Bloodbursts

By Niklas Stephenson

BLOODBURSTS describes the true story of Fritz Haarmann, The Werewolf of Hannover. Haarmann who was accused and convicted of raping and mutilating the bodies of up to twenty-four young men in Hannover, Germany between the years 1918 and 1924. Evidence he had sold the victims clothes and their ground up bodies to a local restaurant was overwhelming. His trial lasted fourteen days and resulted in his execution by the guillotine.

Inspiration for "Bloodbursts" comes from exhaustive research into Haarmann’s story and the concept I found in Albert Camus’ The Stranger, a novel that explores “the nakedness of man faced with the absurd,” through the character Meursault, who committed senseless, unmotivated murder. Haarmann had a lot against him. Sexually abused as a child, diagnosed with multiple psychological disorders, and a homosexual in a time when homosexuality was a crime, he struggled through an absurd (the quality of condition of existing in a meaningless and irrational world) era in German history.

I seek not to glorify the atrocious acts of Haarmann; rather, to examine how the absurdity of life can provide the “motive” for heinous criminal behavior. "Bloodbursts" is fiction based on facts. It’s a story of horror, an attempt to explain the acts of a killer, faced with the absurd, from his perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Niklas Stephenson
• Release date: Apr 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370609871

Niklas Stephenson

I am a German/American poet currently living in Germany. Besides writing I work as a social worker with minor refugees. Ever since I read my first Edgar Allan Poe story I have been fascinated by darkness and horror. Further in life I began questioning moral, ethics and freedom, which led me to a profound interest towards sociology, philosophy, history and gruesome crime. In the search for my own freedom I began questioning the morals, ethics and norms that are given to us by different institutions: family, religions or the state. I wanted to learn about those that counteracted these norms, which led me to an interest towards everyone and everything which radically opposes these. I devoured Nietzsche, loved stories of serial murderers, read about psychological experiments attempting to define evil, Hannah Arendt lectures on evil and so on. I was captivated and through this I found my own authentic freedom. I am not a murderer, rapist, but an author with his own idea of morals, norms and ethics. In the coming months I will publish two collections of poetry. One will be called “Existence and Death”, which is inspired by the existentialist philosophers and authors. The other collection will be a collection of political poems written in 2016-2017

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BLOODBURSTS

by

Niklas Stephenson

BLOODBURSTS

First Edition

Copyright © 2018 Niklas Stephenson

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Disclaimer:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, or the author has used them fictitiously.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

From the Author

Chapter 1 - The Return

Chapter 2 – The Apartment

Chapter 3 – Day One - Freedom

Chapter 4 = The Blood Burst

Chapter 5 – Veteran’s Day

Chapter 6 – The Church Boy

Chapter 7 – The Day of Holy Eternity

Chapter 8 = The Night of the Craftsman

Chapter 9 - Resolutions

Chapter 10 – Bones of Arrest

Chapter 11 – Cell of Confession

Chapter 12 – The Cell of Skull and Bones

Chapter 13 – The Hell of Judgement

Chapter 14 – The Last Day

About the Author

FROM THE AUTHOR

BLOODBURSTS describes the true story of Fritz Haarmann, The Werewolf of Hannover. Haarmann who was accused and convicted of raping and mutilating the bodies of up to twenty-four young men in Hannover, Germany between the years 1918 and 1924. Evidence he had sold the victims clothes and their ground up bodies to a local restaurant was overwhelming. His trial lasted fourteen days and resulted in his execution by the guillotine.

Inspiration for Bloodbursts comes from exhaustive research into Haarmann’s story and the concept I found in Albert Camus’ The Stranger, a novel that explores the nakedness of man faced with the absurd, through the character Meursault, who committed senseless, unmotivated murder. Haarmann had a lot against him. Sexually abused as a child, diagnosed with multiple psychological disorders, and a homosexual in a time when homosexuality was a crime, he struggled through an absurd (the quality of condition of existing in a meaningless and irrational world) era in German history.

I seek not to glorify the atrocious acts of Haarmann; rather, to examine how the absurdity of life can provide the motive for heinous criminal behavior. Bloodbursts is fiction based on facts. It’s a story of horror, an attempt to explain the acts of a killer, faced with the absurd, from his perspective.

Drawing further inspiration from existentialist authors, the times during which Haarmann committed his crimes was an important contribution to writing this story. Jean-Paul Sartre claimed, "Never were we freer than under the German occupation. We had lost all our rights, and first of all our right to speak. They insulted us to our faces. ... They deported us en masse. ... And because of all this we were free."

The situation in Germany after the First World War was dire. Inflation was high, people were starving, crime was on a rapid rise and the veterans returned from the war traumatized and struggling for reintegration into society. Veterans supporting the new Weimar Republic, led by the Reichsbanner, advocated a pacifist interpretation, while their rightist enemies, led by the Stahlhelm, proposed a heroic and essentially revanchist reading, which prevailed in a profound crisis at the end of the 1920s. Generally, there was havoc in German society. There was hopelessness, frustration, and absurdity. But, coming back to Sartre, maybe it was a time of absolute freedom in Germany before the rise of Hitler.

Greater explanation for my decision to write Haarmann’s story comes from Franz Kafka, who wrote: I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.

Niklas Stephenson

Mannheim, Germany

April, 2018

"Why should I fear death?

If I am, then death is not.

If Death is, then I am not.

Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?

Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.

Religious tyranny did domineer.

At length the mighty one of Greece

Began to assent the liberty of man."

Epicurus

Chapter 1

The Return

The days were hopeless and the nights nihilist. After the war the necessities needed for life were scarce; preceding morals and reason were diminished by the bare willingness to survive. I remember the whimpering, limping dog that crossed my path on my way home from the prison, where I spent the war, to my small room in the middle of town. The dog was as boney and sick as all the other people I saw on the street. The war itself is a tragedy, but those that survive have to go through their own hell. The dog was whimpering and limping; it was a sight of such tragedy I felt the dire need to relieve us both of our pains. I tried to find food, but the money I had left was no longer enough for bread, because the scarcity of things made the prices higher.

I was hungry, and the dog was dying. The cobblestone was loose, and I picked up a stone with my right hand. I realized intuitively, that the cobblestone road was a prestige of the past, every single stone a small piece of a greater past that now renews itself as a relieving agent, no longer confined to the simple life of a stone. I also realized that the stone depends on others to have a new meaning, a new condition, and wondered why we, as conscious beings, pretend that we are in a similar dilemma. Holding this stone in my hand, I realized I can change the course of my future with the memories of the past—I can seize my freedom. The dog whimpering at my feet gave me the sense he was begging for me to kill him and relieve him.

I relieved the dog his misery. I not only relieved the dog of his life, but also rid him of his fur, skin, innards, complexity and innocence. The meat left on the bones was not much, but this whole act made me realize that I myself am the bearer of my destiny, especially in a nihilistic world void of anything—even God.

That I killed the dog for appetite shocked no one passing by, for the people have long resorted to killing and butchering cats, sheep, dogs—anything found lingering around that could be consumed as food. As I returned to my apartment everything seemed strange, different. I was only away for the length of the war, but today it seemed as if the war had come home. Hungry children screaming, mothers holding their dying babies in their arms with expressionless faces, their lust for life gone; while soldiers with ragged and blood stained uniforms, amputated limbs, and the pure agony of knowing their experiences would never allow a return to their old lives. Some will force themselves to return with some semblance of what once was. Others will take the leap to faith, whilst still others become the masters of their own destiny—suicide.

The war was fought in the fields, but it is always lost at home. Here, where innocence once presided, the repercussions of war are thirsty for more death, more misery. The tragedy of war lays itself over the naturalness of humanity living at home and brings suffering to innocence. The thick green monstrous flies that have formed a monumental plague over the decaying corpses on the battlefields are here, just not visible, to suck out the last bit of life remaining. For me, this situation of general confusion and chaos was good. I cannot be free within an overlying, transcendental order because my sexual desires are not deemed normal rather a criminal abomination of evil. I have always forced to the outer confines of society and family, not just because of my homosexuality. My childhood memories comprise an authoritative father, a mother that gave too much and an older brother who showed his affection with his shaft, loving me repeatedly as a young child. I always wondered if this was the reason for my homosexual desires.

After I finished school I learned the locksmith trade and visited an NCO school. My duties with the military were only a short endeavor. Horrid hallucinations haunted me. The doctors first considered sunstroke as the catalyst, but as the hallucinations did not go away, I asked for my own dismissal. I came home and was unemployed. I had no desire to work in my father’s cigar factory.

Seduced by a neighbor, I ultimately committed sexual abuse on young children in the neighborhood. Sexual abuse is the official version of the story. I never understood this... was it not the same affection I received as a young child? Because of my public showing of affection towards the boys I was admitted to psychiatric care and diagnosed with the incurable Schwachsinn, a form of intelligence reduction. I fled from the hospital several times until I reached Switzerland. A few years later I returned only to place myself into the same spiral of unemployment.

I was drafted into the Army and stationed in Colmar. There I suffered from repeated fainting spells and spent four months in the sickbay where doctors diagnosed me with hebephrenic schizophrenia, which includes the primary symptoms of a significant impairment of thought processes, speech, behavior, and emotional expression. This diagnosis resulted in forced retirement and I returned to my home in Hannover. I never understood why I people considered me an outcast. This misinterpretation of my character based on societal norms and morality forced me to live a life in absurdity and suffering. Because of this forced life-style I had to find new ways of making a living for myself. I had to become the stone. I had to become the person who enables the change, but also the historical complex being that could transform. To survive, I committed embezzlement, theft and burglary, resulting in 17 convictions and a spell in prison. This is where I spent the war. This is where I figured out how to live life and how to take my freedom. I made plans. The current social situation transcended itself to become the enabler to find means to live my desires because everyone was in need of existential goods and warmth.

As I neared my living quarters, a small room in the attic of an old house in the Hannover Old Town, now the Red Light District, I caught a short glimpse of the train station. The train station was always my place of choice for social contacts, because here were people torn from something better, those on the road, those fleeing, lingerers—the outcasts. Once driven