Explore 24 documented cases from Germany. Each file separates established findings from allegations and unresolved questions, with a focus on investigation rather than graphic detail.
Sophia Lösche disappeared while hitchhiking from Leipzig in June 2018 and was found dead in Spain. The truck driver who picked her up was convicted of murder and dangerous bodily harm and received a final life sentence.
Open case file →
Twelve victims were killed and more than 200 people were injured in the 1980 Munich bombing. A reopened federal investigation classified the attack as right-wing extremist and found no sufficient evidence of additional participants.
Open case file →Former pupil Robert Steinhäuser killed 16 people at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt in 2002 before dying by suicide. There was no criminal trial.
Open case file →Sixteen-year-old Morsal Obeidi was murdered in Hamburg in 2008. Her brother Ahmad-Sobair Obeidi received life imprisonment for murder, and Germany's Federal Court of Justice rejected his revision in 2009.
Open case file →Nine-year-old Peggy Knobloch disappeared from Lichtenberg in 2001. A man convicted of her murder was later acquitted at retrial, Peggy's remains were found in 2016, and no perpetrator has been judicially established.
Open case file →Hatun Sürücü, 23, was murdered in Berlin in February 2005. Her youngest brother Ayhan admitted the killing and received a final juvenile sentence of nine years and three months; two older brothers accused of participation were ultimately acquitted for lack of evidence.
Open case file →
Maria Bögerl was abducted from her Heidenheim home in 2010 and later found murdered. After more than 10,000 leads and extensive DNA work, no perpetrator was identified; active investigation was suspended in 2023 but can be reopened.
Open case file →Medical student Maria Ladenburger was murdered in Freiburg in 2016. Hussein Khavari was convicted of murder and aggravated rape in 2018 and received a final life sentence.
Open case file →
Nine people were murdered at Munich's Olympia shopping centre; the attacker died that evening and Bavarian authorities later officially classified the crime as right-wing politically motivated violence with racist motives.
Open case file →
Eleven-year-old Jakob was kidnapped and murdered in Frankfurt in 2002; Magnus Gäfgen received life imprisonment, while the interrogation later triggered separate human-rights litigation.
Open case file →
Five members of the Genç family were murdered in a racist arson attack; four perpetrators were convicted in 1995.
Open case file →
Nine people were murdered in a racist terror attack; federal investigators later found no sufficient evidence of accomplices or advance helpers.
Open case file →
An antisemitic attacker failed to enter a synagogue on Yom Kippur, murdered two people elsewhere in Halle and received life imprisonment with preventive detention.
Open case file →
German regional president Walter Lübcke was assassinated in 2019; Stephan Ernst was convicted of murder and the judgment became final in 2022.
Open case file →
Open the documented case file for timeline, investigation and outcome.
Open case file →
Open the documented case file for timeline, investigation and outcome.
Open case file →
Six people living at the isolated Hinterkaifeck farmstead in Bavaria were killed in 1922, creating one of Germany’s most famous unsolved murder mysteries.
Open case file →
Peter Kürten committed a series of murders and attacks in and around Düsseldorf during the late 1920s.
Open case file →
Jürgen Bartsch abducted and murdered boys in West Germany during the 1960s.
Open case file →
Former nurse Niels Högel was convicted of murdering patients at hospitals in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst.
Open case file →
Kuno Hofmann was convicted after killings and grave desecrations in Bavaria in the late 1950s.
Open case file →
A bank robbery escalated into a multi-day hostage crisis across West Germany and the Netherlands.
Open case file →
Marianne Bachmeier shot and killed Klaus Grabowski inside a Lübeck courtroom while he was on trial for the murder of her daughter.
Open case file →
The neo-Nazi NSU cell murdered ten people in Germany between 2000 and 2007 and carried out bombings and robberies.
Open case file →