When the acid barrel murders shook Hamburg

In his circle of friends and acquaintances he is friendly, polite and nice. But Lutz R.* has another side:he is a dangerous and ruthless sadist. Between 1986 and 1988, the trained furrier from Hamburg-Rahlstedt brutally killed two women and dissolved them in hydrochloric acid. These acts go undetected for years. Even when he released a third woman in 1991 after terrible abuse and was then imprisoned. It was not until December 1, 1992 that the full extent of this cruel criminal case became known.

Lutz R. was born on March 29, 1948 in Sassnitz on Rügen. He learns the trade of furrier. He later marries, his wife and he have a daughter. Outwardly, the man in Rahlstedt leads an unremarkable family life. He is a member of the swimming club and very popular. Nobody knows about his inclinations.

1986:First victim is tortured for a week

The first victim is Hildegard K., she is 61 years old and the wife of Lutz R.'s former teacher, a fur trader. On March 12, 1986, the furrier lures the unsuspecting woman to his home. R. has built an underground bunker in his garden. There are different statements about the reason for the construction:The bunker allegedly serves to protect against a nuclear war or simply to dry and store his furs.

Money and jewelery stolen

Lutz R. ties up Hildegard K., lets her starve and tortures her with screw clamps - including sexually. The martyrdom lasts a week. During this time, R. stole a five-digit D-Mark amount and jewelry from his victim's house. R. forces Hildegard K. to write letters to her relatives so that no one suspects her disappearance. She has left her husband, one should not look for her, so it reads. Then R. hanged Hildegard K. in his bunker. He then saws the corpse into pieces, which he throws into an acid barrel. He buries the barrel two meters deep in the garden and sets it in concrete.

1988:Second victim suffers for a month

On October 5, 1988, the furrier strikes again. Annegret B. is a 31-year-old industrial clerk who knows Lutz R. from the swimming club. He also lures her into his dungeon, where he chains, tortures and sexually abuses the defenseless woman for a whole month, while at the same time emptying her account.

Hidden hints not detected

B. also has to write letters and cards to her relatives and explain to them that she has decided to live abroad in the future because her old life no longer offered her enough. B., however, manages to hide clues to the perpetrators in their letters. She writes certain first letters in bold; put together, these result in the words "Hilf" and "Lutz". But the police are only able to correctly interpret this desperate call for help years later. Lutz R. has also started to record the torment of his victim - on tape and in the form of polaroids of the young woman's shaved head and battered body. He even forces Annegret B. to say goodbye to her tormentor on a tape recording before her death and to describe her imprisonment. After four weeks, Lutz R. has had enough:he kills Annegret B., dismembers her body, sinks it into another acid barrel and buries it in the garden of his holiday home in Basedow near Lauenburg.

1991:Third victim released

It takes three years until the next act. It hits 53-year-old Christa S. She is, of all people, the new life partner of R.'s ex-boss, whose wife the furrier has already killed. On September 6, 1991, Lutz R. overpowered the 53-year-old with a stun gun in her car. He takes her to his bunker in Rahlstedt. This time R. is aiming for a ransom of 300,000 Deutschmarks, which he wants to extort from his former boss. In order to make S. compliant, he threatens to kill her, dismember her and have her disappear in an acid barrel. At the same time, he shows the woman, who is handcuffed to an iron bed frame, his perverse torture photos of Annegret B. A week later, R. is still waiting in vain for his ransom. But then the sadist's wife returns early from vacation. R. threatens to fly. After seven days in a hurry and apparently without a plan, he takes Christa S. to Hamburg-Langenhorn and releases the traumatized woman in front of a police station.

First trial gives R. a mild sentence

It doesn't take long for the police to arrest R. He was put on trial on May 26, 1992 - but only because of the kidnapping of Christa S. The investigators did not know anything else until then. R. has to go to prison for three years for kidnapping by extortion. This sentence is surprising at first, but the court apparently did not really trust Christa S.'s descriptions. A blameless man with a completely clean lifestyle is supposed to have several women on his conscience as a sadist? That seems unthinkable.

A detective believes Christa S. and begins to investigate on her own. S. tells her about the bunker in which she was held captive, about torture photos that the perpetrator showed her, about astrology and the Spanish mafia that R. spoke about. Although these statements seem outrageous at first, the officer follows up on these clues.

Soko catches up with the perpetrators

In the trial against R., the policewoman testified as a witness. Annegret B's mother is also in the courtroom. On the day of the trial, she tells the officer that her daughter has been missing for years and that there are striking similarities to the current case. The detective carries out further investigations - even against the resistance of her own department. A special commission is established. Investigators can then prove that R. sold one of his victims' car.

On December 1, 1992, the police found a buried acid barrel on the grounds of the summer house in Basedow. Inside:only a few unresolved bones of Annegret B. Three days later, the investigators unearth another barrel with human remains of Hildegard K. on R.'s property in Rahlstedt.

Forever behind bars

Lutz R. is charged again - and sentenced in 1996:life imprisonment with subsequent preventive detention. R. contradicts the charges to the end. He denies the murders; there had been accidents. However, the facts speak against him. At that time there was also speculation as to whether Lutz R. could have killed other women. The disappearance of the sister of Hamburg's then-Criminal Police Chief Wolfgang Sielaff is also being investigated. However, this case will not be resolved until 2017.

Even today, the acid barrel case in Rahlstedt triggers horror and shaking of heads. "I've lived here for 60 years, and this incident has shocked us all," reports a senior citizen in an interview with NDR.de. Even her neighbor cannot understand the deeds. "What must be going on in a person like that?" he asks himself. "That was actually a normal man."

* For legal reasons, the full name of the perpetrator is not given.

Editor's note:In an earlier version of the article, the term "Sadomaso perpetrator" was used. The term referred to the very specific case of Lutz R., who had both sadistic and sadomasochistic preferences. We make it clear that sadomasochism as a sexual practice is of course not automatically synonymous with dangerous or criminal acts. The passage has been changed accordingly.