German nurse’s killing spree
He boasts of being one of the greatest serial killers and says he played God with his patients’ lives because he was bored
HE’S Germany’s worst serial murderer and may be responsible for the most killings in the country since the end of World War 2. Investigators believe Niels Högel is behind the death of around 90 people – and this could be just the tip of the iceberg.
Yet he insists he didn’t intend to become a murderer: he was simply trying to save his victims. Even though he was the one who’d taken them to the brink of death.
The 40-year-old nurse, now charged with the scores of deaths, says he injected his victims with enough cardiovascular medication to kill them because he craved the adulation that came from then saving their life.
Unfortunately for his patients, he was often unsuccessful.
After being caught in the act by a colleague, Högel was originally sentenced to jail time in 2008 for attempted murder.
Then in 2015, he was sentenced to life behind bars for two murders and a series of attempted murders of intensive-care patients at Delmenhorst hospital near the northern city of Bremen.
The death rate at Delmenhorst almost doubled in the time Högel worked there – and the clinic suddenly found its use of heart medication skyrocketing.
Authorities subsequently found evidence that Högel’s high-risk fetish was behind the death rate.
After analysing more than 500 patient files and exhuming more than 130 bodies in Germany as well as in Poland and Turkey, where Högel had previously worked, police suspect he may have killed 88 people.
And given the fact that many of his victims may have been cremated, the number could be even higher.
If the evidence is verified, it would make Högel the most prolific murderer in post-World War 2 Germany.
“The death toll is unique in the history of the German republic,” chief police investigator Arne Schmidt says, adding that the outcome of the investigation had left him speechless.
Oldenburg police chief Johann Kühme said the death toll defies imagination. “It’s simply not possible to say how many people were killed.
“The realisation of what we were able to learn is horrifying.”
At Högel’s second trial, the court heard he’d wanted to impress his colleagues by resuscitating patients, so he gave them lethal doses of a drug that shut down their cardiovascular systems.
According to the prosecution, if Högel successfully revived his victims he’d sometimes dose them a second time to practise his skills.
He described feeling euphoric when he successfully revived a patient with his “excellent” skills, and devastated when he killed them.
In earlier testimony he said he’d taken to playing God with the patients under his care because he was bored.
LITTLE else is known about Högel other than that he’s married and the father of a daughter. In fact, Högel was known only as Niels H until the most recent charges were filed. In previous court appearances the portly, balding
‘It’s simply not possible to say how many people were killed’
man hid his face from the cameras with pink court documents.
In 2015 he claimed in court he regretted killing his patients – but in letters used as evidence he called himself one of the country’s most prolific killers. “I am indeed one of the greatest serial killers.”
In one letter, he said, “I loved my job. The most beautiful thing was dealing with people. I could speak to them, laugh with them and support them in the most difficult hours. I had everything and yet I failed. I let in the evil and the death too often, even though death has actually been my hated enemy.”
Högel, who was once described as a passionate medic by a senior doctor, worked at the Oldenburg hospital from 1999 to 2002 and in Delmenhorst from 2003 to 2005.
Kühme said staff at Oldenburg were aware of an elevated number of resuscitations and patients dying under his care – but no action was taken to discover why.
At Delmenhorst, Högel had raised suspicion as early as April 2003. But again, no action was taken.
Several staff members at both hospitals are now being investigated.
“I found it strange that he was always on hand when patients were being resuscitated,” said a senior doctor who testified in court, describing Högel as a man who made a good impression on staff at the clinic.
“[He was] often helping younger doctors with intubation, inserting a breathing tube into a patient’s airways.”
But it was only in 2005, when another hospital worker caught the killer in the act, that Högel was brought to book.
Högel later said he was grateful to his colleague for ending his killing career. “He was the only one who didn’t look away.”