Siegfried Rautenberg

Siegfried Walter Rautenberg (1942 – 18 August 1975?) was a German waiter and suspected serial killer who was indicted for the murder of Monika Schwiegerhausen, a 22-year-old prostitute who worked at a red-light district in Hamburg, who was found drowned on 10 October 1968. In addition to this, he was also considered the prime suspect in the killings of two others committed months earlier. Rautenberg fled the country before he could be arrested and was later said to have died while serving in the Spanish Legion, but as his body was never recovered, this cannot be confirmed with certainty.

However, Rautenberg fled the country and joined the Spanish Legion, which refused to extradite him to Germany as long as he served in their ranks. He was then dispatched to Fort Semara in Smara, Spanish Sahara, from where it was reported that he attempted to escape on 18 August 1975. However, his attempt supposedly failed, as the reports claimed that he died from dehydration out in the desert. As no body was ever recovered, this claim remains unverified.

On 23 May 1968, the body of 35-year-old prostitute Ursula Beier was found in a well near Schenefeld by a father and daughter who were walking by. Beier, a mother of three from Chemnitz who had been prostituting herself around St. Pauli, was stabbed repeatedly and had her throat cut by the killer. Four days after her murder, a dock worker named Bernhard M. was arrested and charged with her murder, as during the investigation, police had learned that Beier had met a client by the name of "Berni". He was interrogated at the local police station, but as there was no further mention of him in the newspapers, he was presumably cleared of suspicion and released.