On Octobre 19th, 1957 Rosemarie Nitribitt (24) was strangled to death by an unknown killer. She was what people call a "high class escort", who could choose and refuse men, because of how much she made. But her murder was barely investigated by police to protect the famous johns.
Rosemarie was born in the 30s out of wedlock (would have been a social disgrace at the time), to a mother who neglected her and her sister and a father who abandoned all three of them. She was raped at 11 years of age while playing in the forest near her foster familys home.
The rapist is never caught and traumatized Rosemarie starts acting out which adults in her environment abuse to sexually exploit her at age 12 selling her over and over to French soldiers. She becomes pregnant at 14 and has an illegal abortion that nearly kills her.
She is repeatedly picked up by social services and put into homes from which she runs away. She is judged to be "loose with men" as she is perceived to repeatedly offer herself to adults. The police pick her up punishing her with forced labour for "indecent behaviour".
She escapes again and finds work as a housemaid, but slips back into prostitution. She is finally declared "insane" by authorities and put in a mental facility, later transferred to a nunnery. She escapes again and reunites with her mother. She is still just 17 years old.
She works again as a housemaid, intermittently making money via prostitution. Finally she meets a man she falls in love with and wants to marry. When she tells him that she is pregnant he abandons her and reports her to police who once again imprison her for "lawlessness".
Rosemarie again is intermittently in a care facility and in street prostitution. When she turns 18 all state support ends and she is on her own. She gets her own apartment and tries to leave prostitution, but to no avail. She is stuck having been exploited since she was 12!!!
She tries to make the best of it and establishes a reputation as "high class" meaning she has many famous "regulars" which enable her at 21 to afford an comfortable apartment and car. "She has made it" as some would say. Her income is 7x that of the average German in 1954.
Everyday around 17:00 Rosemarie (under pseudonym of "Rebecca") cruises into town in her Mercedes. She looks for men to pay her, picks them up and let's them out of the car when done. Her car is repeatedly damaged though including by someone carving swastikas into the paint.
On November 1st 1957 Rosemarie is found strangled to death in her own apartment at age 24. Police intentionally tamper with evidence and mess up the crime scene because they don't want to investigate the powerful men who were paying to access Rosemarie for the last several years.
Police make public statements that they're "not suspecting rich and established customers! These serious men didn't have to kill the girl, who had gifted them so much joy. That would have been ungrateful." Tax collectors take nearly half of the money Rosemarie left to her mother.
Rosemarie's mother puts up nearly all the money left to her as reward to anyone who can identify her daughter's murderer. An acquaintance is under suspicion for a long time since items where removed from her flat & he is suddenly in possession of lots of money but no proof arises
The remaining main murder suspects are all rich and famous sex buyers, including Harald von Bohlen und Halbach, Harald Quandt, Gunter Sachs and his brother Ernst Wilhelm Sachs - all sons of millionaire industrial giants with immense inherited wealth.
There is also Fritz Huschke von Hanstein, racing driver and former member of the SS in Nazi Germany. And finally jazz musician Joe Zawinul who dedicated an album to Rosemarie Nitribitt.
There are unconfirmed theories of politicans having been sex buyers of Rosemarie, including chancellor Ludwig Erhard, chancellor Kurt-Georg Kiesinger and president Gustav Heinemann. While they cannot be liberally accused of murder, head of governements being sex buyers is common.
In a final measure of disrespect police investigators remove Rosemarie Nitribit's head from her body to study the injuries inflicted, but keep the head forcing her mother and sister to bury her without it, only returning it 51 years later after repeated requests!
What I want both sides of the #prostitution debate to take away from this is 1) there are many many other stories like Rosemarie's and 2) please let this give you pause and stop telling the world that women in high class escorting are "safe", "empowered" or "privileged".
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