The Butcher's Tale: Murder and Anti-Semitism in a German Town

Although we never see him alive, the figure of Ernst Winter looms over the storyline. Winter was born in 1881, the only son of a Protestant family residing in a village near Konitz. At the age of 12, he entered the Konitz Gymnasium (college prep school). There, he earned a reputation as gregarious, handsome, athletic, and at best an average student. He also became known as a “ladies’ man” and a smart dresser who loved to promenade on the main street in Konitz wearing fine clothes. This was where he was last seen before his murder.

During the murder investigations, the extent of Winter’s sexual activity comes out. It appears that he was a proudly sexual young man who, like a number of gymnasium students, may have visited sex workers. He apparently flirted with a number of women throughout town, both Christian and Jewish. His strongest relationship appears to have been with Anna Hoffmann. Inspector Braun theorizes that Winter seduced Anna and that her father discovered them in the act, then murdered Winter.

Gustav Hoffmann, the town’s Christian butcher, is known as a respectable, strict, middle-class family man, a devout Lutheran churchgoer, and member or leader of several civic organizations.