Christman Genipperteinga

Christman Genipperteinga was a German bandit and serial killer of the 16th century. He reportedly murdered 964 individuals starting in his youth over a 13-year period, from 1568 until his capture in 1581. The story of Christman Genipperteinga is contained in a contemporary pamphlet from 1581. As early as in 1587, just 6 years after its publication, at least one chronicler included the story as factual.

Similar tales circulated about robbers with names such as Lippold, Danniel, Görtemicheel, Schwarze Friedrich, Henning, Klemens, Vieting and Papedöne. The tale of Papedöne is particularly relevant, since a version of that story is contained in a book published in 1578, 3 years before Genipperteinga's alleged death.

Christman Genipperteinga came from Kerpen, a couple of miles ("zwo Meylen") southwest of Cologne.

For about seven years Christman lived in a cave/mine complex some distance ("ein grosse Meyl") away from Bergkessel (possibly Bernkastel-Kues), in a wooded upland/mountain area called Frassberg. From there, he had a good view over the roads going between Trier, Metz, Dietenhoffen and Lützelburger Landt.

The cave complex is described as being very cleverly built, just like an ordinary house inside, with cellars, rooms and chambers, with all the household goods that ought to belong in a house.

Historian Joy Wiltenburg identifies two important, occasionally overlapping, patterns of crime reports relative to serial killers in Early Modern Germany:

Genipperteinga fits pattern 1, hoarding his ill-gotten gains in his cave. As Wiltenburg further remarks, however:

"Christman Genipperteinga was unusual in apparently maintaining the same stationary den throughout his years of serial killing. More often, accounts tell of robbers' traveling, meeting, and congregating with other robbers or with the Devil on their journeys."

Furthermore, in contrast with the reports of other robber killers from that time, like those of Peter Nyersch and Jacob Sumer, depictions of supernatural abilities and/or contracts with the devil are absent from the 1581 account of Christman. He is also definitely reported as guilty of multiple infanticides, but the account from 1581 does not connect this with practice of black magic or cannibalism.

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