Geographic Profiling in Nazi Berlin: Fact and Fiction Rossmo, DK; Lutermann, H; Stevenson, MD
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Geographic profiling in Nazi Berlin: fact and fiction Rossmo, DK; Lutermann, H; Stevenson, MD For additional information about this publication click this link. http://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/jspui/handle/123456789/6578 Information about this research object was correct at the time of download; we occasionally make corrections to records, please therefore check the published record when citing. For more information contact [email protected] Unclassified Editor’s Note (U) Geospatial Intelligence Review presents this article separate from its bound edition. Articles appear on the Center for the Study of GEOINT Web site as they are completed. Unclassified Unclassified Articles (U) Geographic Profiling in Nazi Berlin: Fact and Fiction By D. Kim Rossmo, Heike Lutermann, Mark D. Stevenson, and Steven C. Le Comber (U) Editor’s note: The authors of this article investigated how geographic profiling might (U) Kim Rossmo is a professor be applied to analysis of minor terrorism-related acts such as antigovernment graffiti and the director of the Center and theft to help locate terrorist bases before more serious incidents could take place. The for Geospatial Intelligence and Investigation, School of authors illustrate the methodology’s effectiveness by examining the historical case of Criminal Justice, Texas State Otto and Elise Hampel, who distributed hundreds of anti-Nazi postcards in Berlin during University. He is a former World War II. police investigator who developed geographic pro- filing during his doctoral (U) The authors demonstrate that specialized analytic methods can be applied to prob- research. E-mail: lems with similar characteristics. Cross-domain methodology-borrowing clearly works. [email protected] (U) Not all terrorism-related events can be directly analyzed using geographic pro- (U) Heike Lutermann is a Research Associate with the filing. The choice of location for some acts, especially major ones, can be driven by Department of Zoology and factors other than opportunity, for example, by symbolism or the expected impact. This Entomology, University of article deserves consideration and is a starting point because geographic profiling has Pretoria, Pretoria, South been successful in the analysis of a wide variety of crimes and other incidents. Africa. She is a behavioural ecologist whose German mother tongue allowed her to explore the original Gestapo files described (U) Introduction* (U) We used modern geographic pro- in the article. E-mail: filing methods to analyze the postcard and [email protected] (U) This article shows how the Gestapo letter dropsites in the Hampel case and (U) Mark D. Stevenson is a [German security police] employed the show that the technique successfully and postdoctoral researcher at basic ideas of geographic profiling during quickly prioritizes the area that contained Queen Mary University of World War II. Geographic profiling ana- the Hampel’s Berlin apartment. Modern London, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, lyzes the locations of connected incidents geographic profiling accomplished this London, UK. He developed to determine the most probable area for after just 35 of the 214 incidents the Bayesian approaches to an offender’s “anchor point” (usually a Gestapo recorded before arresting the geographic profiling and first home, but sometimes a workplace). This Hampels. This study provides empirical applied it to locate sources of invasive species. E-mail: Gestapo investigation formed the basis of evidence to support the idea that analysis [email protected] a classic German novel, Alone in Berlin, of minor terrorism-related or subversive about Otto and Elise Hampel, who had acts such as antigovernment graffiti and (U) Steven C. Le Comber is a senior lecturer at Queen Mary distributed hundreds of anti-Nazi postcards theft can help locate terrorist bases before University of London, School during the war. more serious incidents occur.1 of Biological and Chemical Sciences, London, UK. He is an evolutionary biologist who *(U) The authors thank the Bundesarchiv [National Archive], Berlin, for access to the files and has introduced geographic thank colleagues at Queen Mary University of London and Texas State University, especially profiling to biology and Jonathan Allen, Richard Nichols, and Yannick Wurm, for helpful comments. The authors are also epidemiology. E-mail: indebted to K.A. Lankheit for his help locating the original Gestapo files, toT. Gegeny for granting [email protected] temporary access to Dr. Gruyter’s historical online resource, and to M. Kuhnke for additional historical information. 2 Unclassified Unclassified (U) Cases of serial crime such as mur- place within 2 miles of an arsonist’s resi- der, bombing, and arson typically involve dence.13 The buffer zone is an area around large numbers of suspects. For example, the offender’s anchor point in which offenc- the Yorkshire Ripper investigation in es are less likely to occur, partly because England generated over 268,000 sus- of an increase in detection risk related to pects.2 Suspect prioritization and informa- reduced anonymity and partly because the tion management are therefore critical for number of opportunities increases with the major investigations. This is also true distance from the anchor point. The com- in counterterrorism investigations; as of bination of these opposing effects produces December 2012, the US Government’s a probability distribution that resembles terrorist watch list contained the names of a volcano with a caldera; the likelihood over 875,000 individuals.3 of incidents increases with distance up to the limit of the buffer-zone radius and (U) Geographic Profiling then decreases or “decays” with distance. (U) Geographic profiling uses this (U) Geographic profiling is a frequently buffered distance-decay function to deter- used method of prioritizing large lists of mine the offender’s probable anchor point suspects. The technique was developed in for each incident location within the area the early 1990s to analyze the locations of interest. The profile produces an of- of a series of connected incidents to de- fender base probability surface (“jeopardy termine the probable area of an offender’s surface”) from the point pattern of the anchor point.4 Geographic profiling does incident locations.4 When a jeopardy sur- not provide an “X” that marks the spot; face is overlaid on a map of the search rather, it is an information management and area, the result is a geoprofile. Locations suspect prioritization methodology. The are then prioritized by their position on technique has been successful in criminal the geoprofile. investigations and is now used routinely by law enforcement agencies around the (U) The Gestapo Investigation of world. More recently, it is being applied to Otto and Elise Hampel military, biological, and epidemiological data.1,5,6,7,8,9,10 (U) Given that geographic profiling was (U) The methods underlying geograph- not developed until the early 1990s and ic profiling depend on the integration of requires sophisticated computer software, two concepts: distance decay and the buf- it was surprising to discover the Gestapo’s fer zone.4,11,12 Distance decay reflects the investigation of the Hampels used the fact that most crimes take place relatively concepts of distance decay and buffer zone. close to the offender’s anchor point; for In Jeder Stirbt für sich Allein (a novel example, 70 percent of serial arsons take written by Joseph Ditzen in 1947 under 3 Unclassified Unclassified UNCLASSIFIED the pen name Hans Fallada), pub- neighbour might see and iden- lished in English as Alone in tify him. It’s a little working- Berlin (figure 1), the writer describes class enclave, just a couple the police search: of streets. That’s where he lives.ʼ ” 14 “The dust-coloured man had pulled out a streetmap (U) Fallada’s novel, which Primo Levi† of Berlin and pinned it on called “the greatest book ever written about the wall. Now he stuck in German resistance to the Nazis,” is based a red flag, exactly over the on the case of Otto and Elise Hampel. office block in the Neue After Elise’s brother was killed in France, Königstrasse. ʻYou see, this the Hampels began leaving postcards in is all I can do for the mo- apartment buildings around Berlin, denounc- UNCLASSIFIED ment. But over the next ing the Nazis (figure 2). Roughly trans- Figure 1. (U) Alone in Berlin14 © 2009, Penguin Books, few weeks, more and more lated, the card in figure 2 says “Free Press! London flags will go up, and where Continue with the Hitler [?] system and the density is greatest, that’s the common soldier Hitler and his gang where our hobgoblin will be will plunge us into the abyss! This Hitler found. Because over time he Goring Himmler Goebbels gang is for will wear out, and he won’t Germany only a death chamber.” After a want to go all that way to drop tip from an informant, the Gestapo arrested one of his postcards.ʼ ” the Hampels in October 1942 (figure 3). They were tried, found guilty, and executed The inspector led the gen- in Plötzensee Prison in 1943. tlemen back to the map, and, speaking in a whis- ©Rossmo, Lutermann, Stevenson, and Le Comber UNCLASSIFIED per, showed them how although there were flags evenly sowed all over the area north of the Alex [the Alexanderplatz], one little area had none at all. “ ʻAnd that’s where my Hobgoblin [SIC] lives. He doesn’t drop any cards there, because he is too well known; he would UNCLASSIFIED have to worry that a Figure 2. (U) Hampel Postcard †(U) Levi wrote Survival in Auschwitz about his year in that concentration camp. 4 Unclassified Unclassified UNCLASSIFIED ©Rossmo, Lutermann, Stevenson, and Le Comber that the author or distributor must live in the vicinity of Müller Strasse, probably be- tween Brüsseler and Amster- damer Strasse.]” (U) After Otto Hampel was iden- tified as a suspect, Püschel noted the existence of what we would now call a buffer zone around the Hampels’ apartment: “Die Überprüfung der Vorgänge in Bezug auf die Fundorte und die UNCLASSIFIED Person Hampel ergab, dass (U)“The concepts Figure 3.