A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin: The Chilling True Story of the S-Bahn Murderer. A review.

A Serial Killer in Nazi Berlin: The Chilling True Story of the S-Bahn Murderer by Scott Andrew Selby
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A relatively brief (262 pages) but fascinating true story of a not-very-well-known piece of Nazi history: the story of Paul Ogorzow, a railroad employee who derived pleasure from the killing of women during the late thirties/early forties in the heart of Berlin and the Nazi empire. His preferred M.O : bashing women over the head with a heavy object on the S-Bahn train, then throwing their bodies off in between stops. This all happened in darkness under the cover of the government enforced blackout (a way to make it hard for enemy planes to find their targets at night).
On his trail is Inspector Wilhelm Ludke. While nominally a Nazi party member, he actually feels a deep commitment to law and order, and is frustrated by the lack of help he gets from the upper reaches of the Party, who do not wish to appear weak due to the presence of a serial killer in their midst….
It is a fascinating story, against the backdrop of wartime Berlin during the Nazi regime. While the evil and “ethically challenged” leaders are busy trying to dominate the world, there were still normal everyday people who were trying to get back and forth to work, who live in fear due to the actions of one man wielding a blunt object, invisible in the darkness. While the Holocaust and Nazism represented a systemic evil, the personal level at which Ozgorow’s actions affect regular people are no less frightening and evil.
If the author ever gets bogged down in descriptions and details (why it is called the S-Bahn, the purpose of blackouts, etc.), it is only briefly. How Ozgorow is ultimately caught proves to be a breathtaking narrative, and a tribute to those who choose law and justice even when it was not the first priority of the Reich.


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