Fabrikation eines Verbrechers
Der Kriminalfall Bruno Lüdke als Mediengeschichte
Axel Doßmann/Susanne Regener

In the 1950s, Bruno Lüdke was (erroneously) considered the »greatest mass murderer in criminal history«. The case was kept secret by the Nazis, but since the 1950s it has provided material for sensationalist media revelations and film dramatizations. The protagonists have relied on the truth of the archive materials: medical opinions, police procedural reports, photographs, lifecasts, and Lüdke’s death certificate. This book examines the scientific and popular imagination of evil, conducting a historical survey of the media and charting the history of knowledge from the nineteenth century up to the present day. It includes analysis of stereotypical and racist conceptions of humankind, visualizations of the criminal as a type, the production of truth and trophies, and how German mass media struggled to come to terms with the country’s Nazi past. »Fabrikation eines Verbrechers« [ Fabrication of a Felon — The Criminal Case of Bruno Lüdke as Media History] presents a scientific way of thinking that sticks closely to the material and is theoretically and methodologically transparent — educating our view of contemporary history, politics, and aesthetics.