Leopold Ulrich was a German policeman and head of the Berlin Police identification department during the Weimar era. In 1929, the crazed Ulrich decided to embark upon a social experiment to prove the power of his department's forensic science in securing or even miscarrying justice in homicide cases, and he blackmailed Sandor Gosztony into carrying out several murders while disguised as "the Phantom", drawing the public's attention away from Ulrich's manipulation. Ulrich planned to frame Walter Weintraub for the murder, but assistant detective Charlotte Ritter noticed an anomaly in the fingerprint samples Ulrich had collected from Weintraub, suspecting that they had been planted. This foiled Ulrich's scheme, and Ulrich was arrested after failing to kill Ritter, detective Gereon Rath, and homicide department chief Ernst Gennat.
Biography[]
Ulrich on the Western Front
Leopold Ulrich was born in Berlin, Germany, and he studied forensic science before serving in the Imperial German Army during World War I. Ulrich served as a medic on the Western Front, ultimately surviving the war and going on to join the Berlin Police's identification department due to his obsession with details. By the 1920s, he had risen to lead the identification department, in which position he prevented Charlotte Ritter from becoming a homicide detective by quizzing her on the intricacies of fingerprints even after she had passed a case study. In 1929, the insane Ulrich decided to conduct a social experiment which aimed to provide unequivocal evidence that the newest forensic methods, in particular those of the police identification department, were at the forefront of both evidence collection and successfully convicting perpetrators, without which the homicide department would be a neglectable footnote in the history of the Berlin Police. He also aimed to show that his department could lead the homicide department to the wrong conclusions. On 24 September 1929, he confronted Berlin Mafia boss Bela Gosztony about his murder of lighting technician Felix Krempin three days earlier, and he blackmailed him into continuing to murder people associated with the production of Demons of Passion, and to do so in a pattern while masqueraded as "the Phantom" to grab the city's attention. Sandor Gosztony carried out additional murders, insinuating a connection with the other crime. Ulrich then obtained the identical model of a hunting knife used by the newly-released criminal Walter Weintraub and had Sandor use it to kill Tilly Brooks, who had witnessed Sandor sabotage the spotlight that killed Winter, and was to be substituted for Winter in the film. As Ritter had witnessed the Phantom's escape, Ulrich decided to further mislead the investigators Gereon Rath, Wilhelm Böhm, and Charlotte Ritter by leaving bogus trinkets at Krempin's home to cast suspicion on Winter's occultist husband Tristan Rot, who had a sufficient profile for a main suspect due to his behavioral problems. Afterwards, Ulrich planted Weintraub's hair in a locket and had Sandor Gosztony knock out Weintraub and throw his and Vera Lohmann's body from a roof to make it appear as though Weintraub was the murderer. By then, the homicide department was so lost that they called on the help of so-called "criminal telepathy" from Dr. Anno Schmidt. Ulrich hoped that the homicide department's arrest of Weintraub would mean that they would hold a press conference and find Weintraub to be the murderer, thus confirming the perceived superiority of the identification department over the homicide team. He also developed a glove that could be used to transplant one's fingerprints, using it to frame Weintraub in the stabbing murders.
Ulrich being arrested
However, Ritter later confronted Ulrich about the minutiae of the fingerprints, which were reversed in Ulrich's photograph of Weintraub's prints on the murder weapon. Realizing that Ritter could foil his plans, Ulrich knocked her unconscious and stabbed his assistant Kaspar Weisshaupt with the hunting knife when Weisshaupt discovered Ritter's body. Rath came across Weisshaupt's body while searching for Ritter, forcing Ulrich to leap at him and ambush him. Ulrich injected both Ritter and Rath with insulin, hoping that they would overdose, and he proceeded to ambush homicide chief Ernst Gennat as he responded to the commotion, knocking him out and tying a noose around his neck in the auditorium. Ulrich proceeded to give a speech to an imaginary press conference, presenting the findings of his experiment, but Rath, who had swallowed sugar cubes, recovered from the overdose, called for help for Ritter, and had Reinhold Gräf and the police secretly cut Gennat's noose as Ulrich monologued. When Rath confronted Ulrich, Ulrich announced his intention to plant Rath's fingerprints on a pistol that he would use to shoot Gennat, but Ulrich revealed Ritter's survival, meaning that he had a witness against Ulrich. Ulrich, realizing that his plan had been foiled, attempted to shoot himself instead, but Rath knocked the gun from his hand, and Graf and the other officers arrested Ulrich.