlement, wrote a book about the Nitribitt case,Nine years after Nitribitt's murder, a very similar case occurred in Frankfurt. The high-class prostitute Helga Matura, who also solicited customers by driving a Mercedes, was murdered, and the case was never solved.
In 1968, a forged stamp circulated in Germany, showing a murdered Nitribitt and the text "Zehn Jahre Trauer um R. Nitribitt" ("10 years mourning for R. Nitribitt").
Rosemarie Nitribitt in popular culture
In 1958 Erich Kuby published a novel entitled Rosemarie. Des deutschen Wunders liebstes Kind which was based on the Nitribitt case and which was used as the basis for a 19581958 in film
The year 1958 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 16- "In the Money" by William Beaudine is released on this date. It would be the last installment of The Bowery Boys series which began back in 1946....
black-and-white
Black-and-white
Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...
movie by Rolf Thiele
Rolf Thiele
Rolf Thiele was a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He directed 42 films between 1951 and 1977. He was born in Budweis, then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His 1958 film Eva was entered into the 1959 Cannes Film Festival...
, Das Mädchen Rosemarie. The film starred Nadja Tiller
Nadja Tiller
Nadja Tiller is an Austrian actress. She was one of the most popular German actresses of the 1950s and 1960s.She won the Miss Austria competition in 1949, a national beauty pageant for unmarried women in Austria. She had her major film debut in 1952 in 'Märchen vom Glück .In 1955, she acted...
(in the title role), Peter van Eyck
Peter van Eyck
Peter van Eyck, born Götz von Eick , was a German-American actor.-Biography:...
, Gert Fröbe
Gert Fröbe
Karl Gerhart Fröbe, better known as Gert Fröbe was a German actor who starred in many films, including the James Bond film Goldfinger as Auric Goldfinger, The Threepenny Opera as Peachum, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as Baron Bomburst, and in Der Räuber Hotzenplotz as Hotzenplotz.-Life:Born in...
, and Mario Adorf
Mario Adorf
Mario Adorf is a German film and stage actor, best known for his lead role in the 1978 film The Tin Drum.-Biography:...
.
In this fictional film, Nitribitt is presented as just one of many entrepreneur
Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...
s during the Wirtschaftswunder who wants her piece of the new fortune. She uses her charms to bring members of the West German industrial elite to her bed. There she finds business secrets and later sells them to French competitors. However, when a scandal looms on the horizon, Rosemarie realizes that she cannot beat the system.
In a 1996
1996 in film
Major releases this year included Scream, Independence Day, Fargo, Trainspotting, The English Patient, Twister, Mars Attacks!, Jerry Maguire and a version of Evita starring Madonna.-Events:...
remake
Remake
A remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
by Bernd Eichinger
Bernd Eichinger
Bernd Eichinger was a German film producer and director.- Life and career :Eichinger was born in Neuburg an der Donau. He attended the University of Television and Film Munich in the 1970s, and bought a stake in the fledgling studio company Neue Constantin Film in 1979, becoming its executive...
, Nina Hoss
Nina Hoss
-Early life:Nina's father, Willi Hoss, was a German trade unionist and politician . Her mother, Heidemarie Rohweder, was an actress at Stuttgart National Theatre and later director of the Esslingen-based Württemberg State Playhouse .-Career:In 1997 Hoss graduated from the Drama School "Ernst Busch"...
played Nitribitt. Other actors included Heiner Lauterbach
Heiner Lauterbach
Heiner Lauterbach is a German actor.- Life and work :Heiner Lauterbach was married to German actress Katja Flint who is the mother of his son Oscar . Later he had a relationship with Jenny Elvers. Since 7 September 2001 he has been married to Viktoria Skaf. They have two children: Maya and Vito...
, Hannelore Elsner
Hannelore Elsner
Hannelore Elsner is a German actress. After finishing drama school she worked in theatres in Berlin and München. Later she starred in films and TV series such as Die Schwarzwaldklinik...
, Katja Flint
Katja Flint
Katja Flint is a German actress.Flint grew up in Utah and married German actor Heiner Lauterbach. They have a son named Oskar...
, and Til Schweiger
Til Schweiger
Tilman Valentin "Til" Schweiger is a German actor, director, and producer.He is one of Germany’s most successful filmmakers. Since 1968, when the FFA started counting, no other German actor has drawn more people to the cinemas. He runs his own production company, Barefoot Films, in Berlin.-Early...
.
2004 saw the première of the musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
of the same title at the Capitol Theater, Düsseldorf.
See also
- Christine KeelerChristine KeelerChristine Margaret Keeler is an English former model and showgirl. Her involvement with a British government minister discredited the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan in 1963, in what is known as the Profumo Affair....
and the Profumo affairProfumo AffairThe Profumo Affair was a 1963 British political scandal named after John Profumo, Secretary of State for War. His affair with Christine Keeler, the reputed mistress of an alleged Russian spy, followed by lying in the House of Commons when he was questioned about it, forced the resignation of...
in England - Prostitution in GermanyProstitution in GermanyProstitution in Germany is legal, and so are brothels. In 2002, the government changed the law in an effort to improve the legal situation of prostitutes. However, the social stigmatization of prostitutes persists and many prostitutes continue to lead a double life...