Paul Ogorzow: Serial Killer Who Terrorized Berlin Trains in Nazi Germany

Paul Ogorzow, known as the “S-Bahn Murderer,” was a serial killer who terrorized Berlin during Nazi Germany and was executed for his crimes in 1941. Paul Ogorzow, later known as the “S-Bahn Murderer,” lived a double life in Nazi Germany — one as a disciplined Reichsbahn employee and loyal Party member, and another as a violent predator stalking Berlin during the Second World War. Born in 1912 and raised in modest working-class surroundings, Ogorzow appeared to neighbors as a dedicated family man. Yet behind this façade grew impulses that would erupt into some of the most disturbing crimes committed inside the German capital under Hitler’s rule. As wartime blackouts plunged Berlin into darkness and fear, Ogorzow began targeting women traveling alone on the city’s S-Bahn rail network. Between 1940 and 1941, he committed a series of escalating assaults, rapes, and murders — many carried out inside train compartments or along the tracks. Nazi authorities, determined to maintain an image of complete public order, imposed a strict media blackout, leaving Berliners unaware that a serial killer was on the loose. Investigators worked under immense pressure, tracing clues from improvised weapons, train routes, and survivor testimony. Their breakthrough came when evidence linked the attacks to a Reichsbahn employee with access to restricted areas of the rail system. Ogorzow’s arrest in July 1941 revealed a chilling pattern of violence, alongside attempts to hide behind alcoholism, excuses, and shifting confessions. Sentenced to death by the Berlin Regional Court, Ogorzow was executed by guillotine at Plötzensee Prison at the age of twenty-eight. His case remains one of the most shocking intersections between criminal pathology and life under the Nazi dictatorship.This episode is part of the series Serial Killers of the 20th Century.Watch the full documentary and explore hundreds of historical films at:WorldHistory.tv