The serial killer is a media phenomenon of the 20th century. Serial killers are defined as individuals who have murdered three or more people with a temporal gap between the killings. Since the 1920s, there have been numerous serial murders in Germany. Reports of these murders were capable of evoking horror among the population regarding the moral decay of the nation. Notably, there was a relatively large number of serial killers, particularly at the beginning of the Weimar Republic, in the period following World War I. Friedrich Schumann (1893-1921) can be considered the first modern serial killer in Germany. He has since almost completely faded from memory. His nickname: the mass murderer of Falkenhagener See. His area of activity: present-day Falkensee. Schumann was beheaded on August 27, 1921, in the Plötzensee prison.