Hermann Duft and Hans Wilhelm Bassenauer

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Hermann Duft and Hans Wilhelm Bassenauer
Executed
Conviction(s)
Criminal penaltyDeath
Details
Victims6
Span of crimes
6 March 1969 – 12 April 1969
CountryGreece

Hermann Duft and Hans Wilhelm Bassenauer were a pair of

German serial killers who murdered six people in Greece, within a short period in 1969. They were captured, tried, sentenced to death
and executed by the Greek authorities.

Background

Duft was born in Harheim near Frankfurt and Bassenauer in Darmstadt, Germany, both in 1938.[1] They were both plumbers. Duft was single, while Bassenauer was married, with three children. Duft had briefly served in the Foreign Legion during the war in Algeria.[1]

Crimes

Duft and Bassenauer arrived in Greece by car on 17 February 1969.

tourists, they murdered six people, using a Winchester rifle and a knife. The reason for most of their murders was robbery. On the 5 March, they killed the night watchmen of a gas station near Thebes, a soldier who was present and heavily injured another one. On 13 March, they murdered a Greek-American stockbroker in Voula, on 7 April a taxi driver and on 9 April a gas station attendant near Athens. Finally, on 12 April, they murdered, on the road from Athens to Patras a Greek who was living in Germany and vacationing in his homeland. They abandoned their car and took the victim's to return to Athens.[2]

The

dictatorial regime in Greece at the time forbade newspapers from publishing news about this series of murders until the two perpetrators were captured.[2]

Capture

The

license plates parked outside his house, which was, in fact, the car of the pair's last victim.[2] Duft and Bassenauer were apprehended when they showed up to pick up the car, questioned and then arrested by the police. They confessed to their crimes and were put on trial, accused of murder, robbery, and related charges.[1]

Trial and punishment

The trial of Duft and Bassenauer was held shortly thereafter at the Appeals Court. They were found guilty and sentenced to

Aegina, in whose prisons they were respectively being held.[2]

Bassenauer's widow subsequently stated, "my husband got a just punishment",[3] but objected to the execution taking place near Christmas time.[3] An article in a German magazine observed that "once again, Germans are being executed in Greece for murder".[3]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Historia, 2007
  2. ^ a b c d e Palmographos, 2013
  3. ^ a b c Spiegel, 1969

References

External links

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